Distributed Systems

Distributed Systems

Raft, consensus, CRDTs, vector clocks, BFT, quorum systems, 2PC.

25Articles
25Topics covered
Articles in this category

All 25 articles, sorted alphabetically

Advertisement
ARTICLE · 01

Understanding the CAP Theorem

Read article
ARTICLE · 02

Consistent Hashing - AiCassindra

Consistent Hashing - AiCassindra

Read article
ARTICLE · 03

Gossip Protocol - AiCassindra

Gossip Protocol - AiCassindra

Read article
ARTICLE · 04

Understanding LSM Trees: The Write-Optimized Storage Engine

Understanding LSM Trees: The Write-Optimized Storage Engine

Read article
ARTICLE · 05

In Search of a Leader: Understanding Raft Consensus - AICassindra

Read article
ARTICLE · 06

Byzantine Fault Tolerance

BFT in blockchains, critical control systems, and where it isn't worth the overhead.

Read article
ARTICLE · 07

Clocks in Distributed Systems

Wall clocks lie. Logical clocks and what they buy you.

Read article
ARTICLE · 08

Consensus Protocols Compared

Why we have multiple consensus protocols and how to pick one.

Read article
ARTICLE · 09

CRDTs

Data structures that merge concurrent updates deterministically without coordination.

Read article
ARTICLE · 10

CRDTs in Production

When commutative types beat consensus.

Read article
ARTICLE · 11

Distributed Locking Patterns

How to safely coordinate exclusive access across nodes with Redis, ZK, or lease-based systems.

Read article
ARTICLE · 12

Distributed Transactions in Practice

2PC, Saga, TCC — real-world patterns and trade-offs.

Read article
ARTICLE · 13

Failure Detectors and Phi Accrual

Why fixed timeouts are wrong and what Cassandra Akka use instead.

Read article
ARTICLE · 14

Gossip Protocol for Cluster Membership

How rumors spread through a cluster to keep membership and state eventually consistent.

Read article
ARTICLE · 15

What Jepsen Taught Us

A decade of finding consistency bugs in production databases.

Read article
ARTICLE · 16

Leader Election Algorithms

Three algorithms for picking a leader in a distributed cluster, with tradeoffs.

Read article
ARTICLE · 17

Linearizability vs Sequential Consistency

The two most important consistency models, side by side.

Read article
ARTICLE · 18

Paxos Algorithm

How Paxos achieves agreement across N nodes even when some fail, phase by phase.

Read article
ARTICLE · 19

Quorum Systems Explained

Sloppy quorum NWR and what R+W>N actually means.

Read article
ARTICLE · 20

Quorum Writes and Reads

How to configure Dynamo-style storage for consistency without linearizability.

Read article
ARTICLE · 21

Raft Consensus Algorithm

Raft's leader-based design that makes distributed agreement approachable.

Read article
ARTICLE · 22

Raft Consensus Intuition

Leader election, log replication, and why it's easier than Paxos.

Read article
ARTICLE · 23

Two-Phase Commit

The classic 2PC protocol, its guarantees, and why it's rarely used in modern systems.

Read article
ARTICLE · 24

Two-Phase Commit Revisited

Where 2PC fits and where it doesn't in 2026.

Read article
ARTICLE · 25

Vector Clocks

How vector clocks detect concurrent updates and enable proper conflict resolution.

Read article