If you're deploying a simple application, it can be okay to just deploy its configuration along with it. However, when you want to have a more complex deployment with many application instances, it can quickly become a burden to redeploy a new version of the app just to reconfigure it. At the same time, manual configuration changes are a no-go if you want to treat your services like cattle, not pets. Introducing an external configuration store can be an elegant way to overcome such hurdles.
In essence, your apps can grab their configuration from said store instead of just relying on their local config files. This allows you to provide common settings for multiple instances and tune parameters for some of them, while having an easy and centralized way to monitor all your configs. If you want an arbiter to decide which nodes will be master nodes and which will serve as backup ones, an external config store can provide the instances with such information...
