From Contention to Throughput

From Contention to Throughput (5/5): The Grand Finale — Database / Queue vs Kafka vs Workflow Engines

The ultimate decision framework. We resolve the holy war between Database / Queue primitives, Event Streams, and Workflow Engines by defining state lifespan and coordination boundaries.

From Contention to Throughput (4/5): Scaling Beyond a Single Database — Partitioning & The Connection Collapse

When a single PostgreSQL instance hits its physical limits, we must shard. We explore the Connection Collapse trap, multiplexing proxies, and intelligent shard routing.

From Contention to Throughput (3/5): Designing for Failure — Lease Systems & Distributed Recovery

When SKIP LOCKED is not enough. We explore the State Model, the Law of Temporal Ownership, and how Fencing Tokens prevent distributed split-brain.

From Contention to Throughput (2/5): Turning PostgreSQL into a Lock-Free Queue — The SKIP LOCKED Pattern

How to resolve massive database lock contention without deploying Kafka. We explore Quantitative Capacity, the Law of Non-Blocking Acquisition, and the SKIP LOCKED paradigm.

From Contention to Throughput (1/5): Move the Work, Not the Latency — The Pre-allocation Paradigm

Why Compute-on-Demand fails at scale. We explore the Law of Decoupled Computation, the Decision Framework, and how to eliminate latency from the critical path.