As an exercise, let me summarize the points of contention I've seen and lay
out the tradeoffs as I see them. That way we can prioritize what's
important to us in a NiFi implementation and better work towards a
favorable solution (basically, I want to requirements we have for an MVP).
My opinions/comments/questions are in *bold*. Feel free (and encouraged to
disagree). Keep in mind, this stuff probably exists on a spectrum (we might
want to pick and choose what we do, and possibly even when we do it).
- Splitting off fieldTransformations from the parser itself
- In Nifi, we're chaining processors to do our fieldTransformations.
This can't be particularly automatic from a definition, to the best of my
knowledge.
- Our configuration between NiFi and Storm differs (because NiFi is
building Processors and Storm is just acting on the transforms).
- *I'm mostly fine with splitting these, IMO we just need to make
sure it's documented. The current colocation of them feels
slightly sketchy
to me in general (it feels like it's merging pure parsing and something
more enrichment oriented).** I also like the idea of exposing Stellar
transformations as their own Processor.*
- *Could anyone refresh my memory on why fieldTransformations are
bundled with parsing directly?*
- NiFi parser configuration
- We can do it from ZK, but need to make it available in a manner not
available in ZK
- If we don't allow ZK, we can potentially have different sources of
configs.
- *I personally don't like this very much. I always hated having
to hop between things in order to manage these sort of things, but I
consider that more annoying than blocking.*
- Specific parsers vs an aggregated parser
- If they're all specific, it means every user who wants to implement
a parser (even an existing one) in NiFi, they have to do
additional work to
make it work in NiFi.
- *I don't think it's a lot of work on a per parser basis, and we
might be able to ease this with some clever handling of our
interfaces.
However, I personally don't like that there's no way to just run an
existing Metron parser in NiFi without additional
NiFi-specific work. To
be clear, I'd prefer to have a quick way for users to take parsers,
including preexisting parsers, into NiFi. I don't think this
should be the
end solution for most parsers, but it does feel like the
minimal viable
product solution to cover current users mostly as-is. In my
mind, users
should be able to take preexisting Storm parsers and be able
to run them up
and test them in NiFi with minimal involvement, even if the
end state is to
do a more NiFi-like implementation.*
- *If we expand this to other platforms (e.g. Spark?), do we
expect everything to be reimplemented every time? Or are we
making that
decision on a platform-by-platform basis?*
- *I think most parsers, including our own should be optimized as
needed for NiFi, including whatever Schema work and
versioning we want to
do, but I don't think that needs to be done right away.
Looking through
source, our parsers are:*
- *Asa*
- *Bro*
- *CEF*
- *CSV*
- *Fireeye*
- *ISE*
- *JSON*
- *Lancope*
- *Logstash*
- *Palo Alto*
- *Snort*
- *Sourcefire*
- *I don't know that I want to go through and convert and test all
of them in the first pass.*
- Processor vs. RecordReader
- RecordReader is the NiFi hotness. Sounds like the interface
actually is stable, which was really my primary concern with it
(Thanks for
following up Otto!).
- *RecordReaders seem like they have positive performance
implications to them, which I'm definitely in favor of. The Processor
approach would work, but given the rates of flow we see, it'd
be extremely
nice to get the RecordReader benefits. The schema benefits in
RecordReaders are more clear if we split fieldTransformations
from parsing
in NiFi, but that split might be more work (although result in a
potentially much cleaner implementation of RecordReaders).
This would mean
we have to do at least some upgrading for every parser we
want to be able
to run in NiFi.*
- *How much schema versioning do we need to support as part of a
first cut? How much of this needs to be managed by NiFi
specific features?*
- *I'm curious on people's thoughts on if we can do some unification
on some of our parsers against RecordReader as Simon mentioned. If we do
that, do we then need to start wrapping NARs around everything as part of
our build process to be able to use this in NiFi? Does that break Storm
deployment at all (for either our bundled parsers or for
existing 3rd party
jars)? Will this affect us down the line if we decide to build out other
use cases?*
- Parser schema
- Should our parsers be able to define a schema (at least in the case
of pure parsing)? What is the overlap and set of concerns here?
