Gossip Protocols
Each node periodically picks a random peer and exchanges summaries: what members it knows, what data it holds, and what it has heard recently. We simulate this conversation loop and watch convergence — how an update spreads from one node to the entire cluster.
Topics covered:
- The gossip round: a node, a random peer, and an exchange
- Membership: how the cluster list converges and stale entries age out
- Failure detection: suspicion counters and why timeouts lag
- Dissemination: how a new value reaches every node, and in how many rounds
- Anti-entropy: reconciling divergent state, not just broadcasting
- Real systems: Cassandra's phi accrual detection and Consul's gossip pool
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