If the source database contains existing data it is necessary to copy this data to each replica. There are different ways to dump the data from the source database. The following sections describe possible options.
To select the appropriate method of dumping the database, choose between these options:
Use the mysqldump tool to create a dump of all the databases you want to replicate. This is the recommended method, especially when using InnoDB.
If your database is stored in binary portable files, you can copy the raw data files to a replica. This can be more efficient than using mysqldump and importing the file on each replica, because it skips the overhead of updating indexes as the INSERT statements are replayed. With storage engines such as InnoDB this is not recommended.
Use MySQL Server's clone plugin to transfer all the data from an existing replica to a clone. For instructions to use this method, see Section 5.6.7.6, “Cloning for Replication”.
To deploy multiple instances of MySQL, you can use InnoDB Cluster which enables you to easily administer a group of MySQL server instances in MySQL Shell. InnoDB Cluster wraps MySQL Group Replication in a programmatic environment that enables you easily deploy a cluster of MySQL instances to achieve high availability. In addition, InnoDB Cluster interfaces seamlessly with MySQL Router, which enables your applications to connect to the cluster without writing your own failover process. For similar use cases that do not require high availability, however, you can use InnoDB ReplicaSet. Installation instructions for MySQL Shell can be found here.