Blockchain Consensus Protocols: Understanding How They Work
Raft consensus is a consensus algorithm designed to be more understandable than traditional consensus algorithms such as Paxos. It was designed to be easy to understand, implement, and reason about for developers creating distributed systems. The algorithm was created in 2013 by Diego Ongaro and John Ousterhout while they were at Stanford University.
In Raft, the nodes are divided into three categories: leader, follower, and candidate. Each node can be in one of these states at any given time. The leader node is responsible for managing the replication of the log across all nodes. Followers simply respond to requests from the leader and stay up to date with the log. The candidate node is a node that is attempting to become the leader.
Raft achieves consensus by having each node maintain a copy of a log. Each log entry contains a command that should be executed on the state machine. When the leader receives a new command, it appends it to its log and sends an append entries request to all other nodes in the cluster. The followers then append the entry to their logs and execute the command on their state machine. Once a majority of the nodes have successfully replicated the log entry, the leader marks the entry as committed and notifies the followers of the commit. The followers then execute the command on their state machine.
One of the benefits of Raft is that it is easier to understand and reason about compared to other consensus algorithms. This makes it easier to implement and maintain distributed systems. Additionally, Raft is designed to handle network partitions better than other consensus algorithms. When a network partition occurs, Raft ensures that only one leader is elected and that the other nodes can continue to operate normally.
While Raft is a popular consensus algorithm, it is not without its disadvantages. One of the main criticisms of Raft is that it can be slower than other consensus algorithms in certain situations, such as when there are a large number of nodes in the cluster. Additionally, Raft does not handle Byzantine failures, which can make it less secure in certain situations.
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