Presence Indicator Batching for Network Traffic Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
The high number of users on online services makes it resource-intensive to provide status indicators, as each user's presence status requires frequent requests to the server, leading to unsustainable network traffic.
Innovation Solution
Implementing batching of requests for presence statuses and caching of presence information on the client device to reduce the number of requests sent to the server, along with managing subscriptions for real-time updates to optimize resource usage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If presence status requests are sent for each user individually and periodically, then real-time presence information is obtained, but network traffic and server resource usage become unsustainable with high user numbers
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple individual presence status requests are merged into a single batched request that retrieves presence information for multiple users simultaneously. This reduces the total number of requests from N individual requests to 1 batched request, dramatically decreasing network traffic and server resource usage while maintaining the ability to obtain real-time presence information for all users in the batch.
2Reliability
If presence information is frequently updated from the server, then status indicators remain current, but resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by batching multiple presence status requests into a single request before transmission. This preliminary batching operation allows the client to retrieve presence information for multiple users in one network call, reducing the frequency and volume of network transmissions while ensuring status indicators remain current through efficient periodic updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates local copies of presence information by caching retrieved presence data on the client device. These cached copies allow the status indicators to be updated using stored information rather than requiring frequent network requests, thereby maintaining current status display while significantly reducing network resource consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for batching requests for presence information. A client device determines a set of user indicators that are displayed on a display of the client device during a period of time. Each user indicator corresponds to a user of an online service, and is presented on the display as a result of a user of the client device viewing content provided by the online service. At completion of the period of time, the client device determines a set of remaining user indicators displayed on the display of the client device, and transmits, to a server associated with the online service, a batched request for presence information for a set of users corresponding to the set of remaining user indicators. The client device presents presence indicators indicating the status of the users based on the requested presence information.