title: Clarifications regarding Paxos and the paper Paxos Made Simple
body: <p>I read the paper named "Paxos made simple" but still got some confusions:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>What does the "instances of paxos algorithm" refers to? does each instance indicate there is an input/command from external clients? and the paxos algorithm for each instance would be executed in parallel???</p></li>
  <li><p>If there is only one "distinguished" proposer who is able to issue proposal, then what is the difference of paxos algorithm from 2-phase commit algorithm???</p></li>
  <li><p>Where could we apply paxos algorithm in a real-world project?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>It seems that the paper here gave more clear description:
  <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/64634/web-dsn-submission.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/64634/web-dsn-submission.pdf</a></p>
  
  <p>Any more idea?</p>