Mycat-Server is a MySQL database middleware system that functions as a sharding proxy, distributed database coordinator, and high availability manager. It acts as a proxy layer that routes SQL traffic between applications and multiple backend MySQL database instances to enable horizontal scaling.
The system coordinates distributed transactions, generates global unique sequences to prevent primary key collisions, and executes distributed join queries across multiple database shards. It includes a load balancer that performs read-write splitting by directing traffic between primary and slave nodes.
The project covers broader capabilities in traffic management, such as connection lifecycle monitoring and protocol translation. It also implements security measures including IP-based access control and multi-tenant data isolation, alongside heartbeat-based health monitoring for automatic failover.
