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WaterSlide -- a lightweight streaming metadata processor
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Updated July 2016
WaterSlide is an event-at-a-time architecture for processing metadata. It is
designed to take in a set of streaming events from multiple sources,
process them through a set of modules ("kids"), and return meaningful outputs.
The user specifies a directed processing graph ("pipeline") of kids used to
process data, both raw content (e.g., files, binary structures) and metadata
about content. Kids can be filters, aggregators, annotators, decoders,
translators, and collectors. Code is only executed when data is made available
to a processing operation.
WaterSlide can be used as a streaming MapReduce framework for complex event
processing. It is designed to efficiently process data by minimizing copies,
grouping data, and reusing memory. It contains specially designed data
structures intended to explore event correlation on a massive scale with data
that is fragmented across process and systems. As with most stream processing
frameworks, many WaterSlide processing functions favor efficient approximate
computation over less-efficient exact computations.
WaterSlide can be used for a variety of purposes. It is used to generate
interesting metadata from live data streams.
Key Features:
* processing graph built at execution via command line or config file
* processing graph can have feedback loops
* zero-copy data processing, multiple "in flight" references to data
* generic processing functions that can work on any datatype
* anything that can be hashed can be used as a key for tracking state
* simple plug-in style development model
* built to handle text and binary metadata types
* expiring data structures for state tracking
* capable of reading from multiple sources
* Graphviz visualization of processing graph
* dynamic by-label sub-selection of data
* data garbage collection/reuse
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1.0 WaterSlide SIGNIFICANT CHANGE LOG
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===============================================================================
1.1 VERSION 1.0
===============================================================================
1.1.1 version 1.0.0 (Release date: 18 July 2016)
===============================================================================
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2.0 BUILDING AND INSTALLING WaterSlide
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===============================================================================
2.1 BASIC WaterSlide BUILD
===============================================================================
1) Set up the build environment
===============================
The WaterSlide package is distributed as either a compressed tarball (typically
named waterslide<datetag>.tar.bzip2) or via a git repository. Set up your build
environment based on your distribution environment.
If using Debian or Ubuntu you will need the following packages:
----------------------------------------------------
build-essential flex bison zlib1g-dev
Extract the tarball:
--------------------
$ tar xvfj waterslide<datetag>.tar.bzip2
Or, clone the git repository:
-------------------------
$ git clone ssh://<server>/<path-to-repository>
A directory named "waterslide" will be created in the current directory.
waterslide relies on the following libraries that must be installed in the build
environment:
* bison
* flex
2) Build the package
====================
$ cd waterslide
$ make -j
Note: In most situations, the -j option should be used to take advantage of
multi-threaded compilation in order to complete the building process more
efficiently. If there are resource limitations, the number of threads can
be limited via a parameter (e.g., -j 8).
Note: In cases where your build environment already has protobuf libraries, you
will need to add the waterslide/bin directory to the $PATH before compiling (see
Step 3). This will ensure that the waterslide protobuf libraries are properly
linked during compilation.
When compilation is complete, the following executables will be placed in the
waterslide/bin directory, with symbolic links in the waterslide directory:
* waterslide
* waterslide-parallel
* wsman
* wsalias
3) Add waterslide to the path
==========================
The WaterSlide tools can be directly invoked within the waterslide directory. For
more flexibility, add the waterslide/bin directory to the execution $PATH shell
variable.
$ source wssetup.sh
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2.2 INSTALLATION
===============================================================================
Once the WaterSlide tools have been built, they can be installed into a central
location for general use:
$ cd waterslide
$ sudo make install # must be privileged user
The waterslide files and libraries will be copied into the central location
/usr/local/waterslide.
Note: If make install is invoked by an unprivileged user, the environment will
be "installed" into the user's $(HOME)/local/waterslide directory.
If desired, the WaterSlide tools can be linked to enable general access to waterslide
functionality:
$ ln -s /usr/local/waterslide/bin/* /usr/local/bin
Note: For use in a different environment, waterslide can be installed into a
location of your choosing by setting the environment variable
WS_INSTALL=<destination_path> before invoking make install. Each user would
need to add <destination_path>/bin to their executable $PATH in order to easily
invoke the tools.
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2.3 BEHIND THE SCENES
===============================================================================
The build process for the WaterSlide code base consists of a series of Makefiles
in various subdirectories to create the WaterSlide components. To provide a
consistent set of parameters, there is a make directive file
src/Makefile.common that is included by each Makefile. The default build
process starts at the top level directory and invokes the build process twice:
(1) to create the waterslide executable and support files ("kids" or "procs") for
use in serial processing; and (2) to create the waterslide-parallel environment.
By default, the build output is succinct. To display the specific compilation
commands:
$ export WS_VERBOSEBUILD=1
A number of kids that depend on non-standard components are only built by
setting specific environment variables (e.g., HASPLPLOT=1) during compilation.
View src/procs/Makefile or the output of the make process for details of the
various build options.
The directory structure for the installed WaterSlide environment is:
* waterslide/bin: compiled executables (e.g., waterslide, waterslide-parallel,
wsman)
* waterslide/lib: compiled libraries and special datatypes
* waterslide/procs: compiled kids
* waterslide/config: processing graphs
This formulaic structure allows the executables to find the support files by
searching relative to the executable's location at runtime. If some components
are stored in a non-standard location, that can be specified by setting
environment variables including WATERSLIDE_PROC_PATH, WATERSLIDE_ALIAS_PATH, and/or
WATERSLIDE_CONFIG_PATH.
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2.4 CLEANING OR UNINSTALLING WaterSlide
===============================================================================
If changes are made to the core WaterSlide source code, you may need to "clean"
your waterslide build before recompiling the code base:
$ make clean
The compiled WaterSlide libraries (not including the waterslide/protobuflib/lib libraries)
and binaries will be deleted. In some extreme cases, you may also need to rebuild
the waterslide protobuf libraries:
$ make scour
Finally, the WaterSlide tools can also be uninstalled (see Section 2.2):
$ sudo make uninstall
In this case, the waterslide files and libraries will be deleted from the central
location /usr/local/waterslide (or $(HOME)/local/waterslide, if run by an
unprivileged user).
Note: Uninstalling waterslide does not delete the waterslide binaries or libraries
that were built in the $(HOME)/local/waterslide directory. Use "make clean" or
"make scour" as described above.
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3.0 DOCUMENTATION
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WaterSlide documentation can be found in the following locations:
* Build/installation process: this document (waterslide/README)
* Guide for WaterSlide users: waterslide/doc/users_guide/
* Guide for WaterSlide kid developers: waterslide/doc/developer/
Additionally, each kid has command-line help that you can access with the wsman
tool:
$ wsman -h # documentation for wsman
$ wsman # list of all kids
$ wsman print # documentation for print kid
$ wsman -v print # verbose documentation
$ wsman -t input # input kids
$ wsman -s count # string search
caumike/waterslide
WaterSlide is a streaming event-at-a-time architecture for processing metadata. It is designed to take in a set of streaming events from multiple sources, process them through a set of modules ("kids"), and return meaningful outputs.
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