What is Strong Consistency?
The highest degree of data consistency is achieved by strong consistency, but in a distributed system, this may come at the cost of higher latency and coordination overhead.
In distributed systems, strong consistency ensures that, regardless of where a node accesses the data, it is always visible to all nodes at the same time.
This prevents any short-term inconsistencies because any changes made to the data are instantly reflected across all nodes. This indicates that, as if the system were a single, in order consistent entity, all read and write operations seem to happen instantly and in a linearizable order.
- Read consistency: Any read operation on the data will return the most recent write value or a value that satisfies specific consistency guarantees
- Write consistency: When a write operation is performed, the data will be propagated to all relevant nodes in the system, ensuring that all replicas are updated with the latest value before the operation is considered successful.
For example:
Banks and financial institutions operate on distributed databases to manage customer accounts, transactions, and other financial activities. Strong consistency ensures that all updates to these databases are immediately reflected across all nodes in the distributed system.
Strong Consistency in System Design
Consistency in a system refers to the similarity and consistency of data and behavior across all its components. This ensures that users encounter the same version of the data and experience the expected system performance, regardless of which part of the system they interact with. Maintaining this uniform and reliable experience is vital for user satisfaction. Consistency in system design plays an important role in ensuring reliability, predictability, and correctness in software and hardware systems.
Important Topics for the Strong Consistency in System Design
- Importance of Data Consistency in Systems
- What is Strong Consistency?
- Characteristics of Strong Consistency
- Strong Consistency Comparison with Other Consistency Models
- Types of Strong Consistency
- Ways to achieve Strong Consistency
- Challenges with Strong Consistency
- Example of Strong Consistency
- Impact of Strong Consistency on System Performance, Scalability and Availability
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