eep.erl

Embedding Event Processing for Erlang

Status

Experimental.

Overview

eep.erl is a small lightweight subset of Complex Event Processing (CEP) that adds aggregate functions and windowed stream operations to Erlang. It is a straight forward port of eep.js to Erlang. To understand the motivation, then, read the introduction to eep.js. If you prefer PHP, then Ian Barber has ported eep.js adding a React PHP edition to the eep.star family. Get Ian's eep.php there.

This version is different. It uses processes and message passing and callbacks are provided via OTP's gen_event behaviour. It isn't designed for speed but it is relatively fast for a pure Erlang library.

Simple Event Processing

There are a number of excellent projects for monitoring/metrics systems already available in Erlang, such as Boundary's excellent folsom. If you need a monitoring or metrics system use those. They do what they say on the tin. If you want lower level building blocks, eep.erl gives you four different types of windowed event processing with pluggable aggregate functions.

Getting Started in the shell

Compile with

rebar compile

Start with

erl -pa ebin

Create a tumbling window process.

P = eep_window_tumbling:start(eep_stats_count, 4).

Add an event handler to capture window emissions.

P ! {add_handler, eep_emit_trace, []}.

You can provide your own handler's by implementing gen_event

Update the contents of the window with interesting events.

P ! {push, 1},
P ! {push, 10},
P ! {push, 100},
P ! {push, 1000}.

The window will emit results once the window size (4 here) has been reached. In the case of a tumbling window the count is reset or zeroed when window closes.

A sliding window, on the other hand, will result in an emission on every event subsequent to the first emission.

You might use a sliding window as follows.

P = eep_window_sliding:start(eep_stats_sum, 4).
P ! {add_handler, eep_emit_trace, []}.
[ P ! {push, X} || X <- lists:seq(1,24)].

(You might need to 'forget' P with f(P). if you are continuing from the previous example.)

Periodic windows and monotonic windows are created similarly:

%% periodic
OneMilli = eep_window_periodic:start(eep_stats_sum, 1).
OneHunMillis = eep_window_periodic:start(eep_stats_avg, 100).
OneSec = eep_window_periodic:start(eep_stats_vars, 1000).

%% monotonic
Mono = eep_window_monotonic:start(eep_stats_stdevs, eep_clock_count, 1).

But usage differs. For clock driven windows a clock tick needs to be provided / donated by the user. The window will emit results on or after the anniversary of a significant clock event.

main(_Args) ->
  P = eep_window_monotonic:start(eep_stats_count,eep_clock_count,1000),
  P ! {add_handler, eep_emit_trace, []},
  main_loop(P,1).

main_loop(Window,Count) ->
  Window ! {push, 1},
  Window ! tick,
  main_loop(Window,Count+1).

Statistics package

Numerically stable statistics functions ship with the library. These functions can be used with any of the 4 provided window types.

eep.erl ships with:

1. Count - Counts all the things in a window
2. Sum - Adds (the value of) all the things in a window
3. Min - Gets the minimum value'd thing in a window
4. Max - Gets the maximum value'd thing in a window
5. Mean - Gets the statistical mean
6. Variance - Gets the sample variance
7. Standard deviation - Gets the standard deviation

Noop package

Sometimes the ingress of an event or triggering a close on a window is useful enough information in its own right. So the 'noop' aggregate function supports exactly that.

Roll your own functions

To implement your own functions, just implement the eep_aggregate.erl behaviour. You can roll your own clock for monotonic windows by implementing the eep_clock.erl behvaiour.

TODO

1. Consider replacing processes with OTP/gen_server.
2. Separate out a library (no process / message passing overhead, emeddable) from existing process oriented windows.
3. Consider a simpler solution than gen_event for wiring up emitted events.
4. Add performance tests. Indicatively 600-700K messages per second to a window process.
5. Explore rewriting performance critical sections and aggregate functions in C, exposed as NIFs.
6. Steal beam.js beams and pipes but make it erlangy somehow.

Enjoy!