CAP theorem and real database tradeoffs
WHAT IT TESTS: CAP as a partition-time choice. OUTLINE: during a partition you pick consistency or availability, CP systems reject requests, AP systems stay available but stale. RED FLAG: thinking you pick two of three at all times.
WHAT IT TESTS: understanding CAP as the consistency-versus-availability choice during a network partition. ANSWER OUTLINE: partition tolerance is mandatory in distributed systems, so the real choice surfaces only during a partition. A CP system sacrifices availability by refusing requests it cannot serve consistently; an AP system stays available but may return stale data. Spanner and CockroachDB do not beat CAP; they reduce partition likelihood and stay CP during one. RED FLAG: claiming a system permanently picks any two of three.
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- #cap-theorem
- #distributed-systems
- #cassandra
- #spanner
- #consistency
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