Before Recitation

Read The Tail at Scale by Jeffrey Dean and Luiz Andre Barroso. This paper serves as a bridge between the first part of 6.1800, where we've been focused on how a single machine works, to the rest of the class, where we focus on systems made up of multiple machines.

Question for Recitation: Before you come to this recitation, you'll submit a brief response to the following questions on Canvas (really—we don't need more than a sentence or so for each question). Your answers to these questions should be in your own words, not direct quotations from the paper.

• What do we mean when we talk about "latency" in a system?
• Why does latency, and in particular the tail of the latency distribution in a system, matter? Who is impacted by it?
• How can a distributed system decrease this tail latency? Give one example. Remember to answer in your own words, not using text from the paper.

During Recitation

We expect you to be engaged and participate in recitation, and there are many ways to do that! Check out our participation FAQ for more information.

After Recitation