- What do we need here in terms of versioning? After all these things
changes based on version.
- What do we need for providing schemas for things like CSV or Grok
or other data-based schemas?
*The summary of my view on this is basically "Ideally, I'd like a way to
get parsers working in a general case scenario in a relatively minimal way,
with the option to implement our parsers as needed with RecordReaders
(which offers several benefits, particularly for the pure parsing case)".
I think there's a lot of value for a minimal effort approach in getting a
general (if suboptimal) approach that works for everything existing. If we
were to do that, I'd definitely still like to see at least the 2-3 of the
main in use parsers have NiFi oriented implementations (along with
supporting documentation recommending similar implementations / conversion
for existing parsers). At that point, I think my preferred approach would
be to have a general purpose Processor available (which I don't think is
much more work than the split itself), while providing a template and
examples for new parsers going forward.*
On Mon, Aug 13, 2018 at 9:42 AM Simon Elliston Ball <
si...@simonellistonball.com> wrote:
> Yep, I'm wondering whether our parser interface should have the ability to
> create schema either like that, or well, that, which would be helpful
> within Metron as well.
>
> @Otto, the one thing missing from the record reader api, is that if you
> don't emit any records at all for a flow file, it errors, which is not
> strictly speaking an error, but yeah, we can certainly control things like
> filtering errors aside from this. I would say this was a nifi bug
> (debatably) which should be fixed on that side.
>
> Simon
>
> On 13 August 2018 at 14:29, Otto Fowler <ottobackwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Also, If we are doing the record readers, we can have a reader for a
>> parser type and explicitly set the schema, as seen here :
>> https://github.com/apache/nifi/blob/master/nifi-nar-bundles/nifi-standard-services/nifi-record-serialization-services-bundle/nifi-record-serialization-services/src/main/java/org/apache/nifi/syslog/Syslog5424Reader.java
>>
>>
>>
>> On August 13, 2018 at 09:26:50, Otto Fowler (ottobackwa...@gmail.com)
>> wrote:
>>
>> If we can do the record readers ourselves ( with the parsers inside them
>> ) we can handle the returns.
>> I’ll be doing the net flow 5 readers once the net flow 5 processor PR (
>> not mine ) is in.
>>
>> I don’t think having a generic class loading parsers foo and having to
>> manage all that is preferable to having
>> an archetype and explicit parsers.
>>
>> Nifi processors and readers are self documenting, and this approach will
>> make that not possible, as another consideration.
>>
>>
>>
>> On August 13, 2018 at 06:50:09, Simon Elliston Ball (
>> si...@simonellistonball.com) wrote:
>>
>> Maybe the edge use case will clarify the config issue a little. The reason
>> I would want to be able to push Metron parsers into NiFi would be so I can
>> pre-parse and filter on the edge to save bandwidth from remote locations.
>> I
>> would expect to be able to parse at the edge and use NiFi to prioritise or
>> filter on the Metron ready data, then push through to a 'NoOp' parser in
>> Metron. For this to happen, we would absolutely not want to connect to
>> Zookeeper, so I'm +1 on Otto's suggestion that the config be embeddable in
>> NiFi properties. We cannot assume ZK connectivity from NiFi.
>>
>> I can also see a scenario where NiFi might make it easier to chain
>> parsers,
>> which is where it overlaps more with Metron. This is more about the fact
>> that NiFi make it a lot easier to configure and manage complex multi-step
>> flows than Metron, and is way more user intuitive from a design and
>> monitoring perspective. My main concern around using NiFi in this way is
>> about the load on the content repository. We are looking at a lot of
>> content level transformation here. You could argue that the same load is
>> taken off Kafka in the chaining scenario, but there is still a chance for
>> a
>> user to accidentally create a lot of disk access if they go over the top
>> with NiFi.
>>
>> I see this as potentially a a chance to make the Metron Parser interface
>> compatible with NiFi Record Readers. Then both communities could benefit
>> from sharing each other's parsers.
