### Features of Real-Time Architecture
Here’s a detailed overview of the key features of real-time architecture, including
high availability, low latency, and horizontal scalability:
---
1. **High Availability**:
- **Distinction from Batch/BI Systems**: High availability is a critical
differentiator between real-time systems and traditional batch or Business
Intelligence (BI) systems, where downtime can be tolerated. Real-time systems must
ensure continuous operation.
- **Critical for Collection, Flow, and Processing Systems**: For real-time
architectures, maintaining availability during data collection, event flow, and
processing is essential to prevent data loss and ensure timely insights.
- **Two Approaches**:
- **Distribution**:
- **Load Distribution**: Utilizing multiple physical servers helps
distribute the workload evenly across the system, minimizing the risk of overload
on any single server.
- **Improved Fault Tolerance**: If one server fails, others can take over,
ensuring that the system remains operational.
- **Replication**:
- **Writing to Several Machines**: Data is written simultaneously to
multiple machines to ensure that a backup is always available in case of failure.
- **Master-Slave Configuration**: In this setup, a master server handles
writes, while slave servers replicate data, providing redundancy and load
balancing.
- **Automatic Failover**: If the master server fails, the system can
automatically switch to a slave server to maintain operations.
- **Masterless Configuration**: This approach eliminates the single point of
failure inherent in master-slave setups, but recovery can be more complex in case
of failures.
---
2. **Low Latency**:
- **Request Service Time**: Low latency refers to the minimal time taken to
service a request within the system. For real-time applications, quick response
times are crucial.
- **Streaming Systems Latency**:
- **Event Processing Time**: Latency is measured as the time taken to process
an event from the moment it enters the system until the response is generated.
- **Micro-Batching**: Many streaming systems employ micro-batching, processing
data in very small batches (milliseconds) to enhance throughput while maintaining
low latency.
- **Component Considerations**:
- **Collection Systems**: These systems primarily focus on the initial
definition of latency, which involves the speed of capturing and transmitting data.
- **Flow and Processing Components**: These components address the time taken
to process the captured events, ensuring that the overall system remains
responsive.
- **Tradeoff Between Speed and Safety**:
- **Acceptable Data Loss**: If the system can tolerate some data loss, it can
achieve lower latencies by optimizing for speed.
- **Data Integrity**: Conversely, if data integrity is paramount, the system
must incorporate mechanisms that may introduce additional latency to ensure that no
data is lost during processing.
---
3. **Horizontal Scalability**:
- **Physical Server Addition**: Horizontal scalability involves adding more
physical servers to a cluster to handle increased workloads effectively.
- **Coordination Challenges**: As more servers are added, managing coordination
between the systems becomes increasingly complex, necessitating robust
communication and data synchronization strategies.
- **Partitioning Techniques**: Implementing partitioning techniques helps
distribute data across multiple servers, ensuring efficient processing and reducing
bottlenecks.
- **Data Locality Principle**: The principle of data locality suggests moving
the processing code closer to the data rather than transferring large amounts of
data across the network. This reduces latency and improves performance.
---
### Conclusion
Real-time architecture must prioritize high availability, low latency, and
horizontal scalability to effectively handle the demands of modern streaming
applications. By implementing robust distribution and replication strategies,
minimizing processing delays, and scaling horizontally, organizations can build
systems capable of delivering timely insights while maintaining data integrity and
availability.
