A cool tiny bit of trivia about RAMCloud: that's from this project that the Raft consensus algorithm emerged! (<a href="https://raft.github.io/raft.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://raft.github.io/raft.pdf</a>)<p>Right now, I think that the algo is used in RAMCloud via LogCabin (<a href="https://github.com/logcabin/logcabin" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/logcabin/logcabin</a>).<p>Raft is more practical (as in "well specified") than Paxos and closest to its lesser known cousin, VR (<i>Viewstamped Replication</i>). Beyond the academic genealogy of the project, what is interesting here is the fact that usability is a first-class concern. Clearly the fact that it was born out of a real/breathing project was a driving factor.<p>It wasn't just an academic being creative. To pick a notorious example, have a quick look at Leslie Lamport's paper on Paxos: you are never quite sure whether what you are reading is a distributed systems paper or a vintage edition of the Holy Bible.<p>So Raft had great timing too. It came after decades of clumsy (because novel!) systems research on consensus algos and from a laboratory of practitioners, hence its designers knew exactly how previous attempts were deficient with respect to their own needs. And it turns out these overlapped with a lot of people's. There is wisdom to be learnt from this.<p>Also, on another note I think that's funny because this narrative reads exactly like a startup-story!