Create and Manage a Virtual Cluster
A virtual cluster is a logical endpoint that pairs two physical clusters as an Active Cluster and a Standby Cluster in different availability zones within one region. It has no compute resources or cache of its own, and it does not incur charges. Requests sent to the virtual cluster run on its Active Cluster.
VeloDB Cloud synchronizes the active cluster's cached data to the standby cluster for warmup. If the active cluster or its availability zone fails, VeloDB Cloud fails over to the standby cluster automatically. After creation, configure applications to use the virtual cluster so they use the active-standby relationship.
Before you begin
- Creating a virtual cluster requires core version 4.0.6 or later.
- The warehouse must contain at least two eligible physical clusters. Each cluster must be in the current warehouse, in Running status, and not already mounted as an Active Cluster or Standby Cluster of another virtual cluster.
- Select physical clusters in different availability zones.
- Use the same CPU architecture, compute capacity, and cache capacity for both clusters. A mismatch can reduce performance after failover or leave some cached data unsynchronized.
Create a virtual cluster
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Log in to the VeloDB Cloud console.
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In the upper-left corner, select the warehouse that contains the physical clusters.
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In the left navigation pane, under Compute, click Clusters.
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Click Virtual Clusters, then click New Virtual Cluster.
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In Virtual Cluster Configuration, configure the following settings:
Setting Description Virtual Cluster Name Required. Start with a letter and use up to 32 letters, digits, or underscores. Active Cluster Select the physical cluster that serves requests. Standby Cluster Select the physical cluster that takes over after failover. Select a cluster with the same CPU architecture, compute capacity, and cache capacity as the active cluster. -
Click Confirm, then review the impact. While the physical clusters are mounted, you cannot rename or delete them.
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Confirm the creation.
The virtual cluster appears on the Virtual Clusters page. Update applications to use its name, or set it as the default cluster for relevant database users. Otherwise, applications continue to send requests to the physical cluster rather than use automatic failover.
Manage a virtual cluster
On the Virtual Clusters page, click a virtual cluster card to open its details page.
| Task | Action and result |
|---|---|
| Switch the active cluster | Click Switchover to promote the Standby Cluster. Use this for a planned drill or maintenance. Partial requests can fail temporarily, so ensure that applications retry failed requests. |
| Replace the active or standby cluster | Use the replacement action for the relevant cluster. The new physical cluster must be running, unmounted, and in a different availability zone from the cluster it replaces. The replaced cluster becomes a regular physical cluster. |
| Rename the virtual cluster | Use the Edit icon next to its name. Update applications that reference the old name, or set a default cluster for relevant database users. Otherwise, related requests fail. |
| Delete the virtual cluster | Click Delete Virtual Cluster. The active and standby clusters are unmounted and become regular physical clusters. Requests that reference the virtual cluster fail unless users have a default cluster configured. Automatic failover is no longer available. |
Warning:
If the Standby Cluster or its availability zone is unavailable, cache synchronization, failover, and switchover cannot complete. Restore the standby cluster or replace it with a suitable physical cluster.
Next steps
- Manage clusters to create, scale, and monitor the physical clusters in a virtual cluster.
- Review high availability to understand how VeloDB Cloud protects a warehouse across availability zones.