Member-only story
Understanding CAP Theorem — System Design 4
In any distributed data system, you can only guarantee two out of consistency, availability and partition tolerance simultaneously... This is wrong…..
Published in
4 min readDec 28, 2024
If you are not a medium member, Read it here.
Ever heard of the CAP Theorem but found it too complicated? Let’s simplify it together! By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of what it means and how it’s used in real-world systems.
What Is CAP Theorem?
The CAP Theorem explains a big challenge in distributed systems (systems with multiple computers working together). It says you can only pick two out of these three properties:
- Consistency ( C ): All users see the same, up-to-date data or get an error.
- Availability (A): Every request gets a response (it might not be the latest data, but it won’t fail).
- Partition Tolerance (P): The system keeps running, even if parts of it can’t communicate with each other.