Re:Queues Don't Fix Overload
by lostcolony on Wednesday November 19, 2014 @05:37PM
(#8633141)
Thank you for illustrating the reason for this blog post so perfectly.
The problem is not that the queue(s) aren't being accessed by workers fairly, but that requests are being dumped onto the queue(s) faster than the workers (or whatever your bottleneck is) can handle.
To stretch the metaphor, too often software devs respond with "Let's add more sinks (queues)!", rather than "let's add more drains, and make sure the ones we have are clean (identify the source of the bottlenecks and work to remove them/scale them)!". The first is comparatively easy, and seems to 'fix' the problem for a little bit; the latter requires measurement and careful architectural decisions, and possibly breaking changes.
The problem is not that the queue(s) aren't being accessed by workers fairly, but that requests are being dumped onto the queue(s) faster than the workers (or whatever your bottleneck is) can handle.
To stretch the metaphor, too often software devs respond with "Let's add more sinks (queues)!", rather than "let's add more drains, and make sure the ones we have are clean (identify the source of the bottlenecks and work to remove them/scale them)!". The first is comparatively easy, and seems to 'fix' the problem for a little bit; the latter requires measurement and careful architectural decisions, and possibly breaking changes.