How Unreliable Computers Can Usually Agree (Sort Of): A Brief Tour of the Raft Algorithm
By Laura Hampton

This talk will describe the difficulties in reliably replicating data across multiple machines, and explain how the Raft algorithm nevertheless provides reasonable guarantees that they are all storing the same data. It will cover proposed solutions to the consensus problem, and why they work (or don't). Attendees will come away with general knowledge of how the Raft algorithm works.

Saturday 11:05 a.m.–11:30 a.m.

Every day, the amount of data we store increases dramatically. Users demand high availability and low latency from the machines where it is stored. Single machines are prone to failure, and in many cases can't cope with high traffic demands. Distributed systems have become an increasingly common solution for these problems. They offer fault tolerance and resilience while allowing users to interact with what appears to be a single machine.

The talk is intended for people who are curious about distributed systems and who would like a better understanding of how they work. Attendees will come away with an understanding of the problem of consensus, what problems consensus algorithms solve, and how the Raft algorithm works.

Laura Hampton

Laura is a Python developer who lives in New York City. She is working on the Warehouse project. She also helps organize the NYC Python meetup group and helped organize PyGotham.

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