Peter Corless on Raft
Main: Peter Corless on "In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm"
Abstract: Raft is a consensus algorithm for managing a replicated log. It produces a result equivalent to (multi-)Paxos, and it is as efficient as Paxos, but its structure is different from Paxos; this makes Raft more understandable than Paxos and also provides a better foundation for building practical systems...Results from a user study demonstrate that Raft is easier for students to learn than Paxos. Raft also includes a new mechanism for changing the cluster membership, which uses overlapping majorities to guarantee safety.
Bio: Peter Corless is a Principal Product Marketing Manager at Redpanda Data, where he focuses on bringing AI, data streaming, and analytical services to market. Before Redpanda, Peter has worked across a broad spectrum of the data industry over the past decade - including distributed OLTP and OLAP databases, both SQL and NoSQL. In 2025, he wrote an O’Reilly book on Open Source Observability.
Mini: You!
If you'd like to give a 15m mini-presentation, please let us know! Heidi Howard's "Paxos vs Raft: Have we reached consensus on distributed consensus?" would be a great choice. No matter which paper you choose, we can help you prepare your talk.
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