Techniques are provided for minimizing latency due to garbage collection in a distributed system. Time data is stored at a computing device. The time data indicates when each of multiple computing nodes (e.g., servers) in the distributed system might be performing (or is scheduled to perform) a garbage collection operation. The computing device receives a first request and, in response, determines, based on the time data, one or more computing nodes to process a second (e.g., related) request, which may contain identical content as in the first request. The second request is sent to the one or more computing nodes.