US Patent 10007695 Replication lag-constrained deletion of data in a large-scale distributed data storage system

Computer-implemented techniques for replication-lag constrained deletion of data in a distributed data storage system. In some aspects, the techniques improve the operation of a computing system by preventing too high of a delete rate that causes severe replication lag while at the same time increasing and decreasing the delete rate over time to a maximum allowable delete rate constrained by measured replication lag in terms of both local replication lag and geographic replication lag. In one implementation, the delete rate is adjusted by increasing or decreasing a pause interval that determines how long a database data deletion process pauses between submitting database deletion commands to a database server.