Dealing with failure

This post introduces and analyzes three distinct patterns for handling failures in distributed systems: Request-Reply (RPC), Persistent Queues, and Workflows. For each pattern, it elaborates on its mechanics, advantages (e.g., simplicity, automatic retries, robust partial failure handling), and disadvantages (e.g., client-side complexity, queue clogging, response correlation challenges). The post uses examples like financial transactions and cloud orchestration to illustrate the practical implications of these patterns and concludes that no single pattern is universally optimal, advocating for a pragmatic approach that combines patterns based on specific system requirements.