Cache Stampede Prevention: Distributed Locking, Pub/Sub, and Request Coalescing

Distributed Caching is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it gives you excellent performance at scale and protects your storage layer. But when the cached value expires, it can bring down the system through a domino effect known as Cache stampede.In this article, we will understand cache stampede and its relevance in building scalable and reliable systems. We will look at ways to prevent it and the pros, cons, and alternatives for each. By the end, you will understand how to build reliable systems that use a distributed cache.With that, let’s go over the basics of cache stampede.Claude Code Beyond Prompts (Sponsored)How do you structure context? Build reusable skills? Enforce guardrails? Create workflows your team can actually adopt?In this live workshop, Sam Keen (AI researcher and educator, former engineer at AWS, Lululemon, and Nike, and bestselling author of Clean Architecture with Python) will show how experienced engineers are moving beyond prompts and building systems around…