Hey Michael, Yeah, I don't think you need to go into the details of whatever you guys have. I think several people in the thread said "let's do XA transactions too!" Obviously in a world where features were free and always worked perfectly we would! I've probably talked to about 100 people about their use of XA transactions in different systems and my observation has been (a) they are a bit of an operational nightmare, (b) the use cases i've understood don't actually require full XA transactions they actually require a much weaker and easier to guarantee property. The result is you pay a big complexity cost for a guarantee much stronger than what you wanted. My sense is that this opinion is broadly shared by the distributed systems community at large and by Kafka folks in particular.
I'm a contrarian so I think it is great not to be too swayed by "common wisdom" though. Five years ago there was a consensus that distributed transactions were too hard to implement in an operationally sound way, which i think was not correct, so the bad reputation for cross-system transactions may be equally wrong! To build a compelling case this is wrong I think two things need to be done: 1. Build a case that there are a large/important set of use cases that cannot be solved with two independent transactions (as i described), and that these use cases are things Kafka should be able to do. 2. Come up with the concrete extensions to the KIP-98 proposal that would enable an operationally sound implementation for pluggable multi-system XA. -Jay On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Michael Pearce <michael.pea...@ig.com> wrote: > Hi Jay, > > I can't go too deep into exact implantation due to no NDA. So apologies > here. > > Essentially we have multiple processes each owning selection of accounts > so on general flows an action for an account just needs to be managed local > to the owning node, happy days ever change is handled as a tick tock change. > > Unfortunately when a transfer occurs we need the two processes to > co-ordinate their transaction, we also need to ensure both don't continue > other actions/changesl, we do this using a data grid technology. This grid > technology supports transaction manager that we couple into currently our > jms provider which supports full XA transactions as such we can manage the > production of the change messages out the system transactionally as well as > the in grid state. > > The obvious arguement here is should we even look to move this flow off > JMS then. We prob shouldn't nor will do this. > > The point is that I think saying Kafka supports transactions but then not > supporting it as per the traditional sense leads to developers expecting > similar behaviour and will cause issues in prod when they find it doesn't > work as they're used to. > > As my other response earlier, is there a better name to describe this > feature, if we're not implementing transactions to the traditional > transaction expected, to avoid this confusion? > > > Sent using OWA for iPhone > ________________________________________ > From: Jay Kreps <j...@confluent.io> > Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 6:08:07 PM > To: dev@kafka.apache.org > Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] KIP-98: Exactly Once Delivery and Transactional > Messaging > > Hey Michael, > > Doesn't that example have more to do with applying the update against two > rows in a single transaction? That is, clearly the write to Kafka needs to > be "transactional" and the write to the destination needs to be > transactional, but it's not clear to me that you need isolation that spans > both operations. Can you dive into the system architecture a bit more and > explain why Kafka needs to participate in the same transaction as the > destination system? > > -Jay > > On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 10:19 PM, Michael Pearce <michael.pea...@ig.com> > wrote: > > > Usecase in IG: > > > > Fund transfer between accounts. When we debit one account and fund > another > > we must ensure the records to both occur as an acid action, and as a > single > > transaction. > > > > Today we achieve this because we have jms, as such we can do the actions > > needed in an xa transaction across both the accounts. To move this flow > to > > Kafka we would need support of XA transaction. > > > > > > > > Sent using OWA for iPhone > > ________________________________________ > > From: Michael Pearce <michael.pea...@ig.com> > > Sent: Friday, December 9, 2016 6:09:06 AM > > To: dev@kafka.apache.org > > Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] KIP-98: Exactly Once Delivery and Transactional > > Messaging > > > > Hi Jay, > > > > For me having an XA transaction allows for ensuring ACID across my > > application. > > > > I believe it is part of the JMS api, and obviously JMS still is in > > enterprise very widely adopted for Messaging transport , so obviously to > > say it isn't widely used i think is ignoring a whole range of users. Like > > wise I believe frameworks like spring etc fully support it more evidence > of > > its wide adoption. > > > > On this note personally we try to avoid transactions entirely in our > flows > > for performance and simplicity. but we do alas unfortunately have one or > > two places we cannot ignore it. > > > > Cheers > > Mike > > > > Sent using OWA for iPhone > > ________________________________________ > > From: Jay Kreps <j...