Database / ScyllaDB Interview questions
How does ScyllaDB handle node failure with hinted handoff?
When a write's coordinator can't reach one of the replicas responsible for storing it, perhaps because that node is temporarily down or unreachable, ScyllaDB can store a hint: a record of the missed write, kept on a live node (often the coordinator) until the target replica comes back.
Once the failed replica rejoins the cluster, hints stored for it are replayed, bringing it back in sync without needing a full repair for that data. Hints have a configurable time window (by default a few hours); if a node is down longer than that window, the hint is discarded and the node instead relies on read repair or a full anti-entropy repair to catch up. Hinted handoff lets ScyllaDB tolerate short, transient node failures without sacrificing write availability, since the write can still succeed at the consistency level requested as long as enough other replicas are reachable.
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