Entity Framework Core Interview Question #196

How can read and write database workloads be separated?

Testing, Production Practices & Senior Real-World Scenarios Senior Advanced

Quick Interview Answer

High-scale systems may route writes to a primary database and selected read-only queries to replicas. This usually requires separate connection configuration or contexts and an understanding of replication lag. A read replica may not immediately contain a just-committed write, so workflows requiring read-your-own-write consistency should use the appropriate data source.

Detailed Explanation

High-scale systems may route writes to a primary database and selected read-only queries to replicas. This usually requires separate connection configuration or contexts and an understanding of replication lag. A read replica may not immediately contain a just-committed write, so workflows requiring read-your-own-write consistency should use the appropriate data source.

Code Example

// Example architecture:
// WriteDbContext -> primary database
// ReadDbContext  -> read replica
// Route only consistency-tolerant reads to replicas.