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Command driven connectors

Summary​

This RFC introduces a control plane for connectors to allow controlling their behavior and actions via events.

Motivation​

In some cases, connectors might need to be controlled in ways, which are not necessarily expressible as data (or metadata). Things like querying databases, controlling TCP/UDP servers/clients, etc. might require an interface driven by commands.

Guide-level Explanation​

Please note that the oneshot connector does not exist yet. It should be added together with implementation for this RFC. Its function is to send an event once on startup.

Command-driven connectors define at least one port - control, and optionally in and/or out for data. As an example, let's look at a connector that reads files:

define flow main
flow
  use std;

  define connector read_file_list from oneshot
  with
    event = std::commands::file::read("in.json")
  end;

  define connector file_connector from file
    with 
      codec="string"
  end;
  
  define connector file_list from file
    with 
      codec = "json"
  end;
  
  create pipeline main
  pipeline
    select { "command": "read", "path": event.path } from in into out;
  end;
  
  create connector read_file_list from read_file_list;
  create connector file_connector from file_connector;
  create connector file_list from file_list;
  
  connect /connector/read_file_list/out to /connector/file_list/control;
  connect /connector/file_list/out to /pipeline/main/in;
  
  # This is the magic - we send the commands here, note the "control" port
  connect /pipeline/main/out to /connector/file_connector/control;
  
  connect /connector/file_connector/out to /pipeline/main/out;
end;

Reference-level Explanation​

Each command driven connector implements at least one port - control. control is an input port, through which the commands are sent.

The commands are standardised as far as it is practical, so the connectors can be swapped without adjusting the rest of the system. Convenience functions are provided to generate the events. Each event has a correlation field, which will be a unique identifier provided in the metadata for the response. This is automatically generated by the convenience functions.

Drawbacks​

This raises the complexity of Tremor.

Rationale and Alternatives​

There are no known alternatives that provide the same benefits. Currently, for example the S3 reader connector, will read all files in the bucket, once, which has limited use.

Prior Art​

Discuss prior art, both the good and the bad, in relation to this proposal. A few examples of what this can include are:

  • For language, library, tools, and clustering proposals: Does this feature exist in other programming languages, and what experience have their community had?
  • For community proposals: Is this done by some other community and what were their experiences with it?
  • For other teams: What lessons can we learn from what other communities have done here?
  • Papers: Are there any published papers or great posts that discuss this? If you have some relevant papers to refer to, this can serve as a more detailed theoretical background.

This section is intended to encourage you as an author to think about the lessons from other projects, provide readers of your RFC with a fuller picture. If there is no prior art, that is fine- your ideas are interesting to us whether they are brand new or if it is an adaptation from other projects.

Note that while precedent set by other projects is some motivation, it does not, on its own, motivate an RFC. Please also take into consideration that Tremor sometimes intentionally diverges from similar projects.

Unresolved Questions​

  • How do we enforce uniformity of commands across connectors?
  • How would writes work?
  • Are multiple events per command allowed in the output?

Future Possibilities​

Think about what the natural extension and evolution of your proposal would be and how it would affect Tremor as a whole in a holistic way. Try to use this section as a tool to more fully consider all possible interactions with the project in your proposal. Also, consider how this all fits into the roadmap for the project and of the relevant sub-team.

This is also a good place to "dump ideas", if they are out of scope for the RFC you are writing but otherwise related.

If you have tried and cannot think of any future possibilities, you may state that you cannot think of anything.

Note that having something written down in the future-possibilities section is not a reason to accept the current or a future RFC; such notes should be in the section on motivation or rationale in this or subsequent RFCs. The section merely provides additional information.

notes​

  • separate channels - one for commands, one for data
  • traits (not necessarily rust traits) for the behaviours that a connector can implement
    • e.g. KV store - "read key", "stream read key", filesystem - "create directory", "delete directory"