Forward message compatibility safety in producer-consumer systems

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving, by a first consumer, a first message, wherein a set of consumers of a producer-consumer system includes a main consumer subset and a backstop consumer subset, wherein a plurality of updates to message processing information are deployed to the set of consumers, wherein each update of the plurality of updates is first deployed to the backstop consumer subset and is subsequently deployed to the main consumer subset, and wherein the first consumer is in the main consumer subset;
• performing, by the first consumer, a first processing attempt to process the first message;
• determining, by the first consumer, that the first processing attempt has failed;
• providing, by the first consumer, based on failure of the first processing attempt, the first message for processing by the backstop consumer subset;
• receiving, by a second consumer in the backstop consumer subset, the first message;
• and
• processing, by the second consumer, the first message.

One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computing instructions that, upon execution by one or computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, by a first consumer, a first message, wherein a set of consumers of a producer-consumer system of a certificate management service includes a main consumer subset and a backstop consumer subset, wherein a plurality of updates to message processing information are deployed to the set of consumers, wherein each update of the plurality of updates is first deployed to the backstop consumer subset and is subsequently deployed to the main consumer subset, and wherein the first consumer is in the main consumer subset;
• performing, by the first consumer, a first processing attempt to process the first message;
• determining, by the first consumer, that the first processing attempt has failed;
• providing, by the first consumer, based on failure of the first processing attempt, the first message for processing by the backstop consumer subset;
• receiving, by a second consumer in the backstop consumer subset, the first message;
• performing, by the second consumer, a second processing attempt to process the first message;
• determining, by the second consumer, that the second processing attempt has failed;
• and
• generating, by the second consumer, an alert based on failure of the second processing attempt.