Redis · Ops · Why does redis-ops use twice the memory of comparable tools?

590
REr/redis-ops·posted by ran_bo·yesterdayOpen source

Why does redis-ops use twice the memory of comparable tools?

It took me two weeks of on-and-off digging and plenty of wrong turns. Writing the process down as it happened so the next person spends less time.

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 redis-ops 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.

We also fixed monitoring along the way: replaced average-based alerts with percentiles and split them per endpoint. False alerts dropped by about seventy percent and the on-call rotation visibly cheered up.

72 comments

72 comments

M
Ddev_zhouOP·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.

504
Lli_ming·2 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.

490
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.

435
Sswoole_lee·12 minutes agoedited

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

268
Rrase·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.

240
Lli_ming·2 hours 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.

419
KkiteMod·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.

226
Hhuang_ke·just now

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

219
Kkite·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.

446
KkiteOP·28 minutes ago

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

349
Cchen_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.

10
Mmike_xu·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.

76
Kkite·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.

411
Rran_bo·2 days ago

One counter-example: below redis-ops 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
Ddev_zhou·12 minutes ago

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

161
Ttang_hao·just now

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.

25
Sslow_queryMod·2 days ago

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

204
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.

37
KkiteMod·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.

184
Ddev_zhouOP·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.

85
Kkernel_panic·3 minutes ago

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

115
Oops_wangOP·28 minutes ago

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

18
Aalice_dev·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.

7
Sslow_queryMod·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.

2
Ttang_hao·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.

4
LlinlinOP·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.

200
Zzhu_zong·5 hours ago

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

105
Lli_ming·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.

89
Zzhou_yi·2 days ago

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

47
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

One counter-example: below redis-ops 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
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

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

31
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.

28
Mmike_xuMod·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.

59
Oops_wang·12 minutes ago

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

349
Hhuang_keOP·2 days ago

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

243
RraseOP·2 days agoedited

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

40
Bbob_chenMod·2 days ago

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

393
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.

84
Kkernel_panic·2 days ago

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

4
Rran_bo·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.

1
Sswoole_lee·2 days ago

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

14
Cchen_dev·28 minutes ago

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

136
Llinlin·2 days ago

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

3
Zzhu_zong·1 hour ago

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

9
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.

14
Oops_wang·5 hours 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.

7
Kkernel_panic·3 minutes ago

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

379
Rrase·2 days ago

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

381
Rran_bo·2 days ago

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

152
Hhuang_ke·5 hours agoedited

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

304
Aalice_dev·2 days ago

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

298
Mmike_xu·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.

23
KkiteOP·28 minutes ago

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

23
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.

29
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.

1
Bbob_chen·2 days ago

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

6
Sswoole_lee·12 minutes ago

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

5
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.

325
Llinlin·yesterday

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.

115
Ddev_zhou·2 hours agoedited

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

5
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.

2
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.

1
Rrase·just now

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.

283
Wwinter·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.

1
Ddev_zhou·12 minutes ago

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

430
Sslow_query·2 hours ago

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

83
Kkernel_panic·2 days agoedited

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

10
Ttang_hao·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.

7
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.

1
Ddev_zhou·2 days agoedited

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

1
Nnikic·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.

1
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.

1

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