Hi,Piotr
Sorry for so late to response.
First of all I think Flink runtime can assigned a thread for a StreamTask,
which likes 'Actor' model. The number of threads for a StreamTask should
not be proportional to the operator or other things. This will give Flink
the ability to scale horizontally. So I think it's not just the
network(flush),checkpoint and source, but some operators' threads can also
be removed in the future, like AsyncWaitOperator.
for b)
When using event time, some sources want to assign a timestamp to each
element. In current Flink interface, user will write like this
public class EventTimeSource<Element> implements SourceFunction {
public void run() {
while(...){
Element record = // get from file or some queue;
long timestamp = parseTimestampFromElement(record);
sourceContext.collectWithTimestamp(record, timestamp);
}
}
}
Using the interfaces from this FLIP, user can write like this
public EventTimeSplitReader<Element,X> implements SplitReader {
Element currentRecord = null;
// Please ignoring the handling of boundary conditions
public boolean advace(){
currentRecord = //move a pointer forward
return true;
}
public Element getCurrent(){
return currentRecord;
}
public long getCurrentTimestamp() {
return parseTimestampFromElement(currentRecord);
}
}
if merging the advance/getNext to a method like getNext() , the SplitReader
interface may need to change a little like this
public interface SplitReader2<T,X> {
public class ElementWithTimestamp {
T element;
long timestamp;
}
public ElementWithTimestamp getNext() ;
}
Now user may need implement the source like this
public EventTimeSplitReader<Element,X> implements SplitReader2 {
Element currentRecord = null;
// Please ignoring the handling of boundary conditions
public ElementWithTimestamp getCurrent(){
return new ElementWithTimestamp(currentRecord,
parseTimestampFromElement(currentRecord))
}
}
The user can use a constant ElementWithTimestamp but I think this need the
every connector developers to know this trick. The current Flip will not
have this burden.
Maybe there has other way like '' void getCurrent(ElementWithTimestamp)"
to avoid creating a new object. But my personal preference is
‘advance/getCurrent’.
Piotr Nowojski <pi...@data-artisans.com> 于2018年11月7日周三 下午4:31写道：
> Hi,
>
> a)
>
> > BTW, regarding the isBlock() method, I have a few more questions. 21, Is
> a method isReady() with boolean as a return value
> > equivalent? Personally I found it is a little bit confusing in what is
> supposed to be returned when the future is completed. 22. if
> > the implementation of isBlocked() is optional, how do the callers know
> whether the method is properly implemented or not?
> > Does not implemented mean it always return a completed future?
>
> `CompletableFuture<?> isBlocked()` is more or less an equivalent to
> `boolean hasNext()` which in case of “false” provides some kind of a
> listener/callback that notifies about presence of next element. There are
> some minor details, like `CompletableFuture<?>` has a minimal two state
> logic:
>
> 1. Future is completed - we have more data
> 2. Future not yet completed - we don’t have data now, but we might/we will
> have in the future
>
> While `boolean hasNext()` and `notify()` callback are a bit more
> complicated/dispersed and can lead/encourage `notify()` spam.
>
> b)
>
> > 3. If merge the `advance` and `getCurrent` to one method like `getNext`
> the `getNext` would need return a
> >`ElementWithTimestamp` because some sources want to add timestamp to
> every element. IMO, this is not so memory friendly
> > so I prefer this design.
>
> Guowei I don’t quite understand this. Could you elaborate why having a
> separate `advance()` help?
>
> c)
>
> Regarding advance/poll/take. What’s the value of having two separate
> methods: poll and take? Which one of them should be called and which
> implemented? What’s the benefit of having those methods compared to having
> a one single method `getNextElement()` (or `pollElement() or whatever we
> name it) with following contract:
>
> CompletableFuture<?> isBlocked();
>
> /**
> Return next element - will be called only if `isBlocked()` is completed.
> Try to implement it in non blocking fashion, but if that’s impossible or
> you just don’t need the effort, you can block in this method.
> */
> T getNextElement();
>
> I mean, if the connector is implemented non-blockingly, Flink should use
> it that way. If it’s not, then `poll()` will `throw new
> NotImplementedException()`. Implementing both of them and providing both of
> them to Flink wouldn’t make a sense, thus why not merge them into a single
> method call that should preferably (but not necessarily need to) be
> non-blocking? It’s not like we are implementing general purpose `Queue`,
> which users might want to call either of `poll` or `take`. We would always
> prefer to call `poll`, but if it’s blocking, then still we have no choice,
> but to call it and block on it.
>
> d)
>
> > 1. I agree with Piotr and Becket that the non-blocking source is very
> > important. But in addition to `Future/poll`, there may be another way to
> > achieve this. I think it may be not very memory friendly if every advance
> > call return a Future.
