What is the Saga Pattern?
Updated Apr 28, 2026
Short answer
A sequence of local transactions where each service updates its own data and publishes an event to trigger the next step.
Deep explanation
As systems scale, maintaining consistency and resilience becomes harder. Patterns like Sagas manage distributed transactions without traditional locks. Circuit breakers prevent cascading failures by 'tripping' when a service is unhealthy, allowing it time to recover.
Real-world example
Netflix uses Hystrix/Resilience4j to ensure that if the 'Recommendations' service is slow, the user still sees their 'Watchlist'.
Common mistakes
- Implementing Sagas for every simple cross-service operation.
Follow-up questions
- What is a 'fallback' method?
- How do you handle data consistency in Sagas?