In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm

Raft is the consensus paper to read before discussing leader election, replicated logs, or metadata coordination. It is intentionally structured for understandability, which makes it a strong beginner systems paper.

Reading focus: How leader election, log replication, and safety split the consensus problem. Why a replicated log is the contract many coordination systems expose. Where stale leaders and membership changes create production risk.

USENIX ATC 2014. Ongaro and Ousterhout. 45 min read, easy difficulty.