Title: The CAP Theorem

Abstract:
The CAP Theorem is an example of the compromise system designers must do between safety and liveness in unreliable systems. Eric Brewer conjectured CAP in the late 2000s at the Principles of Distributed Computing Conference. Later Seth Gilbert and Nancy Lynch proved the conjecture under certain circumstances. CAP stands for consistency (C), high availability (A) and tolerance to network partitions (P). The consistency attribute refers to having an up-to-date copy of data, while the availability attribute refers to the the ability to provide a copy of data for viewing and updating. The CAP theorem says that in unreliable systems one can only choose between 2 of these 3 properties.  In this talk we shall what CAP is about, the effects of CAP and investigate an example of how one can mitigate the effects of CAP.