Heartbeats in Distributed Systems
9 days ago
- #failure-detection
- #heartbeat-mechanism
- #distributed-systems
- Heartbeat mechanisms are crucial in distributed systems to detect node failures and ensure system reliability.
- Heartbeat messages are periodic signals indicating a node's aliveness, sent at fixed intervals.
- Core components include the heartbeat sender, receiver, interval, and timeout parameters.
- Balancing heartbeat intervals and timeouts is essential to avoid false positives and ensure quick failure detection.
- Push and pull models offer different approaches to heartbeat monitoring, each with pros and cons.
- Advanced failure detection algorithms like phi accrual and gossip protocols improve accuracy and scalability.
- Implementation considerations include transport protocol choice (TCP/UDP), network topology, and resource management.
- Network partitions can lead to split-brain scenarios, requiring quorum-based approaches for resolution.
- Real-world applications include Kubernetes, Cassandra, and etcd, each with tailored heartbeat mechanisms.
- Effective heartbeat design balances detection speed, resource usage, and system resilience.