>>
>> In terms of the NAR approach, I would say we have a base bundle of the
>> NiFi
>> bits (https://github.com/simonellistonball/metron/tree/nifi already has
>> this for stellar, enrichments and an opinionated publisher, it also has a
>> readme with some discussion around this
>> https://github.com/simonellistonball/metron/tree/nifi/nifi-metron-bundle
>> ).
>> We can then use other nar dependencies to side load parser classes into
>> the
>> record reader. We would then need to do some fancy property validation in
>> NiFi to ensure the classes were available.
>>
>> Also, Record Readers are much much faster. The only problem I've found
>> with
>> them is that they error on blank output, which was a problem for me
>> writing
>> a netflow 9 reader (template only records need to live in NiFi cache, but
>> not be emitted).
>>
>> In terms of the schema objection, I'm not sure why schema focus is a
>> problem. Our parsers have implicit schema and the output schema formats
>> used in NiFi are very flexible and could be "just a map". That said, we
>> could also take the opportunity to introduce a method to the parser
>> interface to emit traits to contribute the bits of schema that a parser
>> produces. This would ultimately lead to us being able to generate output
>> schemas (ES, Solr, Hive, whatever which would take a lot of the pain out
>> of
>> setup for sensors).
>>
>> Simon
>>
>> On 9 August 2018 at 16:42, Otto Fowler <ottobackwa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I would say that
>> >
>> > - For each configuration parameter we want to pull in, it should be
>> > explicitly configured through a property as well as through a controller
>> > service that accesses the metron zk
>> > - Transformations should not be conflated with parsing in those
>> processors
>> > or readers
>> >
>> > There is no on the fly configuration change in nifi ( You can’t change
>> > properties once started ).
>> >
>> > Wouldn’t the simplest minimal start be to say that we expect either
>> nifi or
>> > metron and simplify things? Let nifi nifi, let metron metron.
>> >
>> >
>> > On August 9, 2018 at 10:53:24, Justin Leet (justinjl...@gmail.com)
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > That's definitely good info, thanks for reaching out to them about it.
>> >
>> > In terms of exposing/sharing, I don't think we have to couple them
>> tightly
>> > (in fact, I think we should loosen the coupling as much as possible
>> without
>> > forcing reimplementation of things). I think there's definitely a way
>> to do
>> > that terms of the general purpose processor I proposed (or in terms of
>> > RecordReader or another implementation).
>> >
>> > It would definitely be easy enough to configure it to either pull from
>> ZK
>> > or to use a parser config json extract as a parameter (to maintain the
>> same
>> > formatting and make migration easy). And we can still build specific
>> > NiFi-oriented parsers as needed (that manage things like Schema via the
>> > registry and other Nifi mechanisms). This keeps parsers entirely
>> decoupled
>> > from a metron installation.
>> >
>> > Alternatively, we extract our config handling to a module and scripts we
>> > can package up and easily deploy configs against ZK (or the maybe Nifi's
>> > StateController's or whatever). We definitely shouldn't need absolutely
>> > everything installed to be able to run just parsers on Nifi.
>> >
>> > Having said that, right now the easiest way we have to maintain on the
>> fly
>> > updatable configs (and updatable is important!) is via ZK. Params in
>> Nifi
>> > aren't quite that flexible, to the best of my knowledge (i.e. you have
>> to
>> > stop, update config and restart). We might be able to exploit the
>> > StateController to manage this for us, but I'm honestly not familiar
>> enough
>> > with it and for deployments split between NiFi and Storm, it means
>> > configuration gets managed in a couple different ways (which may with
>> users
>> > since there is a fairly brightline delineation which makes it easier to
>> > accept). There some complicated configs like fieldTransforms, which is
>> > part of why I would like things to be configured in the same format (if
>> not
>> > the same mechanism).
>> >
>> > Ideally, in my mind, the parsers shared between both NiFi and Storm just
>> > implement the very general MessageParser interface (which is pretty
>> > minimal, a couple setup methods, validation, and the actual parse). This
>> > is pretty lightweight and the split of metron-parsers into
>> > metron-parsers-common et al. would loosen the coupling between parsers
>> and
>> > the rest of metron into that core needed to support that.
