MobileConfig: Remote Configuration Management for Mobile Apps at Hyperscale
Talkat 21st USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI '24) · 2024-04-16..04-18·
summary
MobileConfig runs a cross-platform client and a single server evaluation engine that manages configs for billions of devices since 2015, handling apps with >10,000 parameters and >1,000 daily config changes. Clients use a thin SDK that memory-maps a compact flatbuffer storage and reads precomputed integer symbols (code-generated indices) for fast, immutable local access; the server re-evaluates per-user values. Startup uses partial fetch to fetch only early-access keys, servers monitor consistent reporting by comparing client-reported reads to server reevaluations (~99.7% consistency), canaries catch regressions (40 severe issues in 2023), and an emergency push plus optional restart forces rapid rollback.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00MobileConfig at Meta
- 2:22Mobile config challenges
- 3:49How MobileConfig works
- 7:16MobileConfig design needs
- 9:43Local storage and API optimizations
- 11:26Fresh app startup dilemma
- 13:11Logging for config validation
- 14:49Canary testing and emergency push
- 17:32Summary
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