Exponential Backoff is a retry strategy where the wait time between attempts increases exponentially after each failure, helping to reduce system strain and improve error handling. Instead of fixed intervals, the delay doubles with each retry (e.g., 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s).
Pros include reduced system load, efficient error handling, and improved stability, while cons involve increased latency due to longer wait times. It's particularly useful for scenarios like rate-limited APIs, network instability, database connections, and message queue systems.
In a practical example, an email sender service uses Exponential Backoff to retry sending emails after failures. The code implements a loop that retries sending the email, increasing the delay after each failure, and incorporating random jitter to avoid overwhelming the server.