Techniques for making a replica of a particular group of database objects of a database on a particular node that does not initially have the particular group of database objects include determining whether conditions for copying a full database from a first node are satisfied. If conditions for copying the full database from the first node are not satisfied, then a database-object-copy routine is employed for each database object in the particular group of database objects. If conditions for copying the full database from the first node are satisfied, then a full-database-copy routine for performing a copy of an entire database is employed.