Geographically distributed databases like CockroachDB aim to balance reliability, security, and cost-effectiveness with minimal latency through features like "follow-the-workload." This feature, introduced in version 1.0, optimizes performance by dynamically relocating the leaseholder, which is responsible for handling requests for a specific data range, to be closer to the majority of requests. This reduces latency by minimizing the distance data requests must travel, thus enhancing user experience. Originally inspired by "follow-the-sun" workload patterns, where requests move with daylight hours, "follow-the-workload" automatically adjusts to traffic patterns, even those unnoticed by database administrators. The system can segment data by time or primary key to maintain proximity between requests and leaseholders, offering a solution for businesses requiring fault-tolerant and location-segmented data management. Future enhancements might extend this concept to data replicas, although moving replicas is more costly. Overall, CockroachDB's features like "follow-the-workload" are designed to simplify data management while ensuring high performance.