[evanelias]

fwiw, all 3 of MySQL's binlog formats (statement-based, row-based, mixed) are still actually logical replication:

* Statement-based is logging raw write SQL

* Row-based is logical effects of executing that SQL

* Mixed uses statement-based for everything except statements that are non-deterministic or otherwise unsafe for statement-based replication

Physical replication in MySQL would be storage-engine dependent. For example, in InnoDB physical replication would mean shipping the InnoDB transaction logs rather than the separate binary logs. Alibaba built something to do this, and from what I understand Amazon may be doing something along these lines under the hood in RDS MySQL and/or RDS Aurora.