CRDTitä

CRDT stands for Conflict-free Replicated Data Type. It is a data structure that allows multiple users or nodes to concurrently edit shared data without the need for central coordination or locking mechanisms. The key feature of CRDTs is that they are designed to be eventually consistent. This means that even if updates are applied in different orders on different replicas, all replicas will eventually converge to the same state.

There are two main categories of CRDTs: state-based and operation-based. State-based CRDTs work by replicating the entire state of the data structure. When conflicts arise, a merge function resolves them. Operation-based CRDTs, on the other hand, replicate a sequence of operations. These operations are designed in such a way that they can be applied in any order and still lead to a consistent state.

CRDTs are particularly useful in distributed systems where network latency and partitions are common. They are employed in various applications, including collaborative editing tools, online gaming, and distributed databases. Examples of CRDTs include grow-only counters, grow-only sets, last-writer-wins registers, and sequence CRDTs for text editing. The design of CRDTs ensures that concurrent updates, even those originating from different replicas and potentially arriving out of order, can be merged without causing inconsistencies or requiring complex consensus protocols. This property makes them a robust solution for building highly available and fault-tolerant distributed applications.