Building on the success of Reactive Extensions—first in Rx.NET and now in RxJava—we are taking Observers and Observables to the next level: by adding the capability of handling back-pressure between asynchronous execution stages we enable the distribution of stream processing across a cluster of potentially thousands of nodes. The project defines the common interfaces for interoperable stream implementations on the JVM and is the result of a collaboration between Twitter, Netflix, Pivotal, RedHat and Typesafe. In this presentation I introduce the guiding principles behind its design and show examples using the actor-based implementation in Akka.

1. Dr. Roland Kuhn
Akka Tech Lead
@rolandkuhn
Reactive Streams
Handling Data-Flows the Reactive Way

2. Introduction: Streams

3. What is a Stream?
• ephemeral flow of data
• focused on describing transformation
• possibly unbounded in size
3

4. Common uses of Streams
• bulk data transfer
• real-time data sources
• batch processing of large data sets
• monitoring and analytics
4

5. What is special about Reactive Streams?

6. Reactive
Applications
The Four Reactive Traits
6
http://reactivemanifesto.org/

7. Needed: Asynchrony
• Resilience demands it:
• encapsulation
• isolation
• Scalability demands it:
• distribution across nodes
• distribution across cores
7

8. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
8

9. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
• between different applications
8

10. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
• between different applications
• between network nodes
8

11. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
• between different applications
• between network nodes
• between CPUs
8

12. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
• between different applications
• between network nodes
• between CPUs
• between threads
8

13. Many Kinds of Async Boundaries
• between different applications
• between network nodes
• between CPUs
• between threads
• between actors
8

14. The Problem:
!
Getting Data across an Async Boundary

15. Possible Solutions
10

16. Possible Solutions
• the Traditional way: blocking calls
10

17. Possible Solutions
10

18. Possible Solutions
!
• the Push way: buffering and/or dropping
11

19. Possible Solutions
11

20. Possible Solutions
!
!
• the Reactive way:
non-blocking & non-dropping & bounded
12

21. How do we achieve that?

22. Supply and Demand
• data items flow downstream
• demand flows upstream
• data items flow only when there is demand
• recipient is in control of incoming data rate
• data in flight is bounded by signaled demand
14
Publisher Subscriber
data
demand

23. Dynamic Push–Pull
• “push” behavior when consumer is faster
• “pull” behavior when producer is faster
• switches automatically between these
• batching demand allows batching data
15
Publisher Subscriber
data
demand

24. Explicit Demand: Tailored Flow Control
16
demand
data
splitting the data means merging the demand

25. Explicit Demand: Tailored Flow Control
17
merging the data means splitting the demand

26. Reactive Streams
• asynchronous non-blocking data flow
• asynchronous non-blocking demand flow
• minimal coordination and contention
• message passing allows for distribution
• across applications
• across nodes
• across CPUs
• across threads
• across actors
18

27. Are Streams Collections?

28. What is a Collection?
20

29. What is a Collection?
• Oxford Dictionary:
• “a group of things or people”
20

30. What is a Collection?
• Oxford Dictionary:
• “a group of things or people”
• wikipedia:
• “a grouping of some variable number of data items”
20

31. What is a Collection?
• Oxford Dictionary:
• “a group of things or people”
• wikipedia:
• “a grouping of some variable number of data items”
• backbone.js:
• “collections are simply an ordered set of models”
20

32. What is a Collection?
• Oxford Dictionary:
• “a group of things or people”
• wikipedia:
• “a grouping of some variable number of data items”
• backbone.js:
• “collections are simply an ordered set of models”
• java.util.Collection:
• definite size, provides an iterator, query membership
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33. User Expectations
• an Iterator is expected to visit all elements
(especially with immutable collections)
• x.head + x.tail == x
• the contents does not depend on who is
processing the collection
• the contents does not depend on when the
processing happens
(especially with immutable collections)
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34. Streams have Unexpected Properties
• the observed sequence depends on
• … when the observer subscribed to the stream
• … whether the observer can process fast enough
• … whether the streams flows fast enough
22

35. Streams are not Collections!
• java.util.stream:
Stream is not derived from Collection
“Streams differ from Coll’s in several ways”
• no storage
• functional in nature
• laziness seeking
• possibly unbounded
• consumable
23

36. Streams are not Collections!
• a collection can be streamed
• a stream observer can create a collection
• … but saying that a Stream is just a lazy
Collection evokes the wrong associations
24

37. So, Reactive Streams:
why not just java.util.stream.Stream?

38. Java 8 Stream
26
import java.util.stream.*;
!
// get some stream
final Stream<Integer> s = Stream.of(1, 2, 3);
// describe transformation
final Stream<String> s2 = s.map(i -> "a" + i);
// make a pull collection
s2.iterator();
// or alternatively push it somewhere
s2.forEach(i -> System.out.println(i));
// (need to pick one, Stream is consumable)

39. Java 8 Stream
• provides a DSL for describing transformation
• introduces staged computation
(but does not allow reuse)
• prescribes an eager model of execution
• offers either push or pull, chosen statically
27

