The world generates an unfathomable amount of data, and it continues to multiply at a staggering rate. Companies have quickly shifted from batch processing to data streams to keep up with the ever growing amounts of big data. In this article, we’ll cover what data streaming is, how it differs from batch processing, and how your organization can benefit from real-time streams of data.
Stream processing, also known as data streaming, is a software paradigm that ingests, processes, and manages continuous streams of data while they're still in motion. Data is rarely static, and the ability to empower data as it's generated has become crucial to the success of today's world.
Modern data processing has progressed from legacy batch processing of data towards working with real-time data stream processing. Similarly, consumers now stream data like movies on Netflix or songs on Spotify instead of waiting for the entire movie or album to be downloaded. The ability to process data streams in real-time is a key part in the world of big data.
Read on to learn a little more about how stream processing helps with real-time analyses and data ingestion.
Legacy infrastructure was much more structured because it only had a handful of sources that generated data and the entire system could be architected in a way to specify and unify the data and data structures.
Modern data is generated by an infinite amount of sources whether it’s from hardware sensors, servers, mobile devices, applications, web browsers, internal and external and it’s almost impossible to regulate or enforce the data structure or control the volume and frequency of the data generated. Applications that analyze and process data streams need to process one data packet at a time, in sequential order. Each data packet generated will include the source and timestamp to enable applications to work with data streams.
Applications working with data streams will always require two main functions: storage and processing. Storage must be able to record large streams of data in a way that is sequential and consistent. Processing must be able to interact with storage, consume, analyze and run computation on the data.
This also brings up additional challenges and considerations when working with data streams. Many platforms and tools are now available to help companies build streaming data applications.
All industries that are generating data continuously will benefit from processing streaming data. The use cases typically start from internal IT systems monitoring and reporting like collecting the data streams generated by employees interacting with their web browser and devices and the data generated by its applications and servers. The operations of the company and its products benefit from data stream processing of sensors, equipment, data centers and many more sources.
Since its customers and partners also consume and process streaming data, the ability to send, receive, process streaming data becomes increasingly important. As more companies rely on its data, its ability to process, analyze, apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to streaming data is crucial.
The key differences in selecting how to house all the data in an organization comes down to these considerations:
###Here’s a breakdown of major differences between batch processing, real-time data processing, and streaming data:
| Batch Data Processing | Real-Time Data Processing | Streaming Data | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Most storage and processing resources requirement to process large batches of data. | Less storage required to process the current or recent set of data packets. Less computational requirements. | Less storage required to process current data packets. More processing resources required to “stay awake” in order to meet real-time processing guarantees |
| Performance | Latency could be minutes, hours, or days | Latency needs to be in seconds or milliseconds | Latency must be guaranteed in milliseconds |
| Data set | Large batches of data | Current data packet or a few of them | Continuous streams of data |
| Analysis | Complex computation and analysis of a larger time frame | Simple reporting or computation | Simple reporting or computation |
スケーラビリティ: システム障害が発生すると、各デバイスから流入するログデータが毎秒キロビットから毎秒メガビットへ、さらに集約されて毎秒ギガビットへと増大する可能性があります。アプリケーションの拡張に合わせて容量、リソースやサーバーを追加すると、瞬時に生データの生成量が指数関数的に増加します。ストリーミングデータを取り扱う際には、スケーラビリティを備えたアプリケーション設計が欠かせません。
順序付け: データストリーム内のデータの順序の決定は些細なことではなく、多くのアプリケーションで非常に重要なことです。チャットや会話は順番が揃っていないと意味をなさず、開発者が集約されたログビューを確認して問題をデバッグする際には、各行が順番に並んでいなければなりません。生成時点でのデータパケットの順序と配信先にそうしたパケットが届く順序は異なることが多く、データを生成するデバイスのタイムスタンプやクロックにもずれが生じることがあります。データストリームを解析する際には、アプリケーションが ACID トランザクションを前提としていることを認識しておく必要があります。
一貫性と耐久性 : データストリーム処理において、データの一貫性とデータへのアクセスは常に困難な問題となります。ある時点で読み込まれたデータが、世界の別の場所にある別のデータセンターではすでに修正され、古くなっている可能性もあります。また、クラウド上のデータストリームを取り扱う際にはデータの耐久性も課題となります。
フォールトトレランスとデータの保証 : データ、ストリーム処理やその他の分散システムを扱う際に考慮すべき重要な点です。データが無数のソースやロケーションからさまざまなフォーマットや量で流入する中、システムが単一障害点による混乱を防げるか、ストリームデータを高い可用性と耐久性で保管できるかなどが焦点となります。
Built by the original creators of Apache Kafka®, the most popular stream processing framework, Confluent enables stream processing on a global scale.
By integrating historical and real-time data into a single, central source of truth, Confluent makes it easy to empower modern, event-driven applications with a universal data pipeline and real-time data architecture. Unlock powerful new use cases with full scalability, performance, and reliability.