☂ Prepare for heavier load from VtS

[Mr0grog]

Vaccinate the States is preparing to use our API on their front-end, which means they’ll be directing much more traffic to use than we currently handle. We are probably OK for the load they’re currently experiencing (much lower than were a couple months ago at the height of), but we should still take some basic measures to make sure we can handle load spikes, like adding caching or using separate databases for reads and writes.

This is a meta-issue for tracking actual tasks.

• Use separate read & write databases #203
• Add API Gateway or a Caching Layer for Queries #204

Less core, but potentially valuable tasks:

• Add querystring parameters to limit which fields are returned #201 (The size of the slots and capacity fields adds notable memory and processing costs to queries and joins, the ability to drop those fields from a query has meaningful load impact.)
• Smart implementation and caching for Add search by coordinate + radius #200.

[Mr0grog]

I’m closing this issue (VtS has shut down, so better supporting them is no longer a thing), but leaving the subtasks open, since they are still relevant and useful independent of a specific partner (although they are probably lower priority now).