A retry mechanism automatically attempts an operation again after failure. In asynchronous systems, retries address transient failures while accounting for nondeterministic operation ordering and changing system state. section 10.6.2
Effective retry design combines several safeguards:
- Use exponential backoff to increase the delay between attempts and handle transient failures such as failed message deliveries or network interruptions. section 10.6.2 section 11.3.4
- Make operations idempotent so repeating an attempt does not produce unintended effects, such as charging a payment twice. section 10.6.2 section 11.3.4
- For background synchronization, support transparent retry without user intervention and identify operations with hybrid logical timestamps, vector clocks, CRDTs, or conditional updates. section 11.3.4
- Measure retry attempts and success rates alongside categorized errors to verify that the mechanism improves system health. section 10.7.2
Background synchronization
An optimistic-update client may encounter network errors, conflicts, or validation failures while syncing local changes. Transparent retry can resend safely when operations are idempotent; partial application can accept conflict-free changes while rejecting problematic ones. section 11.3.4
