A conference talk by Jim Webber (Neo4j) covering the evolution of distributed consensus algorithms, from two-phase commit through Paxos and Raft, culminating in a new protocol called RIOT (Replicated Independently Ordered Transactions). The talk explains why simplicity and understandability in distributed protocols matter as much as correctness, using the pub as an analogy for distributed system chaos. RIOT is presented as a leaderless, DAG-based consensus protocol designed to support sharded graph databases with serializable isolation, strong correctness guarantees, and better throughput than single-leader Raft under normal conditions. Benchmark results show RIOT is roughly 2.5x faster than Raft at moderate concurrency, with more graceful degradation during node failures.
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