Module performance 

Raft Throughput Optimization Guide for Tonic gRPC in Rust

This guide provides empirically-tuned strategies to improve Raft performance using tonic with connection type isolation and configurable persistence. These optimizations address critical bottlenecks in consensus systems where network transport and disk I/O impact throughput and latency.

Connection Type Strategy

We implement three distinct connection types to prevent head-of-line blocking:

Type	Purpose	Critical Operations	Performance Profile
Control	Consensus operations	Heartbeats, Votes, Config changes	Latency-sensitive (sub-ms)
Data	Log replication	AppendEntries, Log writes	Throughput-optimized
Bulk	Large transfers	Snapshot streaming	Bandwidth-intensive

pub(crate) enum ConnectionType {
    Control,  // Elections/heartbeats
    Data,     // Log replication
    Bulk,     // Snapshot transmission
}

Persistence Strategy & Throughput/Latency Trade-offs

The choice of persistence strategy (DiskFirst vs. MemFirst) and FlushPolicy is the primary mechanism for balancing write throughput against write latency and durability guarantees.

Strategy Configuration

Configure the strategy in your config.toml:

[raft.persistence]
# Choose based on your priority: durability (DiskFirst) or low-latency writes (MemFirst)
strategy = "MemFirst"
# strategy = "DiskFirst"

# Flush policy works in conjunction with the chosen strategy.
flush_policy = { Batch = { threshold = 1000, interval_ms = 100 } }
# flush_policy = "Immediate"

DiskFirst Strategy (High Durability)

• Write Path: An entry is written to disk before being acknowledged and added to the in-memory store.
• Latency/Throughput: Higher, more consistent write latency per operation. Maximum throughput may be limited by disk write speed.
• Durability: Strong. Acknowledged entries are always on disk. No data loss on process crash.
• Use Case: Systems where data integrity is the absolute highest priority, even at the cost of higher write latency.

MemFirst Strategy (High Throughput / Low Latency)

• Write Path: An entry is immediately added to the in-memory store and acknowledged. Disk persistence happens asynchronously.
• Latency/Throughput: Very low write latency and high throughput, as writes are batched for disk I/O.
• Durability: Eventual. A process crash can lose the most recently acknowledged entries that haven’t been flushed yet.
• Use Case: Systems requiring high write performance and low latency, where a small window of potential data loss is acceptable.

FlushPolicy Tuning

The flush policy controls how asynchronous (MemFirst) writes are persisted to disk.

• Immediate: Flush every write synchronously. Use with MemFirst to approximate DiskFirst durability (but with different failure semantics) or with DiskFirst for the strongest guarantees. Highest durability, lowest performance.
• Batch { threshold, interval_ms }:
  • threshold: Flush when this many entries are pending. Larger values increase throughput but also the window of potential data loss.
  • interval_ms: Flush after this much time has passed, even if the threshold isn’t met. Limits the maximum staleness of data on disk.

Recommendation: For most production use cases, MemFirst with a Batch policy offers the best balance of performance and durability. Tune the threshold based on your acceptable data loss window (RPO) and the interval_ms based on your crash recovery tolerance.

Configuration Tuning

Control Plane ([network.control])

concurrency_limit = 8192
max_concurrent_streams = 500
connection_window_size = 2_097_152  # 2MB
http2_keep_alive_timeout_in_secs = 20  # Aggressive timeout

Why it matters:

• Ensures election timeouts aren’t missed during load
• Prevents heartbeat delays that cause unnecessary leader changes
• Uses smaller windows for faster roundtrips

Data Plane ([network.data])

max_concurrent_streams = 500
connection_window_size = 6_291_456  # 6MB
request_timeout_in_ms = 200          # Batch-friendly

Optimization rationale:

• Larger windows accommodate log batches
• Stream count aligns with typical pipelining depth
• Timeout tuned for batch processing, not individual entries

Bulk Plane ([network.bulk] - Recommended)

# SNAPSHOT-SPECIFIC SETTINGS (EXAMPLE)
connect_timeout_in_ms = 1000         # Slow-start connections
request_timeout_in_ms = 30000        # 30s for large transfers
concurrency_limit = 4                # Few concurrent streams
connection_window_size = 33_554_432  # 32MB window

