Failure Detection
Heartbeats: Knowing a Node Is Alive
How heartbeats help systems detect failures without confusing slow with dead.
Cluster State
Gossip Protocols: Small Messages, Shared State
A simple explanation of gossip protocols and why they are useful for spreading cluster state.
Concurrency
Fencing Tokens: Stop the Old Owner
How fencing tokens protect shared resources when an old leader wakes up after a pause.
Consistency
Eventual Consistency: Read the System Like a Timeline
A practical explanation of eventual consistency and how to make delayed updates understandable to users.
Correctness
Determinism: Same Inputs, Same Outcome
Why deterministic processing makes replay, recovery, testing, and distributed debugging much easier.
CAP
CAP Theorem: The Practical Meaning
A practical explanation of CAP theorem through the choice a system makes during a network partition.
Fault Tolerance
Byzantine Faults Without the Mystery
A plain explanation of Byzantine faults, where a participant may lie, corrupt data, or send conflicting answers.
Distributed Systems
Availability in Distributed Systems
A practical explanation of availability, graceful degradation, and what users should still be able to do when part of a system is unhealthy.
Distributed Systems
Distributed Computing Jargon: An A to Z Glossary
A plain language glossary of distributed systems terms, from availability and CAP to Lamport time, consensus, ordering, serialized transactions, and ZooKeeper.