Zebra Pattern

Last time I explained the One Ring Pattern, where only one thread handles the data coming from a queue. I also explained the reasons why such a pattern might be preferred.

One of those reasons is when ordering is important. Some events must keep the order in which they arrive in the queue, so handling them with one thread is a must. But what If there are many events, and I would really like to handle them on several threads? And what if the ordering is not compulsory between all events, but only between some of them? Using again the example from last time with market prices, order must be kept between prices on the same instruments. However, prices coming for different instruments can be handled in any order.

That’s when the Zebra Pattern comes handy. Imagine that each stripe of the Zebra is a different thread, with its own queue. When a price arrives, you put it on the queue reserved for this instrument. In that way, prices for one instrument will be ordered between them, while different instruments will be handled by different threads. To reduce the number of threads, you can use some modulo calculation, using an algorithm similar to the way hashmaps are dispatching keys between their buckets.

If this Pattern interests you, have a look at Heinz Kabutz’s Striped Executor Service.

We have so far tried to tie execution of data to one thread. What if we go the opposite way? Wait for the Star Trek Anti-Pattern.