@confluent.io> > > Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2016 11:25:53 PM > > To: dev@kafka.apache.org > > Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] KIP-98: Exactly Once Delivery and Transactional > > Messaging > > > > Hey Edoardo, > > > > For (3) can you outline what you think the benefit and use cases for a > more > > general cross-system XA feature would be an what changes to the proposal > > would be required to enable it? When I have asked people who wanted > > cross-system XA in the past what they wanted it for, I haven't really > > gotten any answers that made sense. Every person really wanted something > > that would be better solved by a transactional (or idempotent) write to > > Kafka followed by an independent transactional (or idempotent) > consumption > > (which this proposal enables). For the use cases they described tying > these > > two things together had no advantage and many disadvantages. > > > > I have one use case which would be accomplished by cross-system XA which > is > > allowing the producer to block on the synchronous processing of the > message > > by (all? some?) consumers. However I'm not convinced that cross-system XA > > is the best solution to this problem, and I'm also not convinced this is > an > > important problem to solve. But maybe you have something in mind here. > > > > -Jay > > > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 1:15 PM, Edoardo Comar <eco...@uk.ibm.com> wrote: > > > > > Hi, > > > thanks, very interesting KIP ... I haven't fully digested it yet. > > > > > > We have many users who choose not to use the Java client, so I have > > > concerns about the added complexity in developing the clients. > > > A few questions. > > > > > > 1 - is mixing transactional and non transactional messages on the *same > > > topic-partition* really a requirement ? > > > What use case does it satisfy? > > > > > > 2 - I guess some clients may only be interested to implement the > producer > > > idempotency. > > > It's not clear how they could be implemented without having to add the > > > transaction capabilities. > > > As others on this list have said, I too would like to see idempotency > as > > a > > > more basic feature, on top which txns can be built. > > > > > > 3 - The KIP seems focused on a use case where consumption from a topic > > and > > > subsequent production are part of the producer transaction. > > > > > > It'd be great to see a way to extend the producer transaction to > include > > > additional transactional resources, > > > so that the consumption from another topic just becomes a special case > of > > > a more general "distributed" txn. > > > > > > Edo > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > Edoardo Comar > > > IBM MessageHub > > > eco...@uk.ibm.com > > > IBM UK Ltd, Hursley Park, SO21 2JN > > > > > > IBM United Kingdom Limited Registered in England and Wales with number > > > 741598 Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hants. > > PO6 > > > 3AU > > > > > > > > > > > > From: Guozhang Wang <wangg...@gmail.com> > > > To: "dev@kafka.apache.org" <dev@kafka.apache.org> > > > Date: 30/11/2016 22:20 > > > Subject: [DISCUSS] KIP-98: Exactly Once Delivery and > Transactional > > > Messaging > > > > > > > > > > > > Hi all, > > > > > > I have just created KIP-98 to enhance Kafka with exactly once delivery > > > semantics: > > > > > > *https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP- > > > 98+-+Exactly+Once+Delivery+and+Transactional+Messaging > > > < > > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP- > > > 98+-+Exactly+Once+Delivery+and+Transactional+Messaging > > > >* > > > > > > This KIP adds a transactional messaging mechanism along with an > > idempotent > > > producer implementation to make sure that 1) duplicated messages sent > > from > > > the same identified producer can be detected on the broker side, and > 2) a > > > group of messages sent within a transaction will atomically be either > > > reflected and fetchable to consumers or not as a whole. > > > > > > The above wiki page provides a high-level view of the proposed changes > as > > > well as summarized guarantees. Initial draft of the detailed > > > implementation > > > design is described in this Google doc: > > > > > > https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Jqy_ > GjUGtdXJK94XGsEIK7CP1SnQGdp2eF > > > 0wSw9ra8 > > > > > > > > > We would love to hear your comments and suggestions. > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > -- Guozhang > > > > > > > > > > > > Unless stated otherwise above: > > > IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with > number > > > 741598. > > > Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 > > 3AU > > > > > The information contained in this email is strictly confidential and for > > the use of the addressee only, unless otherwise indicated. If you are not > > the intended recipient, please do not read, copy, use or disclose to > others > > this message or any attachment. Please also notify the sender by replying > > to this email or by telephone (+44(020 7896 0011) and then delete the > email > > and any copies of it. Opinions, conclusion (etc) that do not relate to > the > > official business of this company shall be understood as neither given > nor > > endorsed by it. IG is a trading name of IG Markets Limited (a company > > registered in England and Wales, company number 04008957) and IG Index > > Limited (a company registered in England and Wales, company number > > 01190902). Registered address at Cannon Bridge House, 25 Dowgate Hill, > > London EC4R 2YA. Both IG Markets Limited (register number 195355) and IG > > Index Limited (register number 114059) are authorised and regulated by > the > > Financial Conduct Authority. > > > The information contained in this email is strictly confidential and for > the use of the addressee only, unless otherwise indicated. If you are not > the intended recipient, please do not read, copy, use or disclose to others > this message or any attachment. Please also notify the sender by replying > to this email or by telephone (+44(020 7896 0011) and then delete the email > and any copies of it. Opinions, conclusion (etc) that do not relate to the > official business of this company shall be understood as neither given nor > endorsed by it. IG is a trading name of IG Markets Limited (a company > registered in England and Wales, company number 04008957) and IG Index > Limited (a company registered in England and Wales, company number > 01190902). Registered address at Cannon Bridge House, 25 Dowgate Hill, > London EC4R 2YA. Both IG Markets Limited (register number 195355) and IG > Index Limited (register number 114059) are authorised and regulated by the > Financial Conduct Authority. >
