Master

The master keeps track of all the tablets, tablet servers, the catalog table, and other metadata related to the cluster. At a given point in time, there can only be one acting master (the leader). If the current leader disappears, a new master is elected using Raft consensus.

The master also coordinates metadata operations for clients. For example, when creating a new table, the client internally sends the request to the master. The master writes the metadata for the new table into the catalog table, and coordinates the process of creating tablets on the tablet servers.

All the master's data is stored in a tablet, which can be replicated to all the other candidate masters.

Tablet servers heartbeat to the master at a set interval (the default is once per second).