CAP Theorem
CAP - Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance
The CAP theorem states that, in a distributed system, you can only have two out of the following three guarantees across a write/read pair: Consistency, Availability, and Partition Tolerance - one of them must be sacrificed.
- Consistency - A read is guaranteed to return the most recent write for a given client.
- Availability - A non-failing node will return a reasonable response within a reasonable amount of time (no error or timeout).
- Partition Tolerance - The system will continue to function when network partitions occur.