Cache stampede

A cache stampede is a type of cascading failure that can occur when massively parallel computing systems with caching mechanisms come under very high load. This behaviour is sometimes also called dog-piling.

To understand how cache stampedes occur, consider a web server that uses memcached to cache rendered pages for some period of time, to ease system load. Under particularly high load to a single URL, the system remains responsive as long as the resource remains cached, with requests being handled by accessing the cached copy. This minimizes the expensive rendering operation.