Data Retention Options

[andrewdodd]

New Feature Request
I think that the question of data retention is extremely important for users of this library. I also think that there are probably some pretty common problems that people will face and that there are only a few options available in the face of capacity problems. Thus, I think that this library should offer some basic retention options. (NB: The current batching feature is good for optimising performance, but cannot be used if you want to 'know' if your writes are successful).

In general, there are two classes of capacity limits:

• Explicitly set limits (i.e. make my buffer N big please); and
• Runtime limits (i.e. the system cannot supply the resources to meet the request).

In the face of these limits, I think there are a few possible responses:

• Throw an exception
• Block the thread until resources available (also could have an exception here)
• Discard the current request
• Discard the oldest buffered request.