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Scaling gRPC Connections with CloudFront and Route 53

Scaling gRPC Connections with CloudFront and Route 53

1
posts
2026

This feature thread tracks the evolution of scaling high-concurrency gRPC connections for real-time data ingestion, particularly for live sporting events. Initial focus was on understanding and resolving DNS resolution imbalances that led to origin overload under surge traffic. This post details the successful migration from Route 53 Weighted routing to Multi-Value Answer routing, which enabled the distribution of 121 million concurrent gRPC connections across multiple Network Load Balancers (NLBs) via Amazon CloudFront with zero server-side errors. The key technical insight is how DNS routing policies significantly impact the scalability of persistent connections, and how a simple DNS configuration change can resolve critical bottlenecks.

2026

How bitdrift scaled to 121 million concurrent gRPC connections on Amazon CloudFront for live telemetry sporting events | Amazon Web Services

7/15/2026

This post details how bitdrift scaled to handle 121 million concurrent gRPC connections for live telemetry sporting events by migrating from Route 53 Weighted routing to Multi-Value Answer routing. It explains the 'DNS resolution imbalance' and 'TTL-driven traffic concentration' issues caused by Weighted routing, especially with persistent gRPC connections. The solution involved changing the Route 53 routing policy to Multi-Value Answer, which returns multiple IP addresses per DNS query, allowing CloudFront edge nodes to distribute connections across multiple NLBs immediately. This resulted in zero server-side errors during peak traffic surges, a 99.96% reduction in peak 5xx error rate, and a 100% elimination of server-side outages, all achieved with a minimal customer-side change (DNS configuration update only).