Learn the best approach to quickly resolve Firestore API HTTP 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED errors for a mobile game deployed on Google Cloud, in preparation for an expected usage surge from an upcoming marketing campaign.
Table of Contents
Question
You maintain a popular mobile game deployed on Google Cloud services that include Firebase, Firestore, and Cloud Functions. Recently, the game experienced a surge in usage, and the application encountered HTTP 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED errors when accessing the Firestore API. The application has now stabilized. You want to quickly fix this issue because your company has a marketing campaign next week and you expect another surge in usage. What should you do?
A. Request a quota increase, and modify the application code to retry the Firestore API call with fixed backoff.
B. Request a quota increase, and modify the application code to retry the Firestore API call with exponential backoff.
C. Optimize database queries to reduce read/write operations, and modify the application code to retry the Firestore API call with fixed backoff.
D. Optimize database queries to reduce read/write operations, and modify the application code to retry the Firestore API call with exponential backoff.
Answer
D. Optimize database queries to reduce read/write operations, and modify the application code to retry the Firestore API call with exponential backoff.
Explanation
When dealing with HTTP 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED errors from the Firestore API, there are two key steps to take:
- Optimize your database queries and data model to minimize the number of read/write operations. Look for opportunities to reduce the frequency and volume of Firestore calls by caching data, batching writes, and structuring your data efficiently to allow querying only the needed fields. This reduces the load on Firestore.
- Implement exponential backoff in your application code when retrying failed Firestore API calls. With exponential backoff, you progressively increase the wait time between retries after each failed attempt. This gives the API time to recover if it’s experiencing high load. In contrast, fixed backoff uses the same wait time between each retry, which can overwhelm the API if many requests retry simultaneously.
While requesting a quota increase (options A and B) could help by allowing a higher volume of Firestore operations, it doesn’t address the root cause of the errors – inefficient queries putting too much load on the database. Optimizing the queries is essential.
Also, using fixed backoff for retries (options A and C) is not ideal, as it doesn’t “back off” enough if errors persist. Exponential backoff is the recommended retry strategy for most Google Cloud APIs.
Therefore, optimizing queries to reduce Firestore load, combined with exponential backoff to gracefully handle intermittent errors, is the best solution to prepare for the expected surge in usage of the mobile game application.
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