Caching Strategies in Go — Cache Stampede, XFetch & Redis LFU
Prerequisite: Part 3 of the System Design Masterclass. Read Part 2: Load Balancing L4/L7 to understand the traffic layer before diving into the caching tier. Answer-first: Effective caching strategy selection hinges on the acceptable consistency window and the read/write access pattern of the workload. Write-Through suits financial records; Write-Behind suits analytics and event counters; Cache-Aside is the default for read-heavy API responses. How Does Cache Stampede Happen? Answer-first: Cache Stampede (thundering herd) occurs when a popular cached key expires and multiple concurrent goroutines simultaneously detect a cache miss — then all query the database simultaneously. The burst of duplicate DB queries can exceed connection pool capacity and cause cascading failure. ...