For this recitation, you'll be reading In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm. This paper describes Raft, an algorithm for achieving distributed consensus. The paper contrasts Raft to an algorithm called Paxos: you do not need to know anything about Paxos to read this paper. Raft was designed to be more understandable than Paxos.

Before reading the paper, check out two very helpful websites, which have some useful visualizations:

With those visualizations in mind, read the paper. Skim sections 5.4.3, 7, 9.1, and 9.2.

To check your understanding of the paper at this point, you should be able to answer the following:

Question for Recitation

Before you come to this recitation, you'll turn in a brief answer to the following questions (really—we don't need more than a sentence or so for each question). Your TA will be in touch about exactly how to turn that in.

Your answers to these questions should be in your own words, not direct quotations from the paper.

As always, there are multiple correct answers for each of these questions.

Notes

Supplemental notes for this recitation. These, along with our Sunday office hours are intended to help students who had to miss a recitation due to isolation, but they're also a useful resource for preparing for exams.