User pointed out the apparent paradox: in fig_b3_per_worker_ttft_p90, unified
has hotspot index 3.67 while sticky has 2.73, yet unified e2e p90 is roughly
half of sticky's. Resolution: hotspot index (max/median) is a *ratio* and
misleading on its own. Per-worker absolute TTFT p90:
sticky : median 20.3s, max 55.4s -> system e2e p90 34.6s
unified: median 10.3s, max 37.7s -> system e2e p90 18.0s
Mechanism: top 1% sessions own 46.5% input mass and there are more hot
sessions than instances (8), so sticky's hash binding gives *every* worker
its own hot session and the median worker is also slow. Unified's LMetric
fallback re-routes cold/new sessions away from hot affinity instances,
preserving 7/8 worker speed. System p90 is dominated by the majority of
requests landing on fast workers, hence the 2x e2e gap.
Changes:
- Replace §3.3 figure with figs/f4c_per_worker_ttft.png (per-worker bars)
instead of figs/f4c_apc_vs_hotspot_tradeoff.png (the ratio scatter)
- §3.3 narrative in PAPER_OUTLINE.md and MEETING.md rewritten around
absolute median + max + system e2e p90 instead of hotspot ratio
- Add a §3.3 sub-finding: "hot pin failure must be measured with
per-worker absolute latency, not normalized ratio"
- Keep the scatter as supplementary for §5 multi-policy summary
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-27 trace-replay A/B/C (commit ef9e010) shows the kv_both substrate
is net positive on current codebase, not just neutral:
- TTFT p90: 11.97s plain → 9.74s kv_both (−18.6%) → 7.58s with DR-fix (−36.6%)
This reverses the elastic_migration_v2 paper's +45% kv_both penalty claim
and removes the primary cause of the 4 prior migration reverts.
Reframes EAR Pillar 2 from "DEFERRED" to "PARTIAL" — substrate verified,
e2e strategy-layer validation (trigger thresholds + target selection in
the dispatch-coupling feedback loop) remains as the only open risk.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Convert figs/f4b_pdsep_kv_wall.pdf to PNG via pdftoppm @ 150 DPI so
MEETING.md and PAPER_OUTLINE.md render the figure inline on GitHub /
any standard markdown viewer (PDF !() embeds don't render).
- PAPER_OUTLINE.md F2, F4, F6: switch from backtick code references to
proper ![]() image embeds so the doc is actually viewable as a deck.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
