Understanding RAFT and its application in large-scale databases

The presentation focuses on the RAFT distributed consensus algorithm, which addresses the problem of agreement among participants in distributed computing. It explains how RAFT operates based on the principle that no group can hold two simple majorities at the same time. The talk also delves into how RAFT can be utilized to enhance database systems, specifically detailing the scaling decisions made while implementing WARaft—the version of RAFT used by WhatsApp to support a message database for over two billion users.