I'm looking into building my first mobile app. One of the core features of the application is that multiple devices/users will have access to the same data -- and all of them will have CRUD rights. I believe the architecture should involve a central server where all the data is stored. The devices will use an API to interact with the server to perform its data operations (e.g. adding a record, editing a record, deleting a record). I imagine a scenario where synchronizing the data will become a problem. Assume the application should work when it is not connected to the Internet, and thus cannot communicate with this central server. So: User A is offline and edits record #100 User B is offline and edits record #100 User C is offline and deletes record #100 User C goes online (presumably, record #100 should get deleted on the server) User A and B goes online, but the records they edited no longer exist All sorts of scenarios similar to the above can come up. How is this generally handled? I plan to use MySQL, but am wondering if it's not appropriate for such a problem.