15 hours ago
- Tail latency is important for cost and capacity optimization, not just customer experience.
- The empirical Lorenz curve quantifies the contribution of each latency percentile to the mean latency.
- High percentiles (e.g., p99) often contribute a large share of mean latency and concurrency, making tail optimization a key cost lever.
- Little's law relates latency contribution to concurrency, so optimizing tail reduces concurrency and associated costs.
- Tails are disproportionately expensive and should not be ignored in optimization efforts.