High Concurrency · Code review · I upgraded our production high-concurrency-review and hit these 11 landmines

329
HCr/high-concurrency-review·posted by ran_bo·6 hours agoAnnouncement

I upgraded our production high-concurrency-review and hit these 11 landmines

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

# Load test: do not jump straight to the max concurrency.
# Ramp it up, otherwise you miss the knee.
for c in 50 100 200 400 800; do
  wrk -t8 -c$c -d60s --latency http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/feed
  sleep 20
done

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.

One last trap: in container environments remember to adjust the memory-related parameters in step. Otherwise the host limit and the process expectation disagree, and the symptom is intermittent, unreproducible failure.

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".

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 high-concurrency-review itself but our upstream connection reuse — the load test traffic was too clean and hid the long-tail requests.

84 comments

84 comments

M
Kkernel_panic·2 days agoedited

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

515
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

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

378
Llinlin·2 days ago

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

366
Cchen_devOP·2 days ago

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

281
Nnikic·yesterday

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.

184
Wwinter·12 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.

143
Ttang_hao·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.

287
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

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

279
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.

420
Ddev_zhou·2 days agoedited

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.

457
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

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

274
Sswoole_leeMod·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.

260
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.

233
Ddev_zhou·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.

215
Mmike_xu·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.

203
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

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

182
Rrase·2 days ago

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

175
Hhuang_ke·2 days agoedited

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

161
Aalice_dev·just now

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.

138
Hhuang_ke·just now

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.

122
Ddev_zhou·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.

70
Nnikic·2 days ago

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

218
Bbob_chen·just now

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

156
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.

489
Hhuang_ke·2 days ago

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

375
Rrase·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.

23
Cchen_dev·12 minutes 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.

8
Nnikic·1 hour ago

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

2
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

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

1
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

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

62
Aalice_dev·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.

122
Cchen_devMod·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.

118
Ttang_hao·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.

254
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.

5
Wwinter·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
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

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

113
Oops_wang·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.

92
KkiteOP·2 days agoedited

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

32
Nnikic·2 days ago

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

91
Oops_wang·just now

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

86
Ddev_zhou·2 days ago

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

83
Aalice_dev·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.

54
Sswoole_lee·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.

2
Llinlin·2 days ago

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

238
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.

216
Zzhou_yiMod·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.

140
Zzhu_zong·2 days ago

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

202
Mmike_xu·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.

14
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

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

259
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

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

184
Mmike_xuMod·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.

1
Kkernel_panic·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.

54
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

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

52
Oops_wang·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.

51
Ttang_hao·1 hour 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.

47
Oops_wangMod·1 hour ago

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

489
Oops_wang·28 minutes ago

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

25
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

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

96
Kkite·just now

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

2
Aalice_dev·1 hour ago

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

62
Oops_wang·2 days agoedited

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

2
Ttang_hao·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.

21
Llinlin·just now

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

10
Cchen_dev·1 hour 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.

462
Ttang_hao·5 hours ago

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

169
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

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

162
Nnikic·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.

229
Rrase·5 hours 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.

12
Kkernel_panic·5 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.

12
KkiteOP·2 days ago

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

256
Rran_bo·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.

312
Lli_ming·3 minutes ago

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

4
Wwinter·2 days ago

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

63
Cchen_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.

35
Ddev_zhou·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.

14
Llinlin·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.

10
Wwinter·2 days ago

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

8
Llinlin·3 minutes ago

One counter-example: below high-concurrency-review 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
Sswoole_lee·1 hour ago

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

512
Ttang_hao·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.

71
Cchen_dev·2 days ago

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

343
Lli_mingOP·2 hours 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.

273
Ddev_zhouMod·2 days ago

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

1
Llinlin·2 days ago

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

1

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