You design a microservice system where Service A calls Service B, which calls Service C. To avoid cascading delays, you want to apply the timeout pattern effectively. Which strategy is best?

hard📝 Trade-off Q15 of 15

Microservices - Resilience Patterns

ASet equal timeout values on all calls regardless of call chain

BSet a single long timeout only on Service A's call to B, ignoring B to C timeouts

CDo not use timeouts; rely on retries to handle delays

DSet a timeout on Service A's call to B, and also on B's call to C, each shorter than the caller's timeout

Step-by-Step Solution

Solution:

Step 1: Understand cascading call delays
Service A calls B, which calls C. If B waits too long for C, A's timeout may be exceeded.
Step 2: Apply timeout pattern to prevent cascading delays
Each service should have a timeout shorter than its caller's timeout to fail fast and avoid long waits.
Final Answer:
Set a timeout on Service A's call to B, and also on B's call to C, each shorter than the caller's timeout -> Option D
Quick Check:
Timeouts cascade with decreasing limits [OK]

Quick Trick: Timeouts should cascade with shorter limits downstream [OK]

Common Mistakes:

MISTAKES

Setting only one timeout ignoring nested calls
Using equal timeouts causing delays
Relying only on retries without timeouts

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More Microservices Quizzes

You design a microservice system where Service A calls Service B, which calls Service C. To avoid cascading delays, you want to apply the timeout pattern effectively. Which strategy is best?

Step 1: Understand cascading call delays

Step 2: Apply timeout pattern to prevent cascading delays

Final Answer:

Quick Check:

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