What is Raft?

Raft is a consensus algorithm that is designed to be easy to understand. It's equivalent to Paxos in fault-tolerance and performance

How it works

Leader election and log replication

  Leader is elected. others become followers
  Once a leader is chosen, it accepts and logs client commands.
  Followers replicate log entries, guaranteeing consistency.

Example

Consider five servers (A, B, C, D, E):
  All start as followers. C’s timeout elapses, it requests votes.
  C is elected leader by a majority.
  Client sends command to C (leader). C appends command to its log and sends it to A, B, D, E.
  Upon successful replication, command is committed.