Uber has implemented a system to protect against avalanche repeat requests

Engineers at Uber presented an architectural solution to prevent "retry storms" that occur during failures in distributed systems. The mechanism allows to mitigate the effect of cascading load amplification, when microservices start massively repeating failed calls, overloading the infrastructure.

The system is based on two key components: context-dependent error ownership and dynamic retry budgets. The implementation of retry budgets limits the number of allowed retries for each service depending on the current system state. If the error rate exceeds the threshold value, the mechanism automatically blocks additional requests, preventing degradation of the entire network.

Developers implemented context-dependent logic that distinguishes between types of failures. For example, 4xx errors (client-side) do not trigger automatic retries, while 5xx errors (server-side) are processed taking into account the current throughput. This allows the system to maintain stability even in case of partial failure of individual nodes or databases.

This approach minimizes the risk of "self-killing" services, when attempts to restore the system lead to even greater traffic growth. The solution is already integrated into the company's main backend processes, ensuring predictable behavior under peak loads and API failures, which is critical for maintaining the availability of high-load platforms.