Distributed Systems

Roles: node, cluster, partition, replica, consensus, heartbeat, failover, coordinator

Computing systems in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages. The frame foregrounds the fundamental tensions of distribution: consistency vs. availability, detection vs. false positives, and the impossibility of distinguishing a slow node from a dead one. Its core structural insight is that coordination without shared memory requires protocols that trade off between safety (never doing the wrong thing) and liveness (eventually doing something). Failure detection, leader election, and state replication are the recurring problems; consensus algorithms, heartbeat protocols, and quorum systems are the recurring solutions.

Applied To This Frame (1)