Consensus Under Fire: How Raft & Paxos Survive Network Splits

In a distributed system, physical network partitions can isolate nodes at any second.

1. The Quorum Rule (/2 + 1$)

A cluster of $ nodes requires a strict Majority Quorum to commit any state change:

$$\text{Quorum} = \left\lfloor \frac{N}{2} \right\rfloor + 1$$

2. Raft: Leader Election & Log Replication

Raft breaks consensus into 3 sub-problems: Leader Election, Log Replication, and Safety.

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