Eventual Consistency
/ɪˈvɛntʃuəl kənˈsɪstənsi/e·ven·tu·al con·sist·en·cynoun
Definition
1.[in distributed systems] the guarantee that if updates stop arriving, every replica will converge on the same values — with no promise about what a reader sees before then.
The shopping cart is eventually consistent, so a second device may lag by a few seconds.
Etymology
From eventual, Latin eventus 'outcome', plus consistency. Named by Douglas Terry and colleagues at Xerox PARC in 1994 for the Bayou replicated store, and popularised by Werner Vogels' account of Amazon's Dynamo.
Synonyms
- optimistic replicationsense 1 · Near
Antonyms
- strong consistencysense 1 · Gradable
See also
References
- Vogels, W. (2009). Eventually Consistent.Communications of the ACM, 52(1), 40–44.