[mattw]

I don't know much about replication, but I'd like to learn. Can you recommend any books/courses/tutorials that address the sorts of design decisions you're talking about?

[alfiejohn_]

The two must have books for MySQL admin and discuss MySQL's built in replication, what problems you'll encounter, how to tune etc.

  - High Performance MySQL (Schwartz et al)
  - MySQL High Availability (Bell et al)

I think using MySQL::Replication can be applied on top of what's in these books, but not using their particular setups.