https://todd.ekenstam.dev/categories/operational-excellence/Recent content in Operational Excellence on Todd's Builder BlogHugo -- gohugo.ioen© 2026 Todd EkenstamTue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://todd.ekenstam.dev/posts/202602-slow-start/Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://todd.ekenstam.dev/posts/202602-slow-start/<p>When a new pod comes online, it often experiences a <em>gate rush</em>: it’s declared “Ready,” immediately receives its full share of production traffic, and then falls over—spiking latency, throwing transient 5xx/504s, or flapping readiness. This is especially common for warm-up–sensitive services (JVM class loading/JIT, cache population, connection pool establishment, TLS handshakes, model loading, etc.).</p>