>> >
>> > IMO, at that point, we'd have a pretty minimal NAR (or NARs depending on
>> > config management) that lets us run our set of parsers, lets users build
>> > new parsers (and don't block specialized NiFi implementations that
>> exploit
>> > NiFi's feature set), and lets us get things configured in a relatively
>> > consistent manner, without losing features, and hopefully requiring a
>> > pretty minimal slice of Metron to be useful.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 10:06 AM Otto Fowler <ottobackwa...@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > I think the benefits are clear. What is unclear is if the goal is to
>> > > expose or share or re-use Metron capabilities ( stellar, parsing ) in
>> > nifi
>> > > in a way that is native to nifi ( configured and managed in nifi ),
>> where
>> > > you may not even need metron ( say you just want to parse asa ) or if
>> the
>> > > goal is to have a hybrid approach coupling the processors/readers to
>> the
>> > > metron installation.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On August 9, 2018 at 09:14:58, Justin Leet (justinjl...@gmail.com)
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> > > I'll add onto Mike's discussion with the original set of requirements
>> I
>> > had
>> > > in mind (and apply feedback on these as necessary!). This is largely
>> > > overlap with what Mike said, but I want to make sure it's clear where
>> my
>> > > proposal was coming from, so we can improve on it as needed. James and
>> > > Mike are also right, I think I skipped over the benefits of NiFi in
>> > general
>> > > a bit, so thanks for chiming in there.
>> > >
>> > > - Deploy our bundled parsers without needing custom wrapping on all of
>> > > them.
>> > > - Don't prevent ourselves from building custom wrapping as needed.
>> > > - Custom Java parsers with an easy way to hook in, similar to what we
>> > > already do in Storm.
>> > > - One stop (or at least one format) configuration, for the case when
>> > we're
>> > > doing some thing in NiFi (parsers) and some elsewhere (enrichment and
>> > > indexing). I don't think it'll always be "start in NiFi, end in
>> Storm",
>> > > especially as we build out Stellar capability, but I also don't want
>> > users
>> > > learning a different set of configs and config tools for every
>> platform
>> > we
>> > > run on.
>> > > - Ability to build out parsers and other systems fairly easily, e.g.
>> > Spark.
>> > > - Support our current use cases (in particular parser chaining as a
>> more
>> > > advanced use case).
>> > >
>> > > It really boils down to providing a relatively simple user path to be
>> > able
>> > > to migrate to NiFi as needed or desired as simply as possible in a
>> very
>> > > general way, while not preventing parser by parser enhancements.
>> > >
>> > > On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 7:14 PM Michael Miklavcic <
>> > > michael.miklav...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > I think it also provides customers greater control over their
>> > > architecture
>> > > > by giving them the flexibility to choose where/how to host their
>> > parsers.
>> > > >
>> > > > To Justin's point about the API, my biggest concern about the
>> > > RecordReader
>> > > > approach is that it is not stable. We already have a similar
>> problem in
>> > > > having the TransportClient in ElasticSearch - they are prone to
>> > changing
>> > > it
>> > > > in minor versions with the advent of their newer REST API, which is
>> > > > problematic for ensuring a stable installation.
>> > > >
>> > > > From my own perspective, our goal with NiFi, at least in part,
>> should
>> > be
>> > > > the ability to deploy our core parsing infrastructure, i.e.
>> > > >
>> > > > - pre-built parsers
>> > > > - custom java parsers
>> > > > - Stellar transforms
>> > > > - custom stellar transforms
>> > > >
>> > > > And have the ability to configure it similarly to how we configure
>> > > parsers
>> > > > within Storm. Consistent with our recent parser chaining and
>> > aggregation
>> > > > feature, users should be able to construct and deploy similar
>> > constructs
>> > > in
>> > > > NiFi. The core architectural shift would be that parser code should
>> be
>> > > > platform agnostic. We provide the plumbing in Storm, NiFi, and
>> <Spark
>> > > > Streaming?, other> and platform architects and devops teams can
>> choose
>> > > how
>> > > > and where to deploy.
