🖥️ Understanding the Raft Consensus Algorithm: A Comprehensive Guide 📚

🖥️ Understanding the Raft Consensus Algorithm: A Comprehensive Guide 📚

Ensuring consistency across distributed systems, even amidst failures, is vital. The Raft Consensus Algorithm, introduced by Diego Ongaro and John Ousterhout in 2013, simplifies this process with its clear and understandable approach. 🌐

Key Points:

🔸Consensus Protocols: Ensures agreement on a single value or state among servers.

🔸Raft Structure: Involves Leaders, Followers, and Candidates.

🔸Terms and Logs: Uses terms to coordinate actions and maintain consistency.

🔸RPCs: Communication through RequestVotes and AppendEntries RPCs.

🔸Leader Election: A defined process to maintain system consistency.

🔸Log Replication: Ensures all nodes have identical logs for consistency.

🔸Advantages of Raft:
Easy to understand and implement.
Fault-tolerant and ensures strong consistency.
Modular approach.

🔸Limitations:
Potential leader bottleneck.
No Byzantine Fault Tolerance.
Complexity in managing membership changes.

Check out my related blog on Apache Kafka to see how Raft is utilized in Kafka's new KRaft architecture! 🔗

Understanding the Raft Consensus Algorithm: A Comprehensive Guide