• A description of the properties of a distributed computing system. “Basically available” means that the system guarantees the availability of data, but not necessarily the most recent write. “Soft state” means that the state of the system may change over time, even without new input. “Eventually consistent” means that if no new updates are made to a given piece of data, eventually all access to the data will return the last updated value. BASE is a response to the CAP Theorem, which states that it is impossible for a distributed computer system to simultaneously provide consistency, availability, and partition tolerance.

1. Related terms: CAP Theorem, Soft launch, Eventual consistency, State management
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