>> > > >
>> > > > Best,
>> > > > Mike
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 9:57 AM James Sirota <jsir...@apache.org>
>> > wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > Integration with NiFi would be useful for parsing low-volume
>> > > telemetries
>> > > > > at the edge. This is a much more resource friendly way to do it
>> than
>> > > > > setting up dedicated storm topologies. The integration would be
>> that
>> > > the
>> > > > > NiFi processor parses the data and pushes it straight into the
>> > > enrichment
>> > > > > topic, saving us the resources of having multiple parsers in storm
>> > > > >
>> > > > > Thanks,
>> > > > > James
>> > > > >
>> > > > > 07.08.2018, 11:29, "Otto Fowler" <ottobackwa...@gmail.com>:
>> > > > > > Why do we start over. We are going back and forth on
>> > implementation,
>> > > > and
>> > > > > I
>> > > > > > don’t think we have the same goals or concerns.
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > What would be the requirements or goals of metron integration
>> with
>> > > > Nifi?
>> > > > > > How many levels or options for integration do we have?
>> > > > > > What are the approaches to choose from?
>> > > > > > Who are the target users?
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > On August 7, 2018 at 12:24:56, Justin Leet (
>> justinjl...@gmail.com)
>> > > > > wrote:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > So how does the MetronRecordReader roll into everything? It
>> seems
>> > > like
>> > > > > it'd
>> > > > > > be more useful on the reader per format approach, but otherwise
>> it
>> > > > > doesn't
>> > > > > > really seem like we gain much, and it requires getting
>> everything
>> > > > linked
>> > > > > up
>> > > > > > properly to be used. Assuming we looked at doing it that way, is
>> > the
>> > > > idea
>> > > > > > that we'd setup a ControllerService with the MetronRecordReader
>> > and a
>> > > > > > MetronRecordWriter and then have the StellarTransformRecord
>> > processor
>> > > > > > configured with those ControllerServices? How do we manage the
>> > > > > > configurations of the everything that way? How does the
>> > > > ControllerService
>> > > > > > get configured with whatever parser(s) are needed in the flow?
>> > > > Basically,
>> > > > > > what's your vision for how everything would tie together?
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > I also forgot to mention this in the original writeup, but
>> there's
>> > > > > another
>> > > > > > reason to avoid the RecordReader: It's not considered stable.
>> See
>> > > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > >
>> > > https://github.com/apache/nifi/blob/master/nifi-commons/
>> > nifi-record/src/main/java/org/apache/nifi/serialization/
>> > RecordReader.java#L34
>> > > > > .
>> > > > > > That alone makes me super hesitant to use it, if it can shift
>> out
>> > > from
>> > > > > > under us in even in incremental version.
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > I'm also unclear on why StellarTransformRecord processor matters
>> > for
>> > > > > either
>> > > > > > approach. With the Processor approach you could simply follow
>> it up
>> > > > with
>> > > > > > the Stellar processor, the same way you'd would in the
>> RecordReader
>> > > > > > approach. The Stellar processor should be a parallel
>> improvement,
>> > > not a
>> > > > > > conflicting one.
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 11:50 AM Otto Fowler <
>> > ottobackwa...@gmail.com
>> > > >
>> > > > > wrote:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >> A Metron Processor itself isn’t really necessary. A
>> > > > MetronRecordReader
>> > > > > (
>> > > > > >> either the megalithic or a reader per format ) would be a good
>> > > > > approach.
>> > > > > >> Then have StellarTransformRecord processor that can do Stellar
>> on
>> > > > _any_
>> > > > > >> record, regardless of source.
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> On August 7, 2018 at 11:06:22, Justin Leet (
>> justinjl...@gmail.com
>> > )
>> > > > > wrote:
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> Thanks for the comments, Otto, this is definitely great
>> feedback.
>> > > I'd
>> > > > > >> love to respond inline, but the email's already starting to
>> lose
>> > > it's
>> > > > > >> formatting, so I'll go with the classic "wall of text". Let me
>> > know
>> > > > if
>> > > > > I
>> > > > > >> didn't address everything.
