We have a Kafka stream of events that we want to process with a Flink datastream process. However, the stream is populated by an upstream batch process that only executes every few hours. So the stream has very 'bursty' behaviour. We need a window based on event time to await the next events for the same key. Due to this batch population of the stream, these windows can remain open (with no event activity on the stream) for many hours. From what I understand we could indeed leave the Flink datastream process up and running all this time and the window would remain open. We could even use a savepoint and then stop the process and restart it (with the window state being restored) when we get the next batch and the events start appearing in the stream again.
One rationale for this mode of operation is that we have a future usecase where this stream will be populated in real-time and would behave like a normal stream. Is that a best-practice approach for this scenario? Or should we be treating these batches as individual batches (Flink job that ends with the end of the batch) and manually handle the windowing that needs to cross multiple batches. Thanks, Jonny Confidentiality: This communication and any attachments are intended for the above-named persons only and may be confidential and/or legally privileged. Any opinions expressed in this communication are not necessarily those of NICE Actimize. If this communication has come to you in error you must take no action based on it, nor must you copy or show it to anyone; please delete/destroy and inform the sender by e-mail immediately. Monitoring: NICE Actimize may monitor incoming and outgoing e-mails. Viruses: Although we have taken steps toward ensuring that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This communication and any attachments are intended for the above-named persons only and may be confidential and/or legally privileged. Any opinions expressed in this communication are not necessarily those of NICE Actimize. If this communication has come to you in error you must take no action based on it, nor must you copy or show it to anyone; please delete/destroy and inform the sender by e-mail immediately. Monitoring: NICE Actimize may monitor incoming and outgoing e-mails. Viruses: Although we have taken steps toward ensuring that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advise that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free.