Snapshot considerations:

• Requires 10-100x larger windows than data plane
• Higher timeouts for GB-range transfers
• Compression essential (Gzip enabled in implementation)

Critical Code Implementation

Connection Type Routing

// Control operations
membership.get_peer_channel(peer_id, ConnectionType::Control)

// Data operations
membership.get_peer_channel(peer_id, ConnectionType::Data)

// Snapshot transfers
membership.get_peer_channel(leader_id, ConnectionType::Bulk)

gRPC Server Tuning

tonic::transport::Server::builder()
    .timeout(Duration::from_millis(control_config.request_timeout_in_ms))
    .max_concurrent_streams(control_config.max_concurrent_streams)
    .max_frame_size(Some(data_config.max_frame_size))
    .initial_connection_window_size(data_config.connection_window_size)

Performance Results

Metric	Before	After	Delta
Throughput	368 ops/sec	373 ops/sec	+1.3%
p99 Latency	5543 µs	4703 µs	-15.2%
p99.9 Latency	14015 µs	11279 µs	-19.5%

Key improvement: 15% reduction in tail latency - critical for consensus stability Note: These results can be further improved by tuning the PersistenceStrategy for your specific workload.

Operational Recommendations

1. Pre-warm connections during node initialization

2. Monitor connection types separately:

   # Control plane
   netstat -an | grep ":9081" | grep ESTABLISHED | wc -l
   
   # Data plane
   netstat -an | grep ":9082" | grep ESTABLISHED
   

3. Size bulk windows for snapshot sizes:

   connection_window_size = max_snapshot_size * 1.2
   

4. Compress snapshots:

   .send_compressed(CompressionEncoding::Gzip)
   .accept_compressed(CompressionEncoding::Gzip)
   

5. Monitor Flush Lag: When using MemFirst, monitor the difference between last_log_index and durable_index. A growing gap indicates the disk is not keeping up with writes, increasing potential data loss.

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

// DON'T: Use same connection for control and data
get_peer_channel(peer_id, ConnectionType::Data).await?;
client.request_vote(...)  // Control operation on data channel

// DO: Strict separation
get_peer_channel(peer_id, ConnectionType::Control).await?;
client.request_vote(...)

// DON'T: Use MemFirst with Immediate flush for high-throughput scenarios
// This eliminates the performance benefit of MemFirst.
[strategy = "MemFirst"]
flush_policy = "Immediate" // Anti-pattern

// DO: Use a Batch policy to amortize disk I/O cost.
[strategy = "MemFirst"]
flush_policy = { Batch = { threshold = 1000, interval_ms = 100 } }

Why Connection Isolation and Strategy Choice Matters

1. Prevents head-of-line blocking Large snapshots won’t delay heartbeats
2. Enables targeted tuning Control: Low latency ↔ Data: High throughput ↔ Bulk: Bandwidth
3. Improves fault containment Connection issues affect only one operation type
4. Decouples Performance from Durability The PersistenceStrategy allows you to choose the right trade-off between fast writes (MemFirst) and guaranteed durability (DiskFirst) for your use case.

Reference Deployment Configurations

Below are example configurations for different deployment scenarios. Adjust values based on snapshot size, log append rate, and cluster size.

1. Single Node (Local Dev / Testing)

• CPU: 4 cores • Memory: 8 GB • Network: Localhost

[raft.persistence]
strategy = "MemFirst"
flush_policy = { Batch = { threshold = 500, interval_ms = 50 } }

[network.control]
concurrency_limit = 10
max_concurrent_streams = 64
connection_window_size = 1_048_576   # 1MB

[network.data]
concurrency_limit = 20
max_concurrent_streams = 128
connection_window_size = 2_097_152   # 2MB

[network.bulk]
concurrency_limit = 2
connection_window_size = 8_388_608   # 8MB
request_timeout_in_ms = 10_000       # 10s

Tip: Single-node setups focus on low resource usage; bulk window size can be smaller since snapshots are local. MemFirst is preferred for developer iteration speed.