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> Loading modules (or jars or whatever) outside of our Processor
>> > gives
>> > > > us
>> > > > > >> the benefit of making it incredibly easy for a users to create
>> > their
>> > > > > own
>> > > > > >> parsers. I would definitely expect our own bundled parsers to
>> be
>> > > > > included
>> > > > > >> in our base NAR, but loading modules enables users to only
>> have to
>> > > > > learn
>> > > > > >> how Metron wants our stuff lined up and just plug it in. Having
>> > said
>> > > > > that,
>> > > > > >> I could see having a wrapper for our bundled parsers that
>> makes it
>> > > > > really
>> > > > > >> easy to just say you want an MetronAsaParser or
>> MetronBroParser,
>> > > etc.
>> > > > > That
>> > > > > >> would give us the best of both worlds, where it's easy to get
>> > setup
>> > > > our
>> > > > > >> bundled parsers and also trivial to pull in non-bundled
>> parsers.
>> > > What
>> > > > > >> doing this gives us is an easy way to support (hopefully) every
>> > > > parser
>> > > > > that
>> > > > > >> gets made, right out of the box, without us needing to build a
>> > > > > specialized
>> > > > > >> version of everything until we decide to and without users
>> having
>> > to
>> > > > > jump
>> > > > > >> through hoops.
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> None of this prevents anyone from creating specialized parsers
>> > (for
>> > > > > perf
>> > > > > >> reasons, or to use the schema registries, or anything else).
>> It's
>> > > > > probably
>> > > > > >> worthwhile to package up some of built-in parsers and customize
>> > them
>> > > > > to use
>> > > > > >> more specialized feature appropriately as we see things get
>> used
>> > in
>> > > > the
>> > > > > >> wild. Like you said, we could likely provide Avro schemas for
>> some
>> > > of
>> > > > > this
>> > > > > >> and give users a more robust experience on what we choose to
>> > support
>> > > > > and
>> > > > > >> provide guidance for other things. I'm also worried that
>> building
>> > > > > >> specialized schemas becomes problematic for things like parser
>> > > > chaining
>> > > > > >> (where our routers wrap the underlying messages and add on
>> their
>> > own
>> > > > > info).
>> > > > > >> Going down that road potentially requires anything wrapped to
>> > have a
>> > > > > >> specialized schema for the wrapped version in addition to a
>> > vanilla
>> > > > > version
>> > > > > >> (although please correct me if I'm missing something there,
>> I'll
>> > > > openly
>> > > > > >> admit to some shakiness on how that would be handled).
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> I also disagree that this is un-Nifi-like, although I'm
>> admittedly
>> > > > not
>> > > > > as
>> > > > > >> skilled there. The basis for doing this is directly inspired by
>> > the
>> > > > > >> JoltTransformer, which is extremely similar to the proposed
>> setup
>> > > for
>> > > > > our
>> > > > > >> parsers: Simply take a spec (in this case the configs,
>> including
>> > the
>> > > > > >> fieldTransformations), and delegate a mapping from bytes[] to
>> > JSON.
>> > > > The
>> > > > > >> Jolt library even has an Expression Language (check out
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > >
>> > > >
>> > > https://community.hortonworks.com/articles/105965/
>> > expression-language-with-jolt-in-apache-nifi.html
>> > > > > ),
>> > > > > >> so it's not a foreign concept. I believe Simon Ball has already
>> > done
>> > > > > some
>> > > > > >> experimenting around with getting Stellar running in NiFi, and
>> I'd
>> > > > > love to
>> > > > > >> see Stellar more readily available in NiFi in general.
