def autoretry_datastore_timeouts(attempts=5.0, interval=0.1, exponent=2.0):
    """
    Copyright (C)  2009  twitter.com/rcb

    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
    obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
    files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
    restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
    copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
    copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
    Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
    conditions:

    The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
    included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
    EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
    OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
    NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
    HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
    WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
    FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
    OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

    ======================================================================

    This function wraps the AppEngine Datastore API to autoretry
    datastore timeouts at the lowest accessible level.

    The benefits of this approach are:

    1. Small Footprint:  Does not monkey with Model internals
                         which may break in future releases.
    2. Max Performance:  Retrying at this lowest level means
                         serialization and key formatting is not
                         needlessly repeated on each retry.
    At initialization time, execute this:

    >>> autoretry_datastore_timeouts()

    Should only be called once, subsequent calls have no effect.

    >>> autoretry_datastore_timeouts() # no effect

    Default (5) attempts: .1, .2, .4, .8, 1.6 seconds

    Parameters can each be specified as floats.

    :param attempts: maximum number of times to retry.
    :param interval: base seconds to sleep between retries.
    :param exponent: rate of exponential back-off.
    """

    import time, logging
    from google.appengine.api import apiproxy_stub_map
    from google.appengine.runtime import apiproxy_errors
    from google.appengine.datastore import datastore_pb

    attempts = float(attempts)
    interval = float(interval)
    exponent = float(exponent)
    wrapped = apiproxy_stub_map.MakeSyncCall
    errors = {datastore_pb.Error.TIMEOUT:'Timeout',
        datastore_pb.Error.CONCURRENT_TRANSACTION:'TransactionFailedError'}

    def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
        count = 0.0
        while True:
            try:
                return wrapped(*args, **kwargs)
            except apiproxy_errors.ApplicationError, err:
                errno = err.application_error
                if errno not in errors: raise
                sleep = (exponent ** count) * interval
                count += 1.0
                if count > attempts: raise
                msg = "Datastore %s: retry #%d in %s seconds.\n%s"
                vals = ''
                if count == 1.0:
                    vals = '\n'.join([str(a) for a in args])
                logging.warning(msg % (errors[errno], count, sleep, vals))
                time.sleep(sleep)

    setattr(wrapper, '_autoretry_datastore_timeouts', False)
    if getattr(wrapped, '_autoretry_datastore_timeouts', True):
        apiproxy_stub_map.MakeSyncCall = wrapper

