website: Filling in the vs ZooKeeper
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---
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layout: "intro"
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page_title: "Serf vs. Other Software"
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page_title: "Consul vs. Other Software"
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sidebar_current: "vs-other"
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---
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# Serf vs. Other Software
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# Consul vs. Other Software
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The problems Serf solves are not new; they've existed for a long time.
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It should come as no surprise then that there are other options available
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to solve some of these problems. In this section, we compare Serf to some
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other options. In most cases, Serf can be used alongside these other systems, strengthening
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them in areas they are weak.
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The problems Consul solves are varied, but each individual feature has been
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solved by many different systems. Although there is no single system that provides
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all the features of Consul, there are other options available to solve some of these problems.
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In this section, we compare Consul to some other options. In most cases, Consul is not
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mutually exclusive with any other system.
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Use the navigation to the left to read the comparison of Serf to specific
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Use the navigation to the left to read the comparison of Consul to specific
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systems.
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---
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layout: "intro"
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page_title: "Serf vs. ZooKeeper, doozerd, etcd"
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page_title: "Consul vs. ZooKeeper, doozerd, etcd"
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sidebar_current: "vs-other-zk"
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---
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# Serf vs. ZooKeeper, doozerd, etcd
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# Consul vs. ZooKeeper, doozerd, etcd
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ZooKeeper, doozerd and etcd are all similar in their client/server
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architecture. All three have server nodes that require a quorum of
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nodes to operate (usually a simple majority). They are strongly consistent,
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and expose various primitives that can be used through client libraries within
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applications to build complex distributed systems.
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ZooKeeper, doozerd and etcd are all similar in their architecture.
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All three have server nodes that require a quorum of nodes to operate (usually a simple majority).
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They are strongly consistent, and expose various primitives that can be used
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through client libraries within applications to build complex distributed systems.
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Serf has a radically different architecture based on gossip and provides a
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smaller feature set. Serf only provides membership, failure detection,
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and user events. Serf is designed to operate under network partitions
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and embraces eventual consistency. Designed as a tool, it is friendly
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for both system administrators and application developers.
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Consul works in a similar way within a single datacenter with only server nodes.
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In each datacenter, Consul servers require a quorum to operate
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and provide strong consistency. However, Consul has native support for multiple datacenters,
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as well as a more complex gossip system that links server nodes and clients.
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ZooKeeper et al. by contrast are much more complex, and cannot be used directly
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as a tool. Application developers must use libraries to build the features
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they need, although some libraries exist for common patterns. Most failure
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detection schemes built on these systems also have intrinsic scalability issues.
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Most naive failure detection schemes depend on heartbeating, which use
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periodic updates and timeouts. These schemes require work linear to
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the number of nodes and place the demand on a fixed number of servers.
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Additionally, the failure detection window is at least as long as the timeout,
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meaning that in many cases failures may not be detected for a long time.
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Additionally, ZooKeeper ephemeral nodes require that many active connections
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be maintained to a few nodes.
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If any of these systems are used for pure key/value storage, then they all
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roughly provide the same semantics. Reads are strongly consistent, and availability
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is sacraficed for consistency in the face of a network partition. However, the differences
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become more apparent when these systems are used for advanced cases.
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The strong consistency provided by these systems is essential for building leader
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election and other types of coordination for distributed systems, but it limits
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their ability to operate under network partitions. At a minimum, if a majority of
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nodes are not available, writes are disallowed. Since a failure is indistinguishable
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from a slow response, the performance of these systems may rapidly degrade
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under certain network conditions. All of these issues can be highly
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problematic when partition tolerance is needed, for example in a service
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discovery layer.
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The semantics provided by these systems are attractive for building
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service discovery systems. ZooKeeper et al. provide only a primitive K/V store,
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and require that application developers build their own system to provide service
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discovery. Consul provides an opinionated framework for service discovery, and
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eliminates the guess work and development effort. Clients simply register services
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and then perform discovery using a DNS or HTTP interface. Other systems
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require a home-rolled solution.
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A compelling service discovery framework must incorporate health checking and the
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possibility of failures as well. It is not useful to know that Node A
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provides the Foo service if that node has failed or the service crashed. Naive systems
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make use of heartbeating, using periodic updates and TTLs. These schemes require work linear
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to the number of nodes and place the demand on a fixed number of servers. Additionally, the
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failure detection window is at least as long as the TTL. ZooKeeper provides ephemeral
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nodes which are K/V entries that are removed when a client disconnects. These are more
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sophisticated than a heartbeat system, but also have inherent scalability issues and add
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client side complexity. All clients must maintain active connecitons to the ZooKeeper servers,
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and perform keep-alives. Additionally, this requires "thick clients", which are difficult
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to write and often result in difficult to debug issues.
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Consul uses a very different architecture for health checking. Instead of only
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having server nodes, Consul clients run on every node in the cluster.
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These clients are part of a [gossip pool](/docs/internals/gossip.html), which
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serves several functions including distributed health checking. The gossip protocol implements
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an efficient failure detector that can scale to clusters of any size without concentrating
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the work on any select group of servers. The clients also enable a much richer set of health checks to be run locally,
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where ZooKeeper ephemeral nodes are a very primitve check of liveness. Clients can check that
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a web server is return 200, that memory utilization is not critical, there is sufficient
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disk space, etc. The Consul clients expose a simple HTTP interface and avoid exposing the complexity
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of the system is to clients in the same way as ZooKeeper.
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Consul provides first class support for service discovery, health checking,
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K/V storage, and multiple datacenters. To support anything more that simple K/V storage,
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all these other systems require additional tools and libraries to be built on
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top. By using client nodes, Consul provides a simple API than only requires thin clients.
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Additionally, the API can be avoided entirely by using configuration files and the
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DNS interface to have a complete service discovery solution with no development at all.
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Additionally, Serf is not mutually exclusive with any of these strongly
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consistent systems. Instead, they can be used in combination to create systems
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that are more scalable and fault tolerant, without sacrificing features.
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<div class="docs-sidebar hidden-print affix-top" role="complementary">
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<ul class="nav docs-sidenav">
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<li<%= sidebar_current("what") %>>
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<a href="/intro/index.html">What is Serf?</a>
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<a href="/intro/index.html">What is Consul?</a>
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</li>
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<li<%= sidebar_current("use-cases") %>>
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</li>
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<li<%= sidebar_current("vs-other") %>>
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<a href="/intro/vs/index.html">Serf vs. Other Software</a>
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<a href="/intro/vs/index.html">Consul vs. Other Software</a>
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<ul class="nav">
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<li<%= sidebar_current("vs-other-zk") %>>
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<a href="/intro/vs/zookeeper.html">ZooKeeper, doozerd, etcd</a>
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<a href="/intro/getting-started/install.html">Getting Started</a>
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<ul class="nav">
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<li<%= sidebar_current("gettingstarted-install") %>>
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<a href="/intro/getting-started/install.html">Install Serf</a>
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<a href="/intro/getting-started/install.html">Install Consul</a>
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</li>
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<li<%= sidebar_current("gettingstarted-agent") %>>
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