Apache ZooKeeper
A centralized coordination service for distributed systems providing configuration management, leader election, distributed locking, and service discovery
Paxos Made Simple
Paxos is the foundational consensus algorithm that enables distributed systems to agree on values despite failures — the theoretical bedrock behind Google Chubby, Apache ZooKeeper, and every modern consensus protocol.
Spanner: Google's Globally-Distributed Database
Spanner is Google's globally distributed database that provides externally consistent reads and writes — the first system to achieve global ACID transactions at scale using TrueTime and Paxos.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance
Understanding consensus algorithms that can tolerate Byzantine (malicious) failures in distributed systems
Distributed Locks
Coordinating access to shared resources across distributed systems
Leader Election
Understanding how distributed systems select a leader to coordinate operations and maintain consistency
Quorum Systems
Understanding quorum-based consensus mechanisms for ensuring consistency and availability in distributed systems
Raft Consensus Algorithm (Ongaro/Ousterhout) Summary
Raft protocol explained for interviews: leader election + log replication. RequestVote/AppendEntries, Raft vs Paxos, etcd/Consul use. Read now.
Split-Brain Prevention
Understanding techniques to prevent split-brain scenarios in distributed systems where multiple nodes believe they are the leader