Jupyter · Advanced · Interview notes: how I answered a question about the jupyter-pro concurrency model

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.