Exploring the Limits of Raft's Fault Tolerance: Insights from Simulated Network Partitions
Keywords:
Raft Consensus; Fault Tolerance; Aliveness; Discrete Event Simulation;Abstract
This paper delves into the robustness of the Raft consensus algorithm, particularly focusing on its fault tolerance capabilities and the challenges it faces under network partitions and node failures. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of Raft's mechanisms to ensure data consistency across distributed databases. Through detailed UML diagrams followed by simulations, this work effectively illustrates the leader election algorithmic processes and fault tolerance operations within the Raft. This paper focuses on edge-case failure scenarios and illustrates them with sequence diagrams and complimented by graphs of results from the discrete event simulation of Raft's leader election. Using a custom-built Discrete Event Simulator, we explored the space of Raft's lesser-known failure cases, thus complementing previous studies on consensus mechanisms. This study pushes the limits of Raft's liveness and provides a broader picture for better understandability.
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