Clojure · Job board · Why does clojure-jobs use twice the memory of comparable tools?

2.0K
CLr/clojure-jobs·posted by ops_wang·3 hours agoDiscussion

Why does clojure-jobs use twice the memory of comparable tools?

Some background first. Our setup is clojure-jobs plus three downstream services, seven figures of daily requests, peaking around nine in the evening.

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.

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.

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".

1006 comments

1006 comments

· first 120 loaded
M
Rrase·2 days ago

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

506
Sswoole_leeOP·28 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.

441
KkiteMod·2 days ago

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

99
Wwinter·2 days ago

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

27
Ttang_hao·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.

331
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

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

449
Lli_ming·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.

123
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.

23
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

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

54
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

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

481
Cchen_devOP·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.

362
Sswoole_lee·12 minutes ago

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

468
Zzhou_yi·12 minutes 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.

408
Kkernel_panic·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.

49
Kkernel_panic·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.

60
Kkite·2 days agoedited

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.

267
Zzhu_zong·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.

1
Bbob_chenMod·2 days agoLevel 6

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.

16
Kkernel_panic·yesterday

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.

16
Mmike_xu·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.

82
Aalice_dev·1 hour 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.

1
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

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

82
Kkite·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.

16
Kkite·12 minutes agoedited

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

12
Zzhu_zong·12 minutes ago

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

24
Mmike_xu·28 minutes 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.

312
Lli_ming·12 minutes agoedited

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

510
Nnikic·2 days agoLevel 6

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

42
Mmike_xu·2 days agoLevel 6

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

11
Zzhu_zong·2 days agoLevel 6

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

2
Ttang_hao·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.

217
KkiteOP·5 hours 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.

1
WwinterMod·2 days agoLevel 6

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

15
Hhuang_ke·3 minutes 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.

43
Wwinter·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".

14
Oops_wang·2 days agoLevel 6

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.

7
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.

68
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".

482
Aalice_devMod·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.

167
Hhuang_ke·2 days agoLevel 6

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.

173
Bbob_chen·2 days agoLevel 6

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.

5
Zzhou_yi·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.

450
Zzhou_yi·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.

423
Mmike_xu·1 hour 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.

422
Cchen_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.

29
Nnikic·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.

413
Mmike_xu·2 days agoedited

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.

393
Zzhou_yi·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.

390
Ttang_hao·2 days ago

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

374
Cchen_devOP·just now

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

281
Lli_ming·2 days ago

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

330
Wwinter·yesterdayedited

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

313
Zzhu_zong·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.

288
Cchen_dev·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.

420
Ddev_zhou·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.

283
Sswoole_lee·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".

259
Bbob_chenMod·12 minutes 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.

259
Zzhu_zong·2 days agoedited

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".

221
Sslow_queryMod·2 days 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.

218
Oops_wang·2 days ago

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

16
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

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

175
WwinterOP·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.

105
Kkite·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".

161
Oops_wangOP·2 days ago

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

90
Cchen_dev·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.

77
Sslow_queryMod·3 minutes ago

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

148
Zzhou_yi·28 minutes 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.

148
Sswoole_leeMod·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.

5
Lli_ming·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.

323
Rrase·2 days ago

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

7
Hhuang_ke·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.

213
Wwinter·28 minutes agoedited

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

117
Bbob_chen·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.

398
Llinlin·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.

421
Kkernel_panic·2 days agoLevel 6

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

85
Rran_bo·2 days ago

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

1
Wwinter·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.

145
Aalice_dev·28 minutes 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.

142
Kkite·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".

133
Kkernel_panic·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.

20
Kkite·1 hour 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.

1
Ttang_hao·just now

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.

125
Mmike_xu·2 days ago

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

53
Ddev_zhou·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.

372
Oops_wang·just now

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.

105
Lli_ming·1 hour ago

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

104
Sslow_query·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.

90
Aalice_dev·yesterday

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.

60
Aalice_dev·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.

401
Nnikic·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.

31
Aalice_dev·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.

20
Zzhou_yi·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.

157
Kkernel_panic·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.

447
Zzhou_yi·2 days agoLevel 6

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

5
Hhuang_ke·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.

331
Oops_wang·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.

26
Mmike_xuOP·3 minutes ago

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

69
Llinlin·3 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.

41
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.

40
Mmike_xu·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.

463
Llinlin·2 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.

20
Oops_wang·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.

28
Hhuang_ke·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.

17
Oops_wang·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.

17
Wwinter·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".

14
Zzhou_yi·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.

8
Kkite·2 days ago

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

7
Bbob_chen·28 minutes ago

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

5
Zzhou_yi·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.

4
Mmike_xu·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.

4
Sslow_query·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.

3
Wwinter·2 days ago

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

1
Hhuang_ke·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.

279
Zzhu_zong·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.

71
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.

270
Lli_ming·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
Rran_boOP·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.

160
Sswoole_lee·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".

1
Ddev_zhou·3 minutes ago

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

1
Ttang_hao·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.

495

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