Hot key.

also: hot keys · hotkey · hot partition · hot partitions · hot spot · hotspot

A key that gets disproportionately more traffic than the rest, overwhelming the one partition or cache node that owns it.

the two-minute refresher

All requests for one key land on one partition, which saturates while others idle.
Rough thresholds: >1000× the average key, or >10% of a partition's capacity.
Causes: viral content, celebrities, flash sales, a popular product.
Fixes: caching, read replicas, key splitting (salting), local caches, request coalescing.

also: hot keys · hotkey · hot partition · hot partitions · hot spot · hotspot

A key that gets disproportionately more traffic than the rest, overwhelming the one partition or cache node that owns it.

All requests for one key land on one partition, which saturates while others idle.
Rough thresholds: >1000× the average key, or >10% of a partition's capacity.
Causes: viral content, celebrities, flash sales, a popular product.
Fixes: caching, read replicas, key splitting (salting), local caches, request coalescing.