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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 |
Expansibilidad: cuando se producen fallos en el sistema, los datos de registro procedentes de cada dispositivo podrían pasar de enviarse a una velocidad de kilobits por segundo a megabits por segundo y agregarse para llegar a gigabits por segundo. La adición de más capacidad, recursos y servidores a medida que las aplicaciones se expanden se produce de forma instantánea, aumentando exponencialmente la cantidad de datos sin procesar que se generan. Diseñar aplicaciones a escala es crucial para trabajar con transmisiones de datos.
Ordenar: es importante determinar la secuencia de los datos en la transmisión de estos, es fundamental en muchas aplicaciones. Una charla o conversación no tendría sentido si está desordenada. Cuando los desarrolladores buscan un problema en una vista de registro agregada, es crucial que cada línea esté en orden. A menudo hay discrepancias entre el orden del paquete de datos que se ha generado y el orden en que alcanza el destino. También suele haber discrepancias en las marcas de tiempo y los relojes de los dispositivos que generan los datos. Cuando se analizan las transmisiones de datos, las aplicaciones tienen que ser conscientes de sus suposiciones sobre las transacciones ACID.
Coherencia y durabilidad: la coherencia y el acceso a los datos siempre son un problema difícil en el procesamiento de transmisiones de datos. Los datos que se lean en un momento dado podrían estar ya modificados y anquilosados en otro centro de datos en otra parte del mundo. La durabilidad de estos también es un desafío cuando se trabaja con transmisiones de datos en cloud.
Tolerancia a fallos y garantías de datos: estas son consideraciones importantes cuando se trabaja con datos, procesamiento de transmisiones (stream processing) o cualquier sistema distribuido. Con los datos procedentes de numerosas fuentes y ubicaciones, y en diferentes formatos y volúmenes, ¿puede tu sistema evitar las interrupciones derivadas de un único punto de fallo? ¿Puede el sistema almacenar transmisiones de datos con alta disponibilidad y durabilidad?
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.