Consensus Protocols: Paxos : Paper Trail

Consensus Protocols: Paxos : Paper Trail

Consensus Protocols: Paxos You can't really read two articles about distributed systems today without someone mentioning the Paxos algorithm. Google use it in Chubby , Yahoo use it, or something a bit like it, in ZooKeeper and it seems that it's considered the ne plus ultra of consensus algorithms. It also comes with a reputation as being fantastically difficult to understand – a subtle, complex algorithm that is only properly appreciated by a select few. This is kind of true and not true at the same time. Paxos is an algorithm whose entire behaviour is subtly difficult to grasp. However, the algorithm itself is fairly intuitive, and certainly relatively simple. In this article I'll describe how basic Paxos operates, with reference to previous articles on two-phase and three-phase commit. I've included a bibliography at the end, for those who want plenty more detail. Why another consensus algorithm? If you read my previous article on three-phase commit ,

Read full article from Consensus Protocols: Paxos : Paper Trail