Thinking about how to keep APIs and data pipelines alive under sudden traffic spikes?
The classic N requests per M seconds rule isn’t enough — it fails in the first bursty seconds. Real systems need multiple windows and a safe way to enforce them.
Here are 5 key ideas:
- 🎯 One atomic reserve across all windows (no race conditions)
- ⏱ Long + short windows combined (budget + anti-spike)
- đź“Š Rich stats for observability (who blocks, when next slot opens)
- 🔄 Smart client backoff (not blind retries)
- âś… Simple rollout checklist you can apply today
👉 Full breakdown with configs, Redis script, and real-world scenarios (CSV ingestion, logins, reporting):
https://blog.dataengineerthings.org/rate-limiting-in-2025-one-atomic-reserve-instead-of-chaos-b86d301a7fca
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