Setting Polling Intervals for least interaction

Anybody heard of this before?

When setting polling rates or intervals, use prime numbers for the rates, or factors of the rate.

ie:
some are every 2 seconds
some are every 3 seconds
some are every 5 seconds
some are every 7 seconds
some are every 11 seconds
some are every 13 seconds
some are every 17 seconds
some are every 19 seconds
etc.

What this is supposed to do is distribute the polling load and latentency.
You don’t get spikes in load because everything is trying to run at once.

Comments are welcome.

I might be trying to “Teach me granny 'ow to suck eggs” as I have heard a few Englishmen say.

Dennnis

Yeah, I’ve heard of that, I think it’s a good idea.

Sounds to me like a very good idea. If all groups start at the same time, at any given second, the groups that are primes factors of the number of that second will run. So on the 35th second the 5 and 7 second groups run, on the 36th second the 2 and 3 second groups run, etc. Nothing happens on the 37th second, but you have a lot more composite numbers than prime.

A few caveats: I suspect that even the worst group starting timing would still provide a nice distribution. I don’t think that OPC subscription has to respect the timing exactly, but I don’t see how it could hurt.

A quick Google search yielded this. Look at the timelines on page 37 to help visualize it.
microcontechnologies.com/fil … link95.pdf