Skip to content

Reactor pattern with epoll

The Reactor pattern with epoll is a design architecture employed by high-performance applications, such as [[Redis]], to manage efficient Input/Output (I/O) operations^[600-developer__redis.md]. It utilizes the epoll event notification mechanism, which is specific to the Linux kernel, to handle multiple concurrent network connections on a single thread^[600-developer__redis.md].

This pattern enables the system to monitor numerous file descriptors and wait for I/O events (like readability or writability) to occur. Instead of creating multiple threads or busy-waiting, the "reactor" responds to events notified by epoll, dispatching them to the appropriate handlers^[600-developer__redis.md]. This event-driven approach is a key factor in the performance characteristics of systems that use it, allowing them to act as efficient [[database]] or [[cache]] solutions by minimizing the overhead associated with thread context switching^[600-developer__redis.md].

Sources

^[600-developer__redis.md]