If I had a database with articles (deleted or not), each with an ID, and knowing the ID range at each app server - and I want to roll a random non-deleted artic

If I had a database with articles (deleted or not), each with an ID, and knowing the ID range at each app server - and I want to roll a random non-deleted article: I'd have 1) a remote cache for deleted articles 2) the application servers adding to the remote cache whenever they roll a deleted article. The remote cache can be data-center local and backed by durable storage, with a long TTL. It's possible to not roll un-deleted articles until the cache TTL, but that's ok. Data-center locality ensures some level of fault tolerance and low latency. Durable storage means restarts don't have as much of a cold-cache problem. The ID range maximum water-mark can be updated asynchronously. It's ok if new articles don't show up for a short while.