CASPaxos: Replicated State Machines without logs
CASPaxos is a replicated state machine (RSM) protocol, an extension of Synod. Unlike Raft and Multi-Paxos, it doesn't use leader election and log replication, thus avoiding associated complexity. Its symmetric peer-to-peer approach achieves optimal commit latency in the wide-area network and doesn't cause transient cluster unavailability when any N/2 of N nodes crash. The lightweight nature of CASPaxos allows new combinations of RSMs in the designs of distributed systems. For example, a representation of a key-value storage as a hashtable with independent RSM per key increases fault tolerance and improves performance on multi-core systems compared with a hashtable behind a single RSM. This paper describes CASPaxos protocol, formally proves its safety properties, covers cluster membership change and evaluates the benefits of a CASPaxos-based key-value storage.
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