Efficient Asynchronous RPC Calls for Microservices: DeathStarBench Study

Abstract: Crucial in the performance of microservice applications is the efficient handling of RPC calls. We found that the asynchronous call implementation in a popular microservice benchmark suite, DeathStarBench, causes a bottleneck in thread management, reducing the peak throughput and increasing latency at high request rates. Replacing the threaded implementation with a fiber implementation increases peak throughput by up to 6x, meaning that the service can operate at a higher request rate without significantly increasing response latency.