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Software Architecture and Design
book

Software Architecture and Design

by Rheinwerk Publishing, Inc, Kristian Köhler
April 2026
Intermediate
491 pages
18h 4m
English
Packt Publishing
Content preview from Software Architecture and Design

7.2    The CAP Theorem

The CAP theorem, presented by Eric Brewer, originates from database theory and states that it is impossible to guarantee the following three properties simultaneously in distributed systems:

  • Consistency: Every read access that is executed at the same time receives either the current data or an error. After a write access to data, every copy of this data is also updated.

  • Availability: Every request to a system that is not down receives a response.

  • Partition tolerance (or failure tolerance): Systems continue to work even if they are divided into multiple partitions and messages are lost between them. This problem may arise, for example, if network components fail.

According to the CAP theorem, a maximum of two out ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781807789893