When discussing concurrency-related latency, two primary factors come into play: queuing delays and coherence delays. We’ve already delved into queuing and the measures to address its impact. Now, let’s shift focus to coherence-related delays—a nuanced but critical aspect of system performance. What is Coherence Coherence relates to shared data in Read more…
When designing and maintaining concurrent systems, deadlocks are one of the most infamous issues that can arise. From my own experience working on distributed systems and high-performance architectures, I’ve seen how easily they can sneak in, especially as systems scale and become more complex. Deadlocks can either severely degrade performance Read more…
Concurrency-related latency is one of the most fascinating and challenging topics in system architecture, especially when dealing with lock contention. When multiple threads or processes contend for shared resources, performance can degrade significantly, leading to bottlenecks. In this article, we’ll focus on the compare-and-swap (CAS) approach, a mechanism that sidesteps Read more…
Continuing from pessimistic locking, let’s dive into optimistic locking, a different approach to managing concurrency and minimizing latency. Instead of assuming conflicts will occur (as pessimistic locking does), optimistic locking takes a more hopeful stance: it assumes that most operations will succeed without interference. This approach can significantly reduce lock Read more…
When working with shared data in a concurrent environment, ensuring consistency and avoiding corruption are non-negotiable. That’s where locking mechanisms come into play. Today, let’s dive into pessimistic locking—a tried-and-true method to handle contention for shared resources—and see how it works through a practical example. I’ll keep this grounded in Read more…
Concurrency in modern systems is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it unlocks the potential of multi-core CPUs and parallel processing. On the other hand, it introduces challenges like lock contention—a silent performance killer. In this article, we’ll explore some practical strategies for minimizing lock contention and Read more…