Clojure · Job board · clojure-jobs under load on an 8-core 16GB box — full benchmark scripts included

492
CLr/clojure-jobs·posted by alice_dev·5 minutes agoReview

clojure-jobs under load on an 8-core 16GB box — full benchmark scripts included

Most clojure-jobs articles stop at "how to use it" and never cover "when not to use it". This is an attempt at the second half.

Order of investigation, by return on effort: 1. Check downstream latency first — usually it is not your problem 2. Then pool hit rate and wait-queue length 3. Only then GC and allocation 4. Suspect the framework last

What genuinely surprised me was the tail. The average looked great while P99 jumped by an order of magnitude past some threshold. The cause was not clojure-jobs itself but our upstream connection reuse — the load test traffic was too clean and hid the long-tail requests.

On trade-offs, my view is this: if nobody on the team owns this area long-term, do not introduce a second mechanism. With two coexistence you first have to work out which one is even in play when things break, and that costs far more than the performance you saved.

The first thing was to collapse the variables. We were changing config and upgrading the version at the same time, and afterwards nobody could say which change caused what. We rolled back to moving one variable at a time, re-ran three times, and only then did the curve settle. Tedious, but not skippable.

Worth noting: the official docs do cover this, just in a very inconspicuous spot. I only found it reading the source comments, where the author explains the reasoning — roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

76 comments

76 comments

M
Rran_bo·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

490
Sswoole_leeOP·yesterday

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

420
Rran_bo·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

476
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

6
Kkernel_panic·3 minutes ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

442
Ddev_zhouMod·12 minutes ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

421
Wwinter·28 minutes ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

314
Sslow_query·yesterday

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

28
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

I just read the clojure-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

415
Rrase·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

75
Llinlin·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

404
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

283
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

171
Bbob_chen·just now

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

382
Kkite·just now

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

408
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

45
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

110
Rran_bo·2 hours ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

10
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

1
Rran_bo·2 days ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

365
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

354
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

351
Oops_wang·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

347
Rrase·2 days ago

One counter-example: below clojure-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

319
Zzhou_yi·2 days agoedited

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

318
Rran_bo·5 hours ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

305
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

303
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

282
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

274
Wwinter·yesterday

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

269
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

133
Kkite·2 days ago

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

1
Sslow_query·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

224
Ddev_zhou·yesterdayedited

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

223
Bbob_chen·1 hour ago

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

235
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

185
Hhuang_keOP·2 days agoedited

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

105
Mmike_xuOP·2 days ago

I just read the clojure-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

26
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

One counter-example: below clojure-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

34
WwinterOP·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

5
Wwinter·yesterday

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

13
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

325
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

6
Aalice_devOP·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

2
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

41
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

1
Llinlin·28 minutes ago

I just read the clojure-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

186
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

149
Mmike_xu·28 minutes ago

I just read the clojure-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

105
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

95
Nnikic·2 days agoedited

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

70
Lli_ming·yesterdayedited

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

50
Aalice_dev·3 minutes ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

36
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

Saved. I am reworking this area this week — this saves a lot of wrong turns.

84
Kkite·2 hours ago

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

35
Wwinter·28 minutes ago

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

30
WwinterOP·28 minutes agoedited

This matches what we see in production. We only hit it past 3k QPS; the earlier load tests showed nothing — the test traffic was too clean, with no long-tail requests.

440
KkiteOP·2 days ago

This is not a clojure-jobs problem, it is a usage problem. The docs say this API is not thread-safe and you must lock around it yourself.

134
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

Agreeing with the above. One addition: with this option enabled the GC count in your metrics doubles, so adjust the alert threshold at the same time or it will keep firing.

1
Kkite·2 days agoedited

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

72
Lli_ming·2 days ago

I just read the clojure-jobs source — the author actually explains the reasoning in a comment, roughly "so that it degrades into predictable behaviour in extreme cases".

30
LlinlinOPMod·28 minutes agoedited

Has anyone run a controlled experiment? I did, reducing it to a single variable, and the difference was 4% — within noise. So I suspect the main cause is something else.

5
Sslow_query·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

276
Oops_wang·2 days agoedited

One counter-example: below clojure-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

479
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

Can you give a minimal reproduction? I ran it locally for ten minutes and could not reproduce on macOS with the latest version.

75
Kkite·2 hours ago

There is actually a simpler fix that needs no architecture change: move this check up to the gateway and the problem disappears. The cost is one extra lookup at the gateway.

8
Oops_wang·just now

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

29
Lli_mingMod·12 minutes ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

418
Sslow_query·2 days ago

We have run this in production for two years without hitting it. That said, we never reached this scale, so our experience is not really evidence here.

20
Zzhu_zong·yesterday

A question: what changes in a container with a 512Mi memory limit? That is how we run it in production.

13
Ttang_hao·1 hour ago

I see point 3 differently. The trade-off depends on your read/write ratio: read-heavy with little writing means caching actually widens the inconsistency window.

10
Kkernel_panic·just now

One counter-example: below clojure-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

9
Llinlin·just now

Worth learning from this debugging approach. We went straight at the logs and took a much longer route.

8
Nnikic·yesterdayedited

Sharing our numbers, 8 cores 16GB, same scenario:

| Concurrency | P50 | P99 |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | 12ms | 88ms |
| 500 | 31ms | 340ms |

P99 clearly collapses at 500 concurrency, which lines up with your knee point.

9
Rrase·2 days ago

Thanks for sharing real numbers — far more useful than the articles that only cover concepts.

2
Aalice_dev·5 hours ago

One counter-example: below clojure-jobs 7.4 the semantics of that code are different, so do not copy it verbatim. We got burned in staging and rolled back once.

1

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