Marathon backoff - is it really exponential? - marathon

Question

I'm trying to figure out Marathon's exponential backoff configuration. Here's the documentation:
The backoffSeconds and backoffFactor values are multiplied until they reach the maxLaunchDelaySeconds value. After they reach that value, Marathon waits maxLaunchDelaySeconds before repeating this cycle exponentially. For example, if backoffSeconds: 3, backoffFactor: 2, and maxLaunchDelaySeconds: 3600, there will be ten attempts to launch a failed task, each three seconds apart. After these ten attempts, Marathon will wait 3600 seconds before repeating this cycle.
The way I think of exponential backoff is that the wait periods should be:
3*2^0 = 3
3*2^1 = 6
3*2^2 = 12
3*2^3 = 24 and so on
so every time the app crashes, Marathon will wait a longer period of time before retrying. However, given the description above, Marathon's logic for waiting looks something like this:
int retryCount = 0;
while(backoffSeconds * (backoffFactor ^ retryCount) < maxLaunchDelaySeconds)
{
wait(backoffSeconds);
retryCount++;
}
wait(maxLaunchDelaySeconds);
This matches the explanation in the documentation, since 3*2^x < 3600 for values of x fewer than or equal to 10. However, I really don't see how it can be called an exponential backoff, since the wait time is constant.
Is there a way to make Marathon wait progressively longer times with every restart of the app? Am I misunderstand the doc? Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

as far as I understand the code in the RateLimiter.scala, it is like you described, but then capped to the maxLaunchDelay waiting period. Let`s say maxLaunchDelay is one hour (3600s)
3*2^0 = 3
3*2^1 = 6
3*2^2 = 12
3*2^3 = 24
3*2^4 = 48
3*2^5 = 96
3*2^6 = 192
3*2^7 = 384
3*2^8 = 768
3*2^9 = 1536
3*2^10 = 3072
3*2^11 = 3600 (6144)
3*2^12 = 3600 (12288)
3*2^13 = 3600 (24576)
Which brings us a typically 2^n graph, see
You would get a bigger increase, if you would other backoffFactors,
for example backoff factor 10:
or backoff factor 20:
Additionally I saw a re-work of this topic, code review currently open here: https://phabricator.mesosphere.com/D1007
What do you think?
Thanks
Johannes