An unfair advantage - multi-tenant queues in Postgres

This text discusses the implementation of fair queueing strategies for Postgres-backed task queues to prevent large tasks from monopolizing processing resources, ensuring that smaller tasks are not delayed. The problem of task overcrowding is introduced with the example of Bob's extensive uploads overshadowing Alice's smaller tasks, leading to the development of a deterministic round-robin queueing strategy. The initial approach using window functions caused issues with performance degradation and contention among workers, prompting the creation of a more efficient sequencing algorithm that assigns task IDs based on reserved blocks, improving the system's ability to handle large numbers of tasks. The text explores the trade-offs between write speed and read efficiency, introduces concurrency limits per task group to enhance fairness, and hints at future discussions on alternative approaches for approximate fairness. The implementation is described with coding examples and practical advice, with an invitation for feedback and testing through Hatchet Cloud.

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