perqueue

Perqueue is a design concept in computing and data processing in which tasks, messages, or packets are distributed into multiple separate queues rather than a single shared queue. Each queue typically corresponds to a category such as a traffic class, a consumer, a processor, or a resource. The approach supports isolation between workloads, allows targeted scheduling and backpressure, and can improve throughput and latency by reducing contention among distinct streams of work.

In networking, per-queue scheduling refers to maintaining several output queues on an interface, with policies that determine how service is shared among queues. This enables quality of service (QoS) and differentiated treatment of traffic classes, such as high-priority control packets versus bulk data. In messaging systems, per-queue semantics mean that messages are stored in separate queues for specific consumers or topics, enabling independent flow control, persistence settings, and delivery guarantees per queue.

Implementation considerations include how many queues to maintain, memory and synchronization overhead, and methods for balancing load across queues. Systems may use fixed, dynamic, or adaptive queue allocation, along with scheduling disciplines that prioritize, round-robin, or weight queues. Monitoring and backpressure mechanisms are important to prevent queue overflow and to maintain predictable latency.

Variants of the perqueue approach include per-connection, per-tenant, or per-priority queues, each providing different isolation and scalability properties. While enabling fine-grained control, perqueue designs add complexity and potential underutilization if workloads are uneven or bursty. See also: queue, scheduling, quality of service, work queue.