Today, the skills of writing distributed applications is both more important and at the same time more challenging than ever. With the advent of mobile devices, NoSQL databases, cloud services etc. you most likely already have a distributed system at your hands—whether you like it or not. Distributed computing is the new norm.
In this talk we will take you on a journey across the distributed computing landscape. We will start with walking through some of the early work in computer architecture—setting the stage for what we are doing today. Then continue through distributed computing—discussing things like important Impossibility Theorems (FLP, CAP), Consensus Protocols (Raft, HAT, Epidemic Gossip etc.), Failure Detection (Accrual, Byzantine etc.), up to today’s very exciting research in the field, like ACID 2.0, Disorderly Programming (CRDTs, CALM etc).
Along the way we will discuss the decisions and trade-offs that were made when creating Akka Cluster, its theoretical foundation, why it is designed the way it is and what the future holds.