quorum
Require a defined set of replicas or voters before accepting an operation.
Use this when An operation must continue after some nodes fail without accepting conflicting decisions.
without the term
“How many replicas must answer before this read or write is accepted, and what happens when some fail?”
with the term · How do you ask a model for quorum?
Specify this quorum protocol’s membership and read/write rules. Test concurrent writes and loss of quorum.
What is quorum?
A quorum is a sufficient voting or acknowledgement set under a protocol. Read/write quorum intersection can make reads contact an updated replica, but version selection, concurrency, membership, and repair still determine correctness.
Why does quorum matter when vibe coding?
An agent can treat R + W > N as a complete proof of linearizable reads.
How do you do quorum?
State membership, read/write counts, version rules, and failure assumptions. Check quorum loss and overlapping operations; distinguish acknowledgement counts from consensus.
What goes wrong with quorum?
A majority is common, but not every quorum is a majority and intersection alone is not consensus.
Sources for this entry
- DeCandia et al.: Dynamo
Consistent hashing, virtual nodes, replica quorums, version reconciliation, and eventual consistency.
- Ongaro and Ousterhout: Raft
Replicated-log consensus, majority voting, safe membership changes, and timing requirements for progress.
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