Backpressure.
also: back-pressure · back pressure · flow controlWhat happens when a downstream can't keep up with an upstream, and the signals or mechanisms that slow the producer to match.
the two-minute refresher
- Highway on-ramp: 100 cars/min arrive, 60/min merge, and the queue grows forever.
- Detect it: rising consumer lag, queue depth, latency and saturation.
- Respond: shed load, rate-limit producers, scale consumers or spill to a buffer.
- Ignoring it ends in memory exhaustion or a cascading failure.