...but for distributed databases specifically, you can use a different algorithm like Calvin[0] or Fauna[1] that do not require external atomic clocks… but the CS point and the wealth of info in research papers (in distributed systems stuff) are solid
...but there is a lot of noise in those software papers, too - you are often disappointed by fine print, or have good curators/thought-leaders [2] - we all should share names ;)
enjoying the discussion though - very timely if you ask me.
I hear this from tech people, but hft people are happily humming along with highly-synchronized clocks (mifid ii requires clocks to be synchronized to 100us). I wouldn't say it's "easy" but apparently if you need it then you do it and it's not that bad.
> (mifid ii requires clocks to be synchronized to 100us)
That only applies if the clocks are within 1ms of each other, so around 100 miles (or equivalently: within a single cloud region), and only came in to force in 2014.
The bound that Spanner-likes keep is ~3ms for datacenters across continents, and that was in 2012.
...but there is a lot of noise in those software papers, too - you are often disappointed by fine print, or have good curators/thought-leaders [2] - we all should share names ;)
enjoying the discussion though - very timely if you ask me.
-L, author of [1] below.
[0] - The original Calvin paper -
https://cs.yale.edu/homes/thomson/publications/calvin-sigmod...
[1] - How Fauna implements a variation of Calvin -
https://fauna.com/blog/inside-faunas-distributed-transaction...
[2] - A great article about Calvin by Mohammad Roohitavaf - https://www.mydistributed.systems/2020/08/calvin.html?m=1#:~....