What happens when a website goes viral: how a site keeps up with millions of visitors
Message queues: how a website takes a flood of slow jobs without slowing down
In the same minute, hundreds of thousands of visitors ask for a slow job, like a picture to share or an email to send. Each job keeps a server busy for a few seconds. More servers is one answer, but not the best one.
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A share card is a small picture of a player's grid, and drawing one keeps a server busy for about two seconds. Miva waits, phone in hand, while it draws.
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Now 300,000 taps arrive in one minute. Every server is busy drawing, and even players who only want to send a guess are stuck behind the pictures.
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