>
> I didn’t want to mention this, to not clog my initial proposal, but there
> is a simple solution for the problem:
>
> public interface SplitReader {
>
> (…)
>
> CompletableFuture<?> NOT_BLOCKED =
> CompletableFuture.completedFuture(null);
>
> /**
> * Returns a future that will be completed when the page source becomes
> * unblocked. If the page source is not blocked, this method should
> return
> * {@code NOT_BLOCKED}.
> */
> default CompletableFuture<?> isBlocked()
> {
> return NOT_BLOCKED;
> }
>
> If we are blocked and we are waiting for the IO, then creating a new
> Future is non-issue. Under full throttle/throughput and not blocked sources
> returning a static `NOT_BLOCKED` constant should also solve the problem.
>
> One more remark, non-blocking sources might be a necessity in a single
> threaded model without a checkpointing lock. (Currently when sources are
> blocked, they can release checkpointing lock and re-acquire it again
> later). Non-blocking `poll`/`getNext()` would allow for checkpoints to
> happen when source is idling. In that case either `notify()` or my proposed
> `isBlocked()` would allow to avoid busy-looping.
>
> Piotrek
>
> > On 5 Nov 2018, at 03:59, Becket Qin <becket....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Thomas,
> >
> > The iterator-like API was also the first thing that came to me. But it
> > seems a little confusing that hasNext() does not mean "the stream has not
> > ended", but means "the next record is ready", which is repurposing the
> well
> > known meaning of hasNext(). If we follow the hasNext()/next() pattern, an
> > additional isNextReady() method to indicate whether the next record is
> > ready seems more intuitive to me.
> >
> > Similarly, in poll()/take() pattern, another method of isDone() is needed
> > to indicate whether the stream has ended or not.
> >
> > Compared with hasNext()/next()/isNextReady() pattern,
> > isDone()/poll()/take() seems more flexible for the reader implementation.
> > When I am implementing a reader, I could have a couple of choices:
> >
> > - A thread-less reader that does not have any internal thread.
> > - When poll() is called, the same calling thread will perform a bunch
> of
> > IO asynchronously.
> > - When take() is called, the same calling thread will perform a
> bunch
> > of IO and wait until the record is ready.
> > - A reader with internal threads performing network IO and put records
> > into a buffer.
> > - When poll() is called, the calling thread simply reads from the
> > buffer and return empty result immediately if there is no record.
> > - When take() is called, the calling thread reads from the buffer
> and
> > block waiting if the buffer is empty.
> >
> > On the other hand, with the hasNext()/next()/isNextReady() API, it is
> less
> > intuitive for the reader developers to write the thread-less pattern.
> > Although technically speaking one can still do the asynchronous IO to
> > prepare the record in isNextReady(). But it is inexplicit and seems
> > somewhat hacky.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Jiangjie (Becket) Qin
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 6:55 AM Thomas Weise <t...@apache.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Couple more points regarding discovery:
> >>
> >> The proposal mentions that discovery could be outside the execution
> graph.
> >> Today, discovered partitions/shards are checkpointed. I believe that
> will
> >> also need to be the case in the future, even when discovery and reading
> are
> >> split between different tasks.
> >>
> >> For cases such as resharding of a Kinesis stream, the relationship
> between
> >> splits needs to be considered. Splits cannot be randomly distributed
> over
> >> readers in certain situations. An example was mentioned here:
> >> https://github.com/apache/flink/pull/6980#issuecomment-435202809
> >>
> >> Thomas
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Nov 4, 2018 at 1:43 PM Thomas Weise <t...@apache.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this!
> >>>
> >>> Can the number of splits decrease? Yes, splits can be closed and go
> away.
> >>> An example would be a shard merge in Kinesis (2 existing shards will be
> >>> closed and replaced with a new shard).
> >>>
> >>> Regarding advance/poll/take: IMO the least restrictive approach would
> be
> >>> the thread-less IO model (pull based, non-blocking, caller retrieves
> new
> >>> records when available). The current Kinesis API requires the use of
> >>> threads. But that can be internal to the split reader and does not need
> >> to
> >>> be a source API concern. In fact, that's what we are working on right
> now
> >>> as improvement to the existing consumer: Each shard consumer thread
> will
> >>> push to a queue, the consumer main thread will poll the queue(s). It is
> >>> essentially a mapping from threaded IO to non-blocking.
> >>>
> >>> The proposed SplitReader interface would fit the thread-less IO model.