40. What about RxJava?

41. RxJava
29
import rx.Observable;
import rx.Observable.*;
!
// get some stream source
final Observable<Integer> obs = range(1, 3);
// describe transformation
final Observable<String> obs2 =
obs.map(i -> "b" + i);
// and use it twice
obs2.subscribe(i -> System.out.println(i));
obs2.filter(i -> i.equals("b2"))
.subscribe(i -> System.out.println(i));

42. RxJava
• implements pure “push” model
• includes extensive DSL for transformations
• only allows blocking for back pressure
• currently uses unbounded buffering for
crossing an async boundary
• work on distributed Observables sparked
participation in Reactive Streams
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43. The Reactive Streams Project

44. Participants
• Engineers from
• Netflix
• Oracle
• Pivotal
• Red Hat
• Twitter
• Typesafe
• Individuals like Doug Lea and Todd Montgomery
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45. The Motivation
• all participants had the same basic problem
• all are building tools for their community
• a common solution benefits everybody
• interoperability to make best use of efforts
• e.g. use Reactor data store driver with Akka
transformation pipeline and Rx monitoring to drive a
vert.x REST API (purely made up, at this point)
33
see also Jon Brisbin’s post on “Tribalism as a Force for Good”

46. Recipe for Success
• minimal interfaces
• rigorous specification of semantics
• full TCK for verification of implementation
• complete freedom for many idiomatic APIs
34

47. The Meat
35
trait Publisher[T] {
def subscribe(sub: Subscriber[T]): Unit
}
trait Subscription {
def requestMore(n: Int): Unit
def cancel(): Unit
}
trait Subscriber[T] {
def onSubscribe(s: Subscription): Unit
def onNext(elem: T): Unit
def onError(thr: Throwable): Unit
def onComplete(): Unit
}

48. The Sauce
• all calls on Subscriber must dispatch async
• all calls on Subscription must not block
• Publisher is just there to create Subscriptions
36

49. How does it Connect?
37
SubscriberPublisher
subscribe
onSubscribeSubscription
requestMore
onNext

50. Akka Streams

51. Akka Streams
• powered by Akka Actors
• execution
• distribution
• resilience
• type-safe streaming through Actors with
bounded buffering
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52. Basic Akka Example
40
implicit val system = ActorSystem("Sys")
val mat = FlowMaterializer(...)
!
Flow(text.split("s").toVector).
map(word => word.toUpperCase).
foreach(tranformed => println(tranformed)).
onComplete(mat) {
case Success(_) => system.shutdown()
case Failure(e) =>
println("Failure: " + e.getMessage)
system.shutdown()
}

53. More Advanced Akka Example
41
val s = Source.fromFile("log.txt", "utf-8")
Flow(s.getLines()).
groupBy {
case LogLevelPattern(level) => level
case other => "OTHER"
}.
foreach { case (level, producer) =>
val out = new PrintWriter(level+".txt")
Flow(producer).
foreach(line => out.println(line)).
onComplete(mat)(_ => Try(out.close()))
}.
onComplete(mat)(_ => Try(s.close()))

54. Java 8 Example
42
final ActorSystem system = ActorSystem.create("Sys");
final MaterializerSettings settings =
MaterializerSettings.create();
final FlowMaterializer materializer =
FlowMaterializer.create(settings, system);
!
final String[] lookup = { "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f" };
final Iterable<Integer> input = Arrays.asList(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
!
Flow.create(input).drop(2).take(3). // leave 2, 3, 4
map(elem -> lookup[elem]). // translate to "c","d","e"
filter(elem -> !elem.equals("c")). // filter out the "c"
grouped(2). // make into a list
mapConcat(list -> list). // flatten the list
fold("", (acc, elem) -> acc + elem). // accumulate into "de"
foreach(elem -> System.out.println(elem)). // print it
consume(materializer);

55. Akka TCP Echo Server
43
val future = IO(StreamTcp) ? Bind(addr, ...)
future.onComplete {
case Success(server: TcpServerBinding) =>
println("listen at "+server.localAddress)
!
Flow(server.connectionStream).foreach{ c =>
println("client from "+c.remoteAddress)
c.inputStream.produceTo(c.outputStream)
}.consume(mat)
!
case Failure(ex) =>
println("cannot bind: "+ex)
system.shutdown()
}

56. Akka HTTP Sketch (NOT REAL CODE)
44
val future = IO(Http) ? RequestChannelSetup(...)
future.onSuccess {
case ch: HttpRequestChannel =>
val p = ch.processor[Int]
val body = Flow(new File(...)).toProducer(mat)
Flow(HttpRequest(method = POST,
uri = "http://ex.amp.le/42",
entity = body) -> 42)
.produceTo(mat, p)
Flow(p).map { case (resp, token) =>
val out = FileSink(new File(...))
Flow(resp.entity.data).produceTo(mat, out)
}.consume(mat)
}

57. Closing Remarks

58. Current State
• Early Preview is available:
"org.reactivestreams" % "reactive-streams-spi" % "0.2"
"com.typesafe.akka" %% "akka-stream-experimental" % "0.3"
• check out the Activator template
"Akka Streams with Scala!"
(https://github.com/typesafehub/activator-akka-stream-scala)
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59. Next Steps
• we work towards inclusion in future JDK
• try it out and give feedback!
• http://reactive-streams.org/
• https://github.com/reactive-streams
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60. ©Typesafe 2014 – All Rights Reserved