The hinted handoff (HH) queue is a crucial component of eventual consistency in distributed systems like InfluxDB Enterprise, ensuring that data replication factor for each database is achieved by storing and replicating writes to the HH queue when a node goes offline. The queue acts as a safe place for unsuccessful writes to land, allowing nodes to complete writes once they come back online, thereby achieving eventual consistency. Understanding the HH queue is essential for troubleshooting and identifying problematic patterns in distributed systems, which will be discussed in the next article.