3 ms·
If you have a bunch of computers each on a fixed timer, and their clocks are synchronized (say, with NTP), then on the least common multiple of all of those tim
by cbhl 6y ago
If you have a bunch of computers each on a fixed timer, and their clocks are synchronized (say, with NTP), then on the least common multiple of all of those timers you'll get a stampede of requests from all of the computers.
If you're on a sufficiently large network, that surge can cause failures. And a fixed retry policy will just cause the same stampede to recur on the retry intervals; you want to add jitter to ensure that you spread the load out.
- Dylan16807 6y ago> If you're on a sufficiently large network, that surge can cause failures. The more prime numbers you use, the rarer a stampede affecting a certain percent of nodes will be. To an extent that makes a bigger network safer. Adding more nodes with the same prime numbers means the peak load scales linearly with the network size. So wouldn't that mean that a "sufficiently large" network is no worse off than a small network? Also a backup is a bulk upload that can easily run a thousand times slower than normal and still succeed. Even if every server triggers at once, that shouldn't inherently cause failures.