Consensus

• Distributed Systems: Consensus, Consistency, and Fault Tolerance · 2025-10-20

  Fundamentals of distributed systems: failure models, consensus algorithms (Paxos, Raft), CAP theorem, consistency models, gossip, membership, CRDTs, and practical testing strategies like Jepsen.

• The FLP Impossibility Result: Why Distributed Consensus Is Fundamentally Hard · 2025-01-15

  Explore the landmark Fischer-Lynch-Paterson result that proved no deterministic algorithm can achieve consensus in an asynchronous system with even one faulty process — and how the field evolved around this impossibility.

• Blockchain Consensus: Nakamoto Consensus, Casper FFG, Tendermint BFT, and the Safety-Liveness Tradeoff · 2023-07-02

  A rigorous analysis of blockchain consensus protocols from PoW through PoS to BFT, exploring the fundamental safety-liveness tradeoff in permissionless settings and the role of finality gadgets.

• State Machine Replication: Viewstamped Replication Protocol, Zab (ZooKeeper Atomic Broadcast), and the Consensus-Scalability Continuum · 2021-07-27

  A deep exploration of state machine replication — how Viewstamped Replication and Zab enable fault-tolerant services through ordered command execution, and how the consensus-scalability continuum shapes modern distributed systems design.

• Raft Fast‑Commit and PreVote in Practice · 2020-11-09

  What fast‑commit and PreVote actually change in Raft, how they affect availability during leader changes, and where the footguns are.