[zeromq-dev] dealer responsibility with the DEALER->REP pattern

[mikhail at sirena2000.ru]

Hello,

I'm building a distributed system on top of 0mq and I am anxious if
I am going to encounter kinds of bottleneck problems.

So, the prehistory.

The system consists of a gate (Inet->Hive) and a bunch of workers,
which are simple blocking responders; the nature of task often make
a worker take a while to respond with an answer.

So far, the DEALER->REP pattern seems to me fitting pretty well.

Next, I want to have every task that is not being sent or processed
right now under my control to have an option to throw it back to the
customer with a note «hey, we are a bit overloaded atm, but you can
try again in just a few seconds».

With this view HWM on the dealer and the reps is set to 1.

Thus, it leads me to a pair of questions:

1. imagine an immense load on the gate while all the workers are
   processing their tasks. Doesn't that means that the dealer will
   be blocked from the outer side (due to hwm) and rep will come to
   the «exceptional state due to having reached the high water mark
   for a client, then any replies sent to the client in question
   shall be dropped until the exceptional state ends»
   (according to http://api.zeromq.org/2-2:zmq-socket)?
   In which case «any replies sent ... shall be dropped» really
   scares me.

2. imagine now, that all those workers are willing to send their
   answers (which can be really large) just at one moment of time.
   What about the opposite situation, with the dealer blocked from
   the inner side and not possible to take a window to send
   awaiting task to a fresh-freed worker?

Or, maybe I have just misunderstood the way HWM works and all my
worries are in vain?

Any help is highly appreciated in understanding the matter.
Thanks in advance.

-- Mikhail