Leader Election
Leader election is a distributed computing concept where nodes in a cluster coordinate to select a single node as the leader, responsible for managing tasks or making decisions to ensure consistency and avoid conflicts. It is crucial in fault-tolerant systems to maintain high availability and prevent split-brain scenarios where multiple nodes act as leaders simultaneously. Common algorithms include Raft, Paxos, and ZooKeeper's atomic broadcast, which use consensus mechanisms to elect and maintain a leader.
Developers should learn leader election when building distributed systems, such as microservices, databases (e.g., etcd, Consul), or load balancers, to ensure that only one node handles critical operations like write requests or configuration updates. It is essential in scenarios requiring fault tolerance, such as when a leader fails and a new one must be elected automatically to minimize downtime. Understanding leader election helps prevent data inconsistencies and improves system reliability in cloud-native or clustered environments.