> >>> Similar to an iterator, we find out if there is a new element (hasNext)
> >> and
> >>> if so, move to it (next()). Separate calls deliver the meta information
> >>> (timestamp, watermark). Perhaps advance call could offer a timeout
> >> option,
> >>> so that the caller does not end up in a busy wait. On the other hand, a
> >>> caller processing multiple splits may want to cycle through fast, to
> >>> process elements of other splits as soon as they become available. The
> >> nice
> >>> thing is that this "split merge" logic can now live in Flink and be
> >>> optimized and shared between different sources.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> Thomas
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Nov 4, 2018 at 6:34 AM Guowei Ma <guowei....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>> Thanks Aljoscha for this FLIP.
> >>>>
> >>>> 1. I agree with Piotr and Becket that the non-blocking source is very
> >>>> important. But in addition to `Future/poll`, there may be another way
> to
> >>>> achieve this. I think it may be not very memory friendly if every
> >> advance
> >>>> call return a Future.
> >>>>
> >>>> public interface Listener {
> >>>> public void notify();
> >>>> }
> >>>>
> >>>> public interface SplitReader() {
> >>>> /**
> >>>> * When there is no element temporarily, this will return false.
> >>>> * When elements is available again splitReader can call
> >>>> listener.notify()
> >>>> * In addition the frame would check `advance` periodically .
> >>>> * Of course advance can always return true and ignore the
> listener
> >>>> argument for simplicity.
> >>>> */
> >>>> public boolean advance(Listener listener);
> >>>> }
> >>>>
> >>>> 2. The FLIP tells us very clearly that how to create all Splits and
> how
> >>>> to create a SplitReader from a Split. But there is no strategy for the
> >> user
> >>>> to choose how to assign the splits to the tasks. I think we could add
> a
> >>>> Enum to let user to choose.
> >>>> /**
> >>>> public Enum SplitsAssignmentPolicy {
> >>>> Location,
> >>>> Workload,
> >>>> Random,
> >>>> Average
> >>>> }
> >>>> */
> >>>>
> >>>> 3. If merge the `advance` and `getCurrent` to one method like
> `getNext`
> >>>> the `getNext` would need return a `ElementWithTimestamp` because some
> >>>> sources want to add timestamp to every element. IMO, this is not so
> >> memory
> >>>> friendly so I prefer this design.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>>
> >>>> Piotr Nowojski <pi...@data-artisans.com> 于2018年11月1日周四 下午6:08写道：
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks Aljoscha for starting this, it’s blocking quite a lot of other
> >>>>> possible improvements. I have one proposal. Instead of having a
> method:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> boolean advance() throws IOException;
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I would replace it with
> >>>>>
> >>>>> /*
> >>>>> * Return a future, which when completed means that source has more
> >> data
> >>>>> and getNext() will not block.
> >>>>> * If you wish to use benefits of non blocking connectors, please
> >>>>> implement this method appropriately.
> >>>>> */
> >>>>> default CompletableFuture<?> isBlocked() {
> >>>>> return CompletableFuture.completedFuture(null);
> >>>>> }
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And rename `getCurrent()` to `getNext()`.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Couple of arguments:
> >>>>> 1. I don’t understand the division of work between `advance()` and
> >>>>> `getCurrent()`. What should be done in which, especially for
> connectors
> >>>>> that handle records in batches (like Kafka) and when should you call
> >>>>> `advance` and when `getCurrent()`.
> >>>>> 2. Replacing `boolean` with `CompletableFuture<?>` will allow us in
> the
> >>>>> future to have asynchronous/non blocking connectors and more
> >> efficiently
> >>>>> handle large number of blocked threads, without busy waiting. While
> at
> >> the
> >>>>> same time it doesn’t add much complexity, since naive connector
> >>>>> implementations can be always blocking.
> >>>>> 3. This also would allow us to use a fixed size thread pool of task
> >>>>> executors, instead of one thread per task.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Piotrek
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 31 Oct 2018, at 17:22, Aljoscha Krettek <aljos...@apache.org>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Hi All,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In order to finally get the ball rolling on the new source interface
> >>>>> that we have discussed for so long I finally created a FLIP:
> >>>>>
> >>
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLINK/FLIP-27%3A+Refactor+Source+Interface
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I cc'ed Thomas and Jamie because of the ongoing work/discussion
> about
> >>>>> adding per-partition watermark support to the Kinesis source and
> >> because
> >>>>> this would enable generic implementation of event-time alignment for
> >> all
> >>>>> sources. Maybe we need another FLIP for the event-time alignment
> part,
> >>>>> especially the part about information sharing between operations (I'm
> >> not
> >>>>> calling it state sharing because state has a special meaning in
> Flink).
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Please discuss away!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Aljoscha
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>
>
>
