Replicated time wheel delay event scheduling

A method comprising:

• receiving a request to schedule an event to be triggered at a future time;
• updating a main copy of a time wheel maintained in memory of a computing device to comprise information describing the event and at least one operation to be performed as part of triggering the event at the future time;
• transmitting an update to a subset of a plurality of replica copies of the time wheel that are each maintained in memory of a different computing device;
• and
• responsive to receiving a commit message from the subset of the plurality of replica copies of the time wheel indicating that the update was successfully recorded in the replica copy of the time wheel, maintaining the information describing the event and the at least one operation to be performed as part of triggering the event at the future time;
• or
• responsive to not receiving the commit message from the subset of the plurality of replica copies of the time wheel, removing the information describing the event and the at least one operation to be performed as part of triggering the event at the future time and transmitting a failure message to a source from which the request to schedule the event was received.

A system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
• maintaining a main copy of a time wheel in memory of a first computing device, the time wheel comprising a plurality of slots that each correspond to a different point in time and comprise information for at least one event to occur at a corresponding point in time;
• maintaining a plurality of replica copies of the time wheel in memory of a plurality of computing devices that are each different than the first computing device;
• receiving a request to schedule an event to be triggered at a future time;
• issuing an update to the main copy of the time wheel to comprise the event in one of the plurality of slots that corresponds to a system clock cycle occurring at the future time;
• propagating the update to a subset of the plurality of replica copies;
• advancing the main copy of the time wheel and each of the plurality of replica copies of the time wheel by one slot each system clock cycle;
• and
• triggering execution of the event from the main copy of the time wheel at the future time at least one event in response to detecting that one of the plurality of slots corresponding to a current time comprises the at least one event.