4 tips for building high-performance systems

Building high-performance systems requires focusing on tail latencies rather than median or average latencies, as these can significantly affect user experience, particularly in applications making multiple backend calls. A robust test harness is crucial for rapidly evaluating performance optimizations, exemplified by the use of rpc-perf at Twitter and its integration with Momento’s grpc protocol and OpenTelemetry for enhanced visualization. Establishing Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) for each system component helps ensure that performance standards are met and improved upon over time, balancing innovation with quality. Continuous performance testing in the CI/CD pipeline is essential to prevent performance regressions from reaching production, with performance canaries aiding in the prompt detection of issues.