Pattern 72 / CONTROL

Leaky Bucket

Use this when Smoothing bursty input into steady output.

Pressure: Smoothing bursty input into steady output
Mechanism: Queue incoming work and drain it at a fixed rate
Toll: Queues add latency and overflow policy matters

Diagram for Leaky Bucket — Architecture plate72

Executive brief

Leaky Bucket fits when Smoothing bursty input into steady output. Mechanism: Queue incoming work and drain it at a fixed rate. Use it for Write smoothing, log pipelines, IoT ingestion. The toll: Queues add latency and overflow policy matters.

Use when

Write smoothing, log pipelines, iot ingestion.

Example

Use leaky bucket when write smoothing, log pipelines, iot ingestion..

Review framing

Describe the pressure first, then the mechanism, then the cost. That keeps the design grounded.

Same pressure family

Traffic Control

71Token Bucket 73Adaptive Concurrency Limit 74Backpressure