InfoQ Homepage Performance Content on InfoQ
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The Mathematics of Backlogs: Capacity Planning for Queue Recovery
Backlogs in distributed systems are arithmetic problems, not mysteries. This article provides practical formulas for calculating backlog drain time, sizing consumer headroom, and setting auto-scaling triggers. It covers key failure modes — retry amplification, metastable states, and cascading pipeline bottlenecks — plus when to shed load instead of draining.
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Local-First AI Inference: A Cloud Architecture Pattern for Cost-Effective Document Processing
The Local-First AI Inference pattern routes 70–80% of documents to deterministic local extraction at zero API cost, reserving Azure OpenAI calls for edge cases and flagging low-confidence results for human review. Deployed on 4,700 engineering drawing PDFs, it cut API costs by 75% and processing time by 55%, while bounding errors through a human review tier.
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Beyond the Benchmark: a Metrics-Driven Approach to Sustained iOS Performance on Real Devices
iOS performance engineering often defaults to a mental model where performance is a property of a component. Performance is instead an emergent behavior of the interaction between application code, device hardware, OS resource management, network conditions, and user behavior patterns over time. This article gives a direct, first-party path to capturing performance issues using Xcode Instruments.
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Three Pillars of Platform Engineering: a Virtuous Cycle
Platform engineering succeeds when reliability and ergonomics reinforce each other rather than compete. This article explores three foundational pillars: automated reliability, developer ergonomics, and operator ergonomics. Together, they establish a virtuous cycle that strengthens system stability, reduces operational burden, and empowers teams to scale infrastructure with confidence.
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Securing Autonomous AI Agents on Kubernetes: Trust Boundaries, Secrets, and Observability for a New Category of Cloud Workload
Autonomous AI agents break Kubernetes security assumptions with dynamic dependencies, multi-domain credentials, and unpredictable resource use. This article covers production-tested patterns: Job-based isolation, Vault for scoped short-lived credentials, a four-phase trust model from shadow mode to autonomous operation, and observability for non-deterministic reasoning cycles.
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MCP in the Java World: Bringing Architectural Strategy to LLM Integrations
Discover how the Model Context Protocol (MCP) Java SDK is establishing a new architectural discipline for enterprise LLM integrations. By defining explicit contracts and leveraging MCP servers as anti-corruption layers, it ensures governance, loose coupling, and security alignment with the JVM ecosystem and existing operational practices, moving integrations beyond fragility to resilience.
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Beyond One-Click: Designing an Enterprise-Grade Observability Extension for Docker
Docker Extensions boost developer speed but create a "visibility gap" by isolating telemetry. To meet enterprise needs, extensions must act as bridges to centralized platforms. This article details how to use OpenTelemetry, policy-as-code, and encryption to build secure pipelines. Learn to balance developer productivity with the governance required for scalable, compliant observability.
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Replacing Database Sequences at Scale without Breaking 100+ Services
The article discusses the challenges faced during a migration from a relational database to NoSQL, focusing on the importance of database sequences for unique identifiers. It outlines the development of a new sequence service using DynamoDB and a two-tier caching architecture.
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Change as Metrics: Measuring System Reliability through Change Delivery Signals
System changes are the primary driver of production incidents, making change-related metrics essential reliability signals. A minimal metric set of Change Lead Time, Change Success Rate, and Incident Leakage Rate assesses delivery efficiency and reliability, supported by actionable technical metrics and an event-centric data warehouse for unified change observability.
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Read-Copy-Update (RCU): the Secret to Lock-Free Performance
Innovative software engineer with expertise in optimizing concurrency through advanced techniques like Read-Copy-Update (RCU). Proven track record of boosting read performance by over 110% in read-heavy workloads. Skilled in leveraging RCU principles across production systems, enhancing architecture efficiency, and streamlining data handling to maximize scalability and minimize overhead.
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Proactive Autoscaling for Edge Applications in Kubernetes
Kubernetes often reacts too late when traffic suddenly increases at the edge. A proactive scaling approach that considers response time, spare CPU capacity, and container startup delays can add or remove instances more smoothly, prevent sudden spikes, and keep performance stable on systems with limited resources.
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From Alert Fatigue to Agent-Assisted Intelligent Observability
As systems grow, observability becomes harder to maintain and incidents harder to diagnose. Agentic observability layers AI on existing tools, starting in read-only mode to detect anomalies and summarize issues. Over time, agents add context, correlate signals, and automate low-risk tasks. This approach frees engineers to focus on analysis and judgment.