The implementation of a fault-tolerant system requires some type of consensus algorithm for correct operation. From Paxos to View-stamped Replication and Raft multiple algorithms have been developed to handle this problem. This paper presents and compares the Raft algorithm and Apache Kafka, a distributed messaging system which, although at a higher level, implements many concepts present in Raft (strong leadership, append-only log, log compaction, etc.).This shows that mechanisms conceived to handle one class of problems (consensus algorithms) are very useful to handle a larger category in the context of distributed systems.
Fault Tolerant Leader Election in Distributed Systems
