Note: cross-posting to dev@beam and dev@storm I’ve seen at least two threads on the dev@ list discussing the JStorm runner and my hope is we can expand on that discussion and cross-pollinate with the Storm/JStorm/Beam communities as well.
A while back I created a very preliminary proof of concept of getting a Storm Beam runner working [1]. That was mainly an exercise for me to familiarize myself with the Beam API and discover what it would take to develop a Beam runner on top of Storm. That code is way out of date (I was targeting Beam’s HEAD before the 0.2.0 release, and a lot of changes have since taken place) and didn’t really work as Jian Liu pointed out. It was a start, that perhaps could be further built upon, or parts harvested, etc. I don’t have any particular attachment to that code and wouldn’t be upset if it were completely discarded in favor of a better or more extensible implementation. What I would like to see, and I think this is a great opportunity to do so, is a closer collaboration between the Apache Storm and JStorm communities. For those who aren’t familiar with those projects’ relationship, I’ll start with a little history… JStorm began at Alibaba as a fork of Storm (pre-Apache?) with Storm’s Clojure code reimplemented in Java. The rationale behind that move was that Alibaba had a large number of Java developers but very few who were proficient with Clojure. Moving to pure Java made sense as it would expand the base of potential contributors. In late 2015 Alibaba donated the JStorm codebase to the Apache Storm project, and the Apache Storm PMC committed to converting its Clojure code to Java in order to incorporate the code donation. At the time there was one catch — Apache Storm had implemented comprehensive security features such as Kerberos authentication/authorization and multi-tenancy in its Clojure code, which greatly complicated the move to Java and incorporation of the JStorm code. JStorm did not have the same security features. A number of JStorm developers have also become Storm PMC members. Fast forward to today. The Storm community has completed the bulk of the move to Java and the next major release (presumably 2.0, which is currently under discussion) will be largely Java-based. We are now in a much better position to begin incorporating JStorm’s features, as well as implementing new features necessary to support the Beam API (such as support for bounded pipelines, among other features). Having separate Apache Storm and JStorm beam runner implementations doesn’t feel appropriate in my personal opinion, especially since both projects have expressed an ongoing commitment to bringing JStorm’s additional features, and just as important, community, to Apache Storm. One final note, when the Storm community initially discussed developing a Beam runner, the general consensus was do so within the Storm repository. My current thinking is that such an effort should take place within the Beam community, not only since that is the development pattern followed by other runner implementations (Flink, Apex, etc.), but also because it would serve to increase collaboration between Apache projects (always a good thing!). I would love to hear opinions from others in the Storm/JStorm/Beam communities. -Taylor
