[zeromq-dev] Seeking to understand muting with PUB/SUB and slow consumer

[Jamie Stewart]

Hello,

We use ZeroMQ 4.1.1 with EPGM in our Java applications, using pub/sub sockets. Under performance tests at very heavy load, we intermittently see a slow consumer problem with one application. When receiving a burst of traffic from a fast sender, the receiver sometimes abruptly stops receiving messages. When that happens, the receiving app no longer sees any new messages from that sender until the app is restarted.

I presume that the sender is being muted when the receiver’s unprocessed messages hit a high-water mark. I’d like to understand how to monitor for this event, and how the receiving app can recover, if the receiver’s slowness was only temporary. Is there a better approach than using heartbeats, and closing and re-opening the listening (SUB) socket if the heartbeats from the PUB stop arriving?

I am not looking for you to fix our code. Under normal circumstances, the code works fine. I understand that in a slow-consumer situation, something has to give, and there are a few ways that the system could fail. Muting the sender seems like a reasonable failure mode. I’m looking for education, so that I can better understand the way that the library handles muting in this situation.

If anyone has time to explain it in this group, or can point to a good explanation elsewhere, that would be lovely and I’d be in your debt. If you’d prefer to contact me directly to set up a brief consulting arrangement where we could talk this through on the phone (or in person if you’re in NYC), please email me at jamie (at) otcmarkets (dot) com.

Regards,

  Jamie Stewart


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