etcd is a distributed key-value store used for storing and retrieving data. It is often used as a configuration store for distributed systems, where multiple nodes need to access the same configuration data. etcd uses the Raft consensus algorithm to ensure that all nodes have a consistent view of the data and can handle network partitions gracefully. It provides a simple HTTP/JSON API for accessing and modifying the data stored in it. etcd was developed by CoreOS, but is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
