PACELC

What trade-off exists when the network is healthy?#

If Partition:
  Availability vs Consistency
Else:
  Latency vs Consistency

CAP focuses attention on partition behavior. PACELC adds the ordinary path: even without a partition, waiting for coordination can strengthen a consistency guarantee while increasing latency.

Use PACELC to ask a question, not memorize a chart#

A globally replicated write can wait for remote acknowledgement or return after local work. The first may strengthen what later reads can observe; the second can reduce latency while accepting a weaker or delayed guarantee. Actual behavior depends on the operation and configuration.