System Design · Senior · Question 1 of 75
What does the CAP theorem state?
- ✓Correct answer: During a network partition you have to choose between consistency and availability
- 2A distributed system can always provide all three properties at once
- 3Cache, API and persistence can't be placed on the same server
Explanation
Consistency, Availability, Partition tolerance: network partitions are inevitable in a distributed system, and at that moment the system either rejects some requests (CP) or responds with possibly stale data (AP). In normal operation the trade-off is between consistency and latency (PACELC).