DYNAMIC STREAM PROCESSING WITHIN AN OPERATOR GRAPH

• US 20140089929A1
• Filed: 09/26/2012
• Published: 03/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Branson, Michael J., Cobb, Bradford L., Santosuosso, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,391,830 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/102
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A method and system for processing a stream of tuples in a stream-based application is disclosed. The method may include a first stream operator determining whether a requirement to modify processing of a first tuple at a second stream operator exists. The method may provide for associating an indication to modify processing of the first tuple at the second stream operator if the requirement exists.

Claims

1. A method for processing a stream of tuples, comprising:

receiving a stream of tuples to be processed by a plurality of processing elements operating on one or more computer processors, each processing element having one or more stream operators;

determining by a first stream operator whether a requirement to modify processing of a first tuple by a second stream operator exists; and

associating an indication with the first tuple by the first stream operator if the requirement to modify processing of the first tuple by the second stream operator exists, the indication instructing the second stream operator to modify processing of the first tuple and output a second tuple corresponding to the first tuple.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing an operator graph of the stream operators, the operator graph defining one or more execution paths in which a first stream operator is configured to receive tuples from one or more upstream stream operators and transmit tuples to one or more downstream stream operators.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the first tuple from the first stream operator to the second stream operator, and transmitting the second tuple, without processing by the second stream operator, from the second stream operator to a third stream operator.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising receiving the second tuple at the third stream operator and processing the second tuple by the third stream operator.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second stream operator is a particular group of two or more stream operators.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising dividing stream operators into levels, wherein the second stream operator includes all stream operators at a particular level.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the second stream operator is one level from the first stream operator and a third stream operator is two levels from the first stream operator.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first stream operator is configured to perform a first process on a received tuple, the second stream operator is configured to perform a second process on a received tuple, and a third stream operator is configured to perform a third process on a received tuple.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the requirement includes determining whether a particular attribute value is present in the first tuple.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the requirement includes determining whether a particular attribute value is missing from the first tuple.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the requirement includes determining whether the first tuple has been in an operator graph for a time period that exceeds a threshold time period.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the associating of the indication includes outputting by the first stream operator a third tuple to the second stream operator instructing the second stream operator to modify processing of the first tuple output, the first tuple being output subsequent to the third tuple.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the second stream operator is configured to perform two or more processing operations and the requirement modifies less than all of the two or more processing operations.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the requirement to modify processing of the first tuple includes a performance condition.

15-25. -25. (canceled)