Essential How-To
================

This section provides essential how-to guides for deploying and managing
your PGD cluster. It includes information on architectures, deployment,
durability, autopartition, production best practices, and standard
operating procedures (SOPs).

Overview
--------

PGD Essential offers a simplified approach to deploying and managing
your PGD cluster. It is designed to help you get started quickly and
easily, while also providing a pathway to using advanced features as
your use case becomes more complex.

At the core of PGD are data nodes, Postgres databases that are part of a
PGD cluster. PGD enables these databases to replicate data efficiently
between nodes, ensuring that your data is always available and
up-to-date. PGD Essential simplifies this process by providing a
standard architecture that is easy to set up and manage.

The standard architecture is built around a single data group, which is
the basic architectural element for EDB Postgres Distributed systems.
Within a group, nodes cooperate to select which nodes handle incoming
write or read traffic, and identify when nodes are available or out of
sync with the rest of the group. Groups are most commonly used on a
single location where the nodes are in the same data center and where
you have just the one group in the cluster, we also call it the
one-location architecture.

Essential features
------------------

- `Standard Architecture <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/architectures/standard>`_  : Learn about the standard architecture for PGD
  Essential,which consists of a single data group with three nodes in
  the same data center or region.

- `Near/Far Architecture <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/architectures/near-far>`_  : Understand the near/far architecture, which consists
  of two data groups in different locations, with one group handling
  writes and the other group handling reads.

- `Connection Management <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/connections>`_  : Learn how to connect to your PGD cluster using the
  Connection Manager ports, which automatically route read and write
  transactions to the appropriate nodes.

- `PGD CLI <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/pgd-cli>`_  : Discover how to use the PGD CLI to manage your PGD
  cluster, including creating and managing data groups, nodes, and
  connections.

- `Durability <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/durability>`_  : Understand the durability features of PGD Essential,
  which ensure that your data is always available and up-to-date.

- `Autopartition <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/autopartition>`_  : Learn about the autopartition feature, which
  automatically partitions your data across nodes in the cluster for
  improved performance and scalability.

Essential How-To Guides
-----------------------

- :ref:`Simple PGD Essential Installation <Essential Architectures>`  : Get step-by-step instructions for installing PGD
  Essential on your system using the PGD CLI.

- `Production Best Practices <https://www.enterprisedb.com/docs/pgd/latest/essential-how-to/production-best-practices>`_  : Get best practices for deploying and managing your PGD
  cluster in a production environment, including performance tuning and
  monitoring.

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   <!-- -  :ref:`Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) <Essential Architectures>`  : Explore standard operating procedures for managing your PGD cluster, including backup and recovery, monitoring, and troubleshooting. -->

.. toctree::
  :maxdepth: 5

  how_to--essential-how-to--architectures--index
  how_to--essential-how-to--install--index
  how_to--essential-how-to--connections
  how_to--essential-how-to--pgd-cli
  how_to--essential-how-to--durability
  how_to--essential-how-to--autopartition
  how_to--essential-how-to--production-best-practices--index