The text delves into the development of a streaming engine for modern applications, emphasizing the use of Raft-based protocols in Redpanda compared to Apache Kafka's synchronous replication method. The analysis highlights the protocol's strengths and weaknesses, particularly under different fault conditions, by simulating various disturbances such as leader and follower terminations and disk latency increases. It found that while both Redpanda and Kafka experience availability losses when a leader is affected, only Kafka is significantly impacted when a follower faces issues due to its reliance on synchronous replication. The discussion suggests that Raft-based systems like Redpanda can benefit from the wealth of research and optimizations developed for Paxos-based systems, particularly in areas like disk latency management and leader election. The text concludes by expressing enthusiasm for further exploration and optimization of these protocols to enhance performance and reliability.