US Patent 11463551 Using a sharded distributed cache as a pipeline integration buffer

Systems and methods of operating a distributed cache in a fast producer, slow consumer environment are disclosed. A system implements a distributed cache including a plurality of shards. Each shard includes a set of item containers selected from a plurality of containers. A first event related to a first item container in the set of item containers is received and the first item container is updated to include the first event. The first item container is positioned in at least one consumption queue. A second event related to the first item container in the set of item containers is received and the first item container is updated without changing the position of the first item container in the at least one consumption queue.