ElixirConf 2017 - Cajoling the Bird: How we squeezed more out of Phoenix PubSub- Simon Zelazny

Grindr is a mobile-only geosocial network with +3M DAU in 137 countries, whose customers send +300M messages a day. The value of the Grindr experience is predicated on accurate indicators of who is online or present at any point.

The chat team at Grindr set out to build a real-time Presence Service, capable of handling hundreds of thousands of concurrent short-lived online sessions, all exchanging info in real-time.

Our talk recounts the story of how we implemented, re-implemented, load tested, optimized, and re-re-implemented the Grindr Presence service, before finally achieving the desired real-world performance characteristics.

We cover in particular: tooling, heuristics, OTP design, and the dirty, dirty workarounds that sometimes save the day. Erlang and Elixir shell snippets will be shared with all.

Our path meanders from the trivial (kernel polling, tuning GC) to the esoteric (BEAM machines with lcnt), to the slightly dodgy (bypassing OTP best practices for raw speed).

The audience will get a chance to see how fun it is to build a minimal load test tool in Elixir, and how to leverage it to target problematic performance hotspots.

Audience: Intermediate-Advanced

All talks are available in the Elixir Conf 2017 Talks List or via the elixirconf2017 tag