Just read a nice blog post at Cloudant regarding the CAP Theorem, by Max Thayer. You can read it here. It’s, short, simple and informative and provides links to research done in the area. I highly recommend this post.
I’ve extracted some quotes that I found interesting:
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Applications have been lying to users for years for the sake of availability. Consider ATMs: inconsistent banking data is why it’s still possible to overdraft money without realizing it.
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The banking industry figured it out back in the 1980s, but many IT organizations are still worried about sacrificing consistency for the sake of availability.
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Highly available applications need to maintain constant contact with their data, even if that data isn’t the most up-to-date.
All quotes can be found in “The CAP Theorem – at Cloudant”.
Cheers,
//Daniel