incast
jargonnetworkingcloud
The many-to-one traffic collapse: dozens of servers answer one request simultaneously and their combined burst overruns the receiver's switch port.
The signature pathology of distributed storage and big-data queries - each sender behaves, the sum does not. The microburst overflows shallow buffers, TCP timeouts synchronize, and throughput craters. Fixes live in buffer tuning, ECN, and application-level request pacing.
Also known as: TCP incast