Streaming Processing Unit (SPU) is responsible for processing data streams in real-time. The SPUs is designed for horizontal scale, where SPUs are gradually added to the cluster to accommodate higher data throughput. Each SPU manages replicas which represent the lowest unit of a data stream. Replicas are copies of data streams that are evenly distributed across SPUs.

SPUs have a public and a private server that are attached to the following ports:

• Public Port: 9005
• Private Port: 9006

The SPU is a high performance streaming processing unit that works in unison with other SPUs to perform the following core tasks:

• manage replicas
• manage local storage
• receive data from Producers
• send data to Consumers
• send copies of the data to peer SPUs

The following diagram describes SPU object relationships and workflows:

1. Leader Controller (LC)
   • receives SPU and Partition specs from SC Dispatcher
   • creates local storage for Replicas
   • syncs Replica info with Followers
     • sends Replica info to Follower SPU Multicast writer
     • receives Replica info from Follower SPU Dispatcher
   • sends LRS status to SC Updater
   • receives message from Producers
   • sends messages to Consumers
2. Follower Controller (FC)
   • receives Partition specs from SC Dispatcher
   • creates local storage for Replicas
   • syncs Replica info with Leader
     • sends Replica info to Leader SPU Multicast dispatcher
     • receives Replica info from Leader SPU Dispatcher
3. Dispatch SPU/Partition
   • receives SPU and Partition specs from the SC
   • dispatches SPU and Partition specs to Leader Controller
   • dispatches Partition spec to Follower Controllers
   • spawns Leader and Follower Controllers (if needed)
4. Update LRS
   • receives LRS info from Leader Controller and sends to SC
5. Dispatch Replica Info
   • receives Replica Info from Leader SPU and sends to Follower Controller
   • receives Replica Info from Follower SPU and sends to Leader Controller
6. Multicast Replica Info
   • receives Replica info from Follower Controller and unicats to Leader SPU
   • receives Replica info from Leader Controller and multicasts to Follower SPUs

SPU Controllers are responsible for core data processing. Unlike SC Controllers, which are single instances provisioned at startup, SPU Controllers are dynamically allocated. The SPU Controllers are optimized for maximum concurrency and can run a large numbers of instances in parallel.

As show in the diagram above, there are two types of Controllers:

• Leader Controller
• Follower Controller

At startup, the SC dispatcher manages the Leader and Follower Controllers and forwards the SPU and Partition Specs.

A Leader Controller (LC) is spawned by the SC Dispatcher when a new Leader Replica Spec is received. Each LC is responsible for managing the Replica Leader and the storage areas dedicated for the replica. When the Replica is removed, the LC is terminated but the storage is preserved. If a Replica with the same id is created again, the storage is reattached.

Similar to the SC-SPU connection setup, LC waits for the Follower SPU to initiate a full duplex connection before it can communicate.

Each LC is solely responsible for the interaction with producers and consumers. When the LC receives messages from Producers, it performs the following operations:

• appends new records to local storage
• sends updated offsets to sc and follower controllers
• for each consumer, it sends records as stated in their request type:
  • committed records - records that have been replicated across followers
  • uncommitted records - records that have been persisted on local storage

Leader and Followers sync their offsets with each other. If followers fall behind, the leader sends missing records until the followers catch-up.

When the leaders receives an offset index from the follower, the leader computes the lagging indicator. This indicator is used:

• to detect if records can be committed.
• to identify the followers that are behind.

Replica information such as committed records and lagging indicators are sent to the SC in the Live Replicas (LRS) message.

A Follower Controller (FC) managed all Follower Replicas grouped by a Leader. The FC is spawned by the SC Dispatcher when the both conditions are met:

• Follower Spec is new.
• No FC has previously been created.

The FC is terminated when the last Follower Spec is removed. Each FC is responsible for the storage areas dedicated for all follower replicas. The storage is preserved when the FC is terminated.

FC event loop engine performs the following operations:

• Ensures connection to Leader SPU is established, otherwise connect.
• Creates or reattach local storage when new Replica Follower is received.
• Syncs offsets with Leader SPU.
• Adds records to Replica from Leader SPU.

Topics are created with a replication factor which defines the number of data copies saved for each data stream. For example, a topic with a replication factor of 3 will generate 3 copies of data, one per SPU.

Replica assignment algorithm designates sets of SPUs to store identical copies (replicas) of the data for each data stream. Election algorithm assigns one SPU as leader and the others as followers. The leader is responsible for data propagation and the communication with producers and consumers. The followers are responsible with replicating data received from the leader. If the leader goes offline, an election ensues and one of the followers becomes the new leader. After the election is completed, clients automatically reconnect and operation resumes.

Election algorithm and failover scenarios are described in detail in the Replica Election section.

Each replica writes records in a local file on the SPU.

New records are appended to files and become immutable.

Records are indexed by offset and time. Each records consists of an arbitrary binary key/value key.

Records are organized in segments of a predefined maximum size. Segments can be purged based on a retention policy.

To allow faster access to records in replica, index files are maintained. Index file is memory mapped to b-tree structure to allow fast access. Index files are re-built from records as necessary.

Records IO is optimized for each platform designed for high-throughput async IO. There are two factors that determine system performance:

• Consistency Model - COMMITTED/UNCOMMITTED
• Flushing Policy - by default records are flushed based on the minimum number of bytes or after a certain amount of time elapsed.

Records in replica are send to consumer using zero copy mechanism. Zero copy mechanism avoids the need to copy records in memory and increases performance.

Records can be batched together to improve performance.