title: reliability: Master/slave pattern is doomed?
body: <p>More and more of the noSQL databases that are in the spotlight uses the master/slave pattern to provide "availability", but what it does (at least from my perspective) is creating the weak link in a chain that will break anytime. - Master goes down, slaves stops to function.</p>
  
  <p>It's a great way to handle big amounts of data and to even out reads/writes, but seen in an availability perspective? Not so much...</p>
  
  <p>I understand from some noSQL's that the slaves can be changed to be a master easily, but doing this would be a headache to handle in most applications. Right?</p>
  
  <p>So how do you people take care of this sort of stuff? How does master/slave-databases work in the real world? </p>