Pat Helland and me: A talk about “Life Beyond Distributed Transactions: An Apostate’s Opinion”

In 2007, Pat Helland published “Life Beyond Distributed Transactions: An Apostate’s Opinion,” in which he conducts a thought experiment on how to design a distributed database that can scale almost infinitely. While the paper explicitly addresses distributed database design, Sean T. Allen shows that the ideas are far more widely applicable, particularly in scaling stateful applications. Sean explores some of Helland’s ideas through practical examples from his experience building data processing systems using tools like Apache Storm and, more recently, developing a stateful distributed stream processor at Wallaroo Labs.

Transcript

1. PAT HELLAND AND ME A TALK ABOUT “LIFE BEYOND DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTIONS: AN APOSTATE’S OPINION”
2. SEAN T. ALLEN VP OF ENGINEERING AT WALLAROO LABS MEMBER OF THE PONY CORE TEAM AUTHOR OF “STORM APPLIED” LOVER OF FRENCH STREET ART @SEANTALLEN @WALLAROOLABS @PONYLANG
3. PAT HELLAND AND ME
4. PAT HELLAND WRITER OF PAPERS I LOVE
5. PAT HELLAND LIFE BEYOND DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTIONS
6. WHAT’S IN THIS TALK…
7. SOME AXIOMS…
8. TO SCALE INFINITELY, WE HAVE TO SCALE HORIZONTALLY
9. TO SCALE INFINITELY, WE MUST AVOID COORDINATION
10. DISTRIBUTED TRANSACTIONS ARE A FORM OF COORDINATION
11. THEREFORE… TO SCALE INFINITELY, WE CAN’T USE TRANSACTIONS
12. WHAT IS SCALING?
13. MORE AND MORE THINGS BUT, THEY DON’T GET BIGGER. THERE’S JUST… MORE OF THEM. LOTS MORE.
14. WE SCALE ENTITIES ENTITIES: LIVE ON A SINGLE MACHINE AND ARE MANIPULATED INDIVIDUALLY
15. WHAT IS AN ENTITY?
16. ENTITIES ARE BOUNDARIES OF ATOMICITY
17. Bob 6 3 5 8 Alice 4 2 7 1
18. Bob 6 3 5 8 Alice 4 2 7 1
19. Bob 6 3 5 8 Alice 4 7 1 2
20. Bob 6 3 5 8 Alice 4 2 7 1
21. Bob 6 3 5 8 Alice 4 2 7 1
22. DENORMALIZE.. ALL THE THINGS!
23. TWO-LAYER ARCHITECTURE
24. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
25. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
26. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
27. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
28. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
29. scale-agnostic scale-aware API
30. TO SCALE INFINITELY, YOUR BUSINESS LOGIC HAS TO BE INDEPENDENT OF SCALE
31. TWO BIG IDEAS A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES
32. WALLAROO SCALE INDEPENDENT COMPUTING FOR PYTHON
33. ENTITIES BUT WE CALL THEM… “STATE OBJECTS”
34. TWO-LAYER ARCHITECTURE BUT WE CALL IT… “SCALE INDEPENDENCE”
35. user supplied logic Wallaroo runtime Wallaroo API
36. user supplied logic Wallaroo runtime Wallaroo API
37. user supplied logic Wallaroo runtime Wallaroo API
38. user supplied logic Wallaroo runtime Wallaroo API
39. WALLAROO API MARKET SPREAD EXAMPLE
40. MARKET SPREAD REAL-TIME “SOMETHING AIN’T RIGHT” TRADE CHECKS Market Spread State Market Data Orders Update APPL Check MSFT Rejections
41. MARKET SPREAD TWO SOURCES OF DATA Market Spread State Market Data Orders Update APPL Check MSFT Rejections
42. MARKET SPREAD ONE SINK Market Spread State Market Data Orders Update APPL Check MSFT Rejections
43. MARKET SPREAD ORDER PIPELINE Market Spread State Market Data Orders Update APPL Check MSFT Rejections
44. MARKET SPREAD MARKET DATA PIPELINE Market Spread State Market Data Orders Update APPL Check MSFT Rejections
45. MARKET SPREAD APPLICATION DEFINITION
46. APPLICATION DEFINITION FLOW OF DATA FROM SOURCE TO SINK
47. TWO DATA PIPELINES ORDERS
48. TWO DATA PIPELINES MARKET DATA
49. DEFINE OUR SOURCES 1 PER PIPELINE
50. DEFINE OUR OPERATIONS 1 PER PIPELINE
51. DEFINE OUR OPERATIONS CHECK ORDER AGAINST SYMBOL DATA
52. DEFINE OUR OPERATIONS UPDATE SYMBOL DATA WITH LATEST MARKET DATA
53. DEFINE OUR SINKS 1 PER PIPELINE
54. DEFINE OUR SINKS ORDERS PIPELINE MIGHT HAVE OUTPUT
55. DEFINE OUR SINKS MARKET DATA ONLY UPDATES SYMBOL DATA- NO OUTPUT
56. SCALE INDEPENDENT ONLY FLOW OF DATA AND OPERATIONS
57. USER SUPPLIED LOGIC
58. UPDATE MARKET DATA STATE COMPUTATION UPDATES SYMBOL DATA STATE
59. WALLAROO RUNTIME MESH NETWORK OF COOPERATING PROCESSES
60. STATE OBJECTS ONE BIG MAP?
61. STATE OBJECTS CONCEPTUALLY ITS LIKE A BIG MAP Market Data Update State
62. STATE OBJECTS WITH A KEY FOR EACH OBJECT APPL IBM MSFT AMZN INTC NVDA Market Data Update
63. STATE OBJECTS WHERE WE MAY FROM INCOMING DATA’S KEY APPL IBM MSFT AMZN INTC NVDA Market Data MSFT
64. STATE OBJECTS TO THE STATE OBJECT FOR THAT KEY APPL IBM MSFT AMZN INTC NVDA Market Data MSFT
65. HASH PARTITIONING DISTRIBUTING STATE OBJECTS ACROSS A CLUSTER
66. SINGLE WORKER ALL SYMBOLS TOGETHER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
67. SINGLE WORKER ALL SYMBOLS TOGETHER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
68. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
69. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
70. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
71. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
72. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN MSFT IBM
73. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN IBM MSFT
74. ADD ANOTHER WORKER STATE OBJECTS WILL BE REDISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE CLUSTER APPL AMZN IBM MSFT
75. STATE OBJECTS
76. A WALLAROO STATE OBJECT PLAIN OLD PYTHON
77. LEARN MORE GITHUB.COM/SEANTALLEN/ PAT-HELLAND-AND-ME