Package org.eclipse.microprofile.faulttolerance

Annotation Interface CircuitBreaker

@Inherited @Retention(RUNTIME) @Documented @InterceptorBinding @Target({METHOD,TYPE}) public @interface CircuitBreaker
Defines a circuit breaker policy to an individual method or a class.

A circuit breaker aims to prevent further damage by not executing functionality that is doomed to fail. After a failure situation has been detected, circuit breakers prevent methods from being executed and instead throw exceptions immediately. After a certain delay or wait time, the functionality is attempted to be executed again.

A circuit breaker can be in one of the following states:

  • Closed: In normal operation, the circuit is closed. If a failure occurs, the Circuit Breaker records the event. In closed state the requestVolumeThreshold and failureRatio parameters may be configured in order to specify the conditions under which the breaker will transition the circuit to open. If the failure conditions are met, the circuit will be opened.
  • Open: When the circuit is open, calls to the service operating under the circuit breaker will fail immediately. A delay may be configured for the circuit breaker. After the specified delay, the circuit transitions to half-open state.
  • Half-open: In half-open state, trial executions of the service are allowed. By default one trial call to the service is permitted. If the call fails, the circuit will return to open state. The successThreshold parameter allows the configuration of the number of trial executions that must succeed before the circuit can be closed. After the specified number of successful executions, the circuit will be closed. If a failure occurs before the successThreshold is reached the circuit will transition to open.
Circuit state transitions will reset the circuit breaker's records.

When a method returns a result, the following rules are applied to determine whether the result is a success or a failure:

  • If the method does not throw a Throwable, it is considered a success
  • Otherwise, if the thrown object is assignable to any value in the skipOn() parameter, is is considered a success
  • Otherwise, if the thrown object is assignable to any value in the failOn() parameter, it is considered a failure
  • Otherwise it is considered a success
If a method throws a Throwable which is not an Error or Exception, non-portable behavior results.

  • Optional Element Summary

    Optional Elements
    Modifier and Type
    Optional Element
    Description
    long
    delay
    The delay after which an open circuit will transitions to half-open state.
    ChronoUnit
    delayUnit
    The unit of the delay after which an open circuit will transitions to half-open state.
    Class<? extends Throwable>[]
    failOn
    The list of exception types which should be considered failures
    double
    failureRatio
    The ratio of failures within the rolling window that will trip the circuit to open.
    int
    requestVolumeThreshold
    The number of consecutive requests in a rolling window.
    Class<? extends Throwable>[]
    skipOn
    The list of exception types which should not be considered failures
    int
    successThreshold
    The number of successful executions, before a half-open circuit is closed again.

  • Element Details

    • failOn

      Class<? extends Throwable>[] failOn
      The list of exception types which should be considered failures

      Note that if a method throws a Throwable which is not an Error or Exception, non-portable behavior results.

      Returns:
      the exception types which should be considered failures
      Default:
      {java.lang.Throwable.class}

    • skipOn

      Class<? extends Throwable>[] skipOn
      The list of exception types which should not be considered failures

      This list takes priority over the types listed in failOn()

      Note that if a method throws a Throwable which is not an Error or Exception, non-portable behavior results.

      Returns:
      the exception types which should not be considered failures
      Default:
      {}

    • delay

      long delay
      The delay after which an open circuit will transitions to half-open state.

      The amount of delay is taken from this delay value and the delayUnit, and defaults to five seconds. The value must be greater than or equal to 0. 0 means no delay.

      Returns:
      The delay time after which an open circuit transitions to half-open state
      Default:
      5000L

    • delayUnit

      ChronoUnit delayUnit
      The unit of the delay after which an open circuit will transitions to half-open state.
      Returns:
      The unit of the delay
      See Also:
      Default:
      MILLIS

    • requestVolumeThreshold

      int requestVolumeThreshold
      The number of consecutive requests in a rolling window.

      The circuit breaker will trip if the number of failures exceed the failureRatio within the rolling window of consecutive requests. The value must be greater than or equal to 1.

      Returns:
      The number of the consecutive requests in a rolling window
      Default:
      20

    • failureRatio

      double failureRatio
      The ratio of failures within the rolling window that will trip the circuit to open.

      The circuit breaker will trip if the number of failures exceed the failureRatio within the rolling window of consecutive requests. For example, if the requestVolumeThreshold is 20 and failureRatio is .50, ten or more failures in 20 consecutive requests will trigger the circuit to open. The value must be between 0 and 1 inclusive.

      Returns:
      The failure ratio threshold
      Default:
      0.5

    • successThreshold

      int successThreshold
      The number of successful executions, before a half-open circuit is closed again.

      A half-open circuit will be closed once successThreshold executions were made without failures. If a failure occurs while in half-open state the circuit is immediately opened again. The value must be greater than or equal to 1.

      Returns:
      The success threshold to fully close the circuit
      Default:
      1