When deploying GitHub Enterprise Server in a High Availability (HA) configuration, what is the role of the replica appliance?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation and Infographic
The replica in GHES HA is like a spare tire in your trunk — you hope you never need it, but when the primary blows, you're glad it's there. It just sits ready, receiving data from primary but not serving user traffic.
Full explanation below image
Full Explanation
In GitHub Enterprise Server High Availability configuration, the replica appliance is a passive standby that continuously receives data replication from the primary appliance using rsync and database replication. The replica does NOT serve user requests under normal operation — all traffic goes to the primary. If the primary fails, an administrator manually promotes the replica to become the new primary. This is different from an active-active load-balanced cluster. GitHub Actions jobs, audit logs, and all other data are replicated to the replica as part of the HA setup. The replica provides disaster recovery but not load balancing.