
Bandaid – Dropbox service proxy - gtirloni
https://blogs.dropbox.com/tech/2018/03/meet-bandaid-the-dropbox-service-proxy/
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plandis
Here [1] is a good article on the "random pick 2" idea in case anyone is
interested. The paper is definitely worth reading too.

It's definitely one of my favorite techniques that I keep in my "toolbox".
Really simple, but not (at least to me) intuitive.

[1] [https://brooker.co.za/blog/2012/01/17/two-
random.html](https://brooker.co.za/blog/2012/01/17/two-random.html)

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thedirt0115
There's also a more mathematically rigorous paper on the random-pick-2 topic
in the references section of the Dropbox blog post --
[https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/postscripts/handbook2...](https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/postscripts/handbook2001.pdf)

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plandis
Yeah, sorry I wasn’t clear but that’s the paper I think that is worth reading.
Thanks for linking directly.

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dostoevsky
The justification for using LIFO (vs FIFO) queues for requests is interesting:
at no/low load it makes no difference, while at high load the requests least
likely to time out get serviced first.

Is that a common architectural decision in reverse proxies or queuing systems
in general?

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zawerf
In queuing theory, it's well known that choosing the request with lowest
service time first will result in lowest waiting time on average across the
requests.

This is usually not done because it can starve the larger jobs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortest_job_next](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortest_job_next)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory#Service_discip...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory#Service_disciplines)

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dostoevsky
Interesting. I wonder if that choice would lead to a noticeable impact on
perceived latency (from the perspective of a human end-user) under some high-
load/pathological scenario.

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sciurus
Nice to hear they plan to open source it. Competition in this space is heating
up.

A good list is this one from the Envoy project:
[https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/intro/comparison](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/intro/comparison)

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kenhwang
Not familiar with the space, but definitely curious how Bandaid compares with
Envoy.

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LarryPage
Trademark lawyers took the day off?

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scotu
IANAL but don't trademarks apply on specific markets? If that's so, I doubt
bandaid has registered in the software market

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ableal
Back in the day, there were VAX minicomputers and VAX vacuum cleaners in
peaceful coexistence ...

(Not to mention the Apple music label and Apple Computer.)

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cristoperb
Apple and Apple did not exactly co-exist peacefully:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer)

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tootie
One day I hope to work on a system that needs this level of optimization.

