Multi-master preferences conflict resolution

DesignMedium35 minAmazon style

Your task

Design the write path for a multi-master user-preferences store (theme, notification settings, feature flags per user) replicated across 5 regions, where any region can accept a write and writes are async-replicated. The product accepts eventual consistency. The team wants to resolve concurrent conflicting writes with last-write-wins. What are the failure modes of LWW here, and when is it actually the right choice?

It covers

  • Last write wins
  • Vector clocks
  • Clock skew