Scaling Writes hard
In the Raft consensus algorithm, what mechanism prevents a 'Split Vote' (where no leader gets a majority) from stalling the cluster indefinitely?
- A A central coordinator decides the tie.
- B Randomized Election Timeouts: Each node waits a random amount of time (e.g., 150-300ms) before requesting votes, ensuring one node likely times out first and wins.
- C The node with the lowest IP address always wins.
- D The cluster shuts down.
Answer: B. Randomized Election Timeouts: Each node waits a random amount of time (e.g., 150-300ms) before requesting votes, ensuring one node likely times out first and wins.
Without randomization, nodes might start elections simultaneously in lock-step, splitting the vote repeatedly. Randomization breaks the symmetry.
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