Being Aware of Latency-Aware Routing

When replicas span regions or clouds, round-robin and simple read/write splitting hit their limits. Latency-aware routing uses live query and health metrics to direct traffic to the lowest-latency replica that's still up-to-date.

• Start by measuring real latency: Ping times only capture network delay, not query execution or replica lag. Track query-level latency from your proxy and weight replicas using a smoothed average, so reads flow naturally to the fastest healthy node.
• Include replication lag in routing decisions: A fast but stale replica is worse than a slower fresh one. In Postgres, monitor pg_stat_replication; in MySQL, check Seconds_Behind_Master. Reduce a replica's weight as lag increases instead of cutting it out abruptly.
• Stabilize route changes: If routing reacts to every latency spike, you'll get thrashing as sessions jump between replicas. Use moving averages or short smoothing intervals so routing adjusts gradually and predictably.
• Test real-world conditions: Inject latency with tc or netem and observe how routing adapts. A healthy setup rebalances smoothly without oscillation or connection drops.

Latency-aware routing pays off most in multi-region or high-concurrency workloads where every millisecond counts. But routing alone can't overcome network distance.

At Readyset, we see it as the next scaling milestone: distribute work intelligently, then eliminate it entirely. QueryPilot builds on that by caching hot queries so fewer requests ever reach the database.

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