Backpressure & Load Regulation Patterns
Keep systems stable under overload using backpressure, rate limiting, and load shedding patterns built on OTP primitives.
What Is Backpressure?
When work arrives faster than a system can process it, queues grow and latency explodes. Backpressure is the practice of signalling producers to slow down so the system stays stable instead of melting down.
The Unbounded Queue Problem
An async gen_server:cast never blocks the caller, so its mailbox can grow without limit under load — the system runs out of memory before it ever rejects work.
All lessons in this course
- Designing for High Availability
- Distributed Consensus Patterns
- Erlang OTP Case Studies
- Backpressure & Load Regulation Patterns