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> Re: the ControllerService, I see this as a way to maintain
>> > Metron's
>> > > > > use of
>> > > > > >> ZK as the source of config truth. Users could definitely be
>> using
>> > > > NiFi
>> > > > > and
>> > > > > >> Storm in tandem (parse in NiFi + enrich and index from Storm,
>> for
>> > > > > >> example). Using the ControllerService gives us a ZK instance as
>> > the
>> > > > > single
>> > > > > >> source of truth. That way we aren't forcing users to go to two
>> > > > > different
>> > > > > >> places to manage configs. This also lets us leverage our
>> existing
>> > > > > scripts
>> > > > > >> and our existing infrastructure around configs and their
>> > management
>> > > > and
>> > > > > >> validation very easily. It also gives users a way to port from
>> > NiFi
>> > > > to
>> > > > > >> Storm or vice-versa without having to migrate configs as well.
>> We
>> > > > could
>> > > > > >> also provide the option to configure the Processor itself with
>> the
>> > > > data
>> > > > > >> (just don't set up a controller service and provide the json or
>> > > > > whatever as
>> > > > > >> one of our properties).
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >> On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 10:12 AM Otto Fowler <
>> > > ottobackwa...@gmail.com
>> > > > >
>> > > > > >> wrote:
>> > > > > >>
>> > > > > >>> I think this is a good idea. As I mentioned in the other
>> thread
>> > > I’ve
>> > > > > >>> been doing a lot of work on Nifi recently.
>> > > > > >>> I think the important thing is that what is done should be
>> done
>> > the
>> > > > > NiFi
>> > > > > >>> way, not bolting the Metron composition
>> > > > > >>> onto Nifi. Think of it like the Tao of Unix, the parsers and
>> > > > > components
>> > > > > >>> should be single purpose and simple, allowing
>> > > > > >>> exceptional flexibility in composition.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> Comments inline.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> On August 7, 2018 at 09:27:01, Justin Leet (
>> > justinjl...@gmail.com)
>> > > > > wrote:
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> Hi all,
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> There's interest in being able to run Metron parsers in NiFi,
>> > > rather
>> > > > > than
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> inside Storm. I dug into this a bit, and have some thoughts on
>> > how
>> > > > we
>> > > > > >>> could
>> > > > > >>> go about this. I'd love feedback on this, along with anything
>> > we'd
>> > > > > >>> consider must haves as well as future enhancements.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> 1. Separate metron-parsers into metron-parsers-common and
>> > > > metron-storm
>> > > > > >>> and create metron-parsers-nifi. For this code to be reusable
>> > across
>> > > > > >>> platforms (NiFi, Storm, and anything else in the future),
>> we'll
>> > > need
>> > > > > to
>> > > > > >>> decouple our parsers and Storm.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> +1. The “parsing code” should be a library that implements an
>> > > > > interface
>> > > > > >>> ( another library ).
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> The Processors and the Storm things can share them.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> - There's also some nice fringe benefits around refactoring
>> our
>> > > code
>> > > > > >>> to be substantially more clear and understandable; something
>> > > > > >>> which came up
>> > > > > >>> while allowing for parser aggregation.
>> > > > > >>> 2. Create a MetronProcessor that can run our parsers.
>> > > > > >>> - I took a look at how RecordReader could be leveraged (e.g.
>> > > > > >>> CSVRecordReader), but this is pretty tightly tied into schemas
>> > > > > >>> and is meant
>> > > > > >>> to be used by ControllerServices, which are then used by
>> > > Processors.
>> > > > > >>> There's friction involved there in terms of schemas, but also
>> in
>> > > > > terms of
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> access to ZK configs and things like parser chaining. We might
>> > > > > >>> be able to
>> > > > > >>> leverage it, but it seems like it'd be fairly shoehorned in
>> > > > > >>> without getting
>> > > > > >>> the schema and other benefits.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> We won’t have to provide our ‘no schema processors’ ( grok,
>> csv,
>> > > > json
>> > > > > ).
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> All the remaining processors DO have schemas that we know
>> about.
>> > We
>> > > > > can
>> > > > > >>> just provide the avro schemas the same way we provide the ES
>> > > > schemas.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> The “parsing” should not be conflated with the
>> transform/stellar
>> > in
>> > > > > >>> NiFi. We should make that separate. Running Stellar over
>> Records
>> > > > > would be
>> > > > > >>> the best thing.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> - This Processor would work similarly to Storm: bytes[] in ->
>> > JSON
>> > > > > >>> out.