2. 3-Node Public Cloud Cluster (Medium Durability)

• Instance Type: 4 vCPU / 16 GB RAM (e.g., AWS m6i.large, GCP n2-standard-4) • Network: 10 Gbps • Priority: Balanced throughput and durability

[raft.persistence]
strategy = "MemFirst"
flush_policy = { Batch = { threshold = 2000, interval_ms = 200 } }

[network.control]
concurrency_limit = 20
max_concurrent_streams = 128
connection_window_size = 2_097_152   # 2MB

[network.data]
concurrency_limit = 30
max_concurrent_streams = 256
connection_window_size = 4_194_304   # 4MB

[network.bulk]
concurrency_limit = 4
connection_window_size = 33_554_432  # 32MB
request_timeout_in_ms = 30_000       # 30s for multi-GB snapshots

Tip: For public cloud, moderate concurrency and 32MB bulk windows ensure stable snapshot streaming without affecting heartbeats. The batch policy is tuned for high throughput with a reasonable data loss window.

3. 5-Node High-Durability Cluster (Production)

• Instance Type: 8 vCPU / 32 GB RAM (e.g., AWS m6i.xlarge) • Network: 25 Gbps • Priority: Data Integrity over Write Latency

[raft.persistence]
strategy = "DiskFirst" # Highest durability guarantee
# flush_policy is less critical for DiskFirst but can help with batching internal operations.

[network.control]
concurrency_limit = 50
max_concurrent_streams = 256
connection_window_size = 4_194_304   # 4MB

[network.data]
concurrency_limit = 80
max_concurrent_streams = 512
connection_window_size = 8_388_608   # 8MB

[network.bulk]
concurrency_limit = 8
connection_window_size = 67_108_864  # 64MB
request_timeout_in_ms = 60_000       # 60s for large snapshots

Tip: Use DiskFirst for systems where data integrity is non-negotiable (e.g., financial systems). Be aware that write throughput will be bound by disk I/O latency.

Network Environment Tuning Recommendations

These parameters are primarily network-dependent, not CPU/memory dependent.

Adjust them based on latency, packet loss, and connection stability.

Environment	tcp_keepalive_in_secs	http2_keep_alive_interval_in_secs	http2_keep_alive_timeout_in_secs	max_frame_size	Notes
Local / In-Cluster (LAN)	60	10	5	16_777_215 (16MB)	Low latency & stable; defaults are fine
Cross-Region / Stable WAN	60	15	8	16_777_215 (16MB)	Slightly longer keep-alive to avoid false disconnects
Public Cloud / Moderate Loss	60	20	10	33_554_432 (32MB)	Higher interval & timeout for lossy links; larger frame helps batch logs
High Latency / Unstable WAN	120	30	15	33_554_432 (32MB)	Longer timeouts prevent spurious drops

Guidelines:

1. Keep-alive interval ≈ 1/3 of timeout.
2. Increase max_frame_size only if batch logs or snapshots exceed 16MB.
3. High-latency WAN: favor fewer reconnects over aggressive failure detection.
4. These settings are independent of CPU and memory; focus on network RTT and stability.

RPC Timeout Guidance

connect_timeout_in_ms and request_timeout_in_ms depend on network latency and I/O, not CPU or memory.

Environment	connect_timeout_in_ms	request_timeout_in_ms	Notes
Local / In-Cluster (LAN)	50–100	100–300	Very low RTT; fast retries
Cross-Region / Stable WAN	200–500	300–1000	Higher RTT, moderate batch sizes
Public Cloud / Moderate Loss	500–1000	1000–5000	Compensate for packet loss and I/O latency
High Latency / Unstable WAN	1000+	5000+	Favor fewer reconnects; allow large batch replication

Tips:

1. connect_timeout_in_ms covers TCP+TLS+gRPC handshake; increase for high-latency links.
2. request_timeout_in_ms should accommodate log batches and disk write delays on followers.
3. Timeouts mainly depend on network RTT and disk I/O, not hardware compute.