How to Build a Distributed System - and Should You?

Explore the journey of building a custom, eventually consistent distributed system using Go, deployed across production clusters in the US, Germany, and Singapore. Delve into key distributed systems concepts like replication, consistency, and consensus. Learn how tools such as gRPC, Kubernetes, LevelDB, and Prometheus were leveraged to create two new open source projects at the core of the system. Gain insights from the challenges faced, including debugging protocol buffer errors, managing goroutines, and understanding replication phases. Discover why developing a custom distributed system may be beneficial for certain use cases and learn valuable lessons from this 26-minute conference talk presented at GopherCon 2022 by Rebecca Bilbro.