Bulkhead Pattern: An Example

A ship is divided into compartments so that a hole in one of them does not flood the whole hull. The pattern takes the same shape. Divide a resource into compartments, and one dependency that misbehaves can only fill its own.

The order service here calls two dependencies, inventory and shipping. Inventory is stuck: each call to it holds its slot for ten ticks. Shipping is healthy and gives a slot back after one.

The Resource Being Divided

The compartment holds whatever the caller runs out of first. In a thread per request server that is threads