>> > > > > >>> - There is a Processor
>> > > > > >>> <
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > >
>> > > >
>> > > https://github.com/apache/nifi/blob/master/nifi-nar-
>> > bundles/nifi-standard-bundle/nifi-standard-processors/src/
>> > main/java/org/apache/nifi/processors/standard/JoltTransformJSON.java
>> > > > > >>> >
>> > > > > >>> that
>> > > > > >>> handles loading other JARs that we can model a
>> > > > > >>> MetronParserProcessor off of
>> > > > > >>> that handles classpath/classloader issues (basically just sets
>> > up a
>> > > > > >>> classloader specific to what's being loaded and swaps out the
>> > > > Thread's
>> > > > > >>> loader when it calls to outside resources).
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> There should be no reason to load modules outside the NAR.
>> Why do
>> > > > you
>> > > > > >>> expect to? If each Metron Processor equiv of a Metron Storm
>> > Parser
>> > > > is
>> > > > > just
>> > > > > >>> parsing to json it shouldn’t need much.And we could package
>> them
>> > in
>> > > > > the
>> > > > > >>> NAR. I would suggest we have a Processor per Parser to allow
>> for
>> > > > > >>> specialization. It should all be in the nar.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> The Stellar Processor, if you would support the works would
>> > > possibly
>> > > > > need
>> > > > > >>> this.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> 3. Create a MetronZkControllerService to supply our configs to
>> > our
>> > > > > >>> processors.
>> > > > > >>> - This is a pretty established NiFi pattern for being able to
>> > > > provide
>> > > > > >>> access to other services needed by a Processor (e.g.
>> databases or
>> > > > > large
>> > > > > >>> configurations files).
>> > > > > >>> - The same controller service can be used by all Processors to
>> > > > manage
>> > > > > >>> configs in a consistent manner.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> I think controller services would make sense where needed, I’m
>> > just
>> > > > > not
>> > > > > >>> sure what you imagine them being needed for?
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> If the user has NiFi, and a Registry etc, are you saying you
>> > > imagine
>> > > > > them
>> > > > > >>> using Metron + ZK to manage configurations? Or to be using
>> BOTH
>> > > > storm
>> > > > > >>> processors and Nifi Processors?
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> At that point, we can just NAR our controller service and
>> parser
>> > > > > processor
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> up as needed, deploy them to NiFi, and let the user provide a
>> > > config
>> > > > > for
>> > > > > >>> where their custom parsers can be provided (i.e. their parser
>> > jar).
>> > > > > This
>> > > > > >>> would be 3 nars (processor, controller-service, and
>> > > > > controller-service-api
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> in order to bind the other two together).
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> Once deployed, our ability to use parsers should fit well into
>> > the
>> > > > > >>> standard
>> > > > > >>> NiFi workflow:
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> 1. Create a MetronZkControllerService.
>> > > > > >>> 2. Configure the service to point at zookeeper.
>> > > > > >>> 3. Create a MetronParser.
>> > > > > >>> 4. Configure it to use the controller service + parser jar
>> > location
>> > > > +
>> > > > > >>> any other needed configs.
>> > > > > >>> 5. Use the outputs as needed downstream (either writing out to
>> > > Kafka
>> > > > > or
>> > > > > >>> feeding into more MetronParsers, etc.)
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> Chaining parsers should ideally become a matter of chaining
>> > > > > MetronParsers
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> (and making sure the enveloping configs carry through
>> properly).
>> > > For
>> > > > > >>> parser
>> > > > > >>> aggregation, I'd just avoid it entirely until we know it's
>> needed
>> > > in
>> > > > > NiFi.
>> > > > > >>>
>> > > > > >>> Justin
>> > > > >
>> > > > > -------------------
>> > > > > Thank you,
>> > > > >
>> > > > > James Sirota
>> > > > > PMC- Apache Metron
>> > > > > jsirota AT apache DOT org
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> simon elliston ball
>> @sireb
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> --
> simon elliston ball
> @sireb
>
