Building a Distributed Protocol by Dominik Tornow

Distributed protocols are the foundation of scalable and reliable systems — yet we often get lost in implementation details instead of grounding our designs in systems thinking. This talk offers a different path: we’ll explore how a small set of simple, well-crafted abstractions gives rise to complex, distributed systems. We’ll walk through how we move from foundational ideas to working systems, how we reason across layers to build reliable systems from unreliable components, and how we ensure correctness through formal modeling and deterministic simulation testing. A talk for system thinkers and system builders who want to move beyond ad hoc solutions — toward understandable distributed protocols that power scalable and reliable distributed systems. https://x.com/DominikTornow https://www.resonatehq.io Talk from Systems Distributed '25: https://systemsdistributed.com Join the chat at https://slack.tigerbeetle.com/invite