• Also called as Brewer’s theorem
  • Talks about the trade-off between the three key properties of a distributed data store

CAP theorem states that,

“In a distributed data store it is impossible to simultaneously guarantee consistency, availability and partition tolerance to the fullest extent”

  • Consistency -> Every read must return the most recent write or an error
  • Availability -> Every read request must return a valid response without the guarantee that it’s the most recent write
  • Partition Tolerance -> The system continues to work despite any arbitrary number of messages getting dropped due to network issues