Online Analytics with Local Operator Rebinding for Simulation Data Stream Processing

Leveraging multiple threads to process high volumes of simulation data is a prevalent strategy in modern streaming data processing systems. Statically binding operators to specific threads is the most common design employed due to its simplicity in implementation and initial system configuration. However, this approach often fails to effectively account for the inherently dynamic nature of simulation data, potentially leading to inefficient resource utilisation and processing bottlenecks. To address these limitations, we present a novel mechanism for stream-processing operator rebinding that enables lock-free, dynamic workload rebalancing between worker threads. The rebinding is driven by an autonomic policy that captures workload imbalance in the stream-processing pipeline when multiple queries are computed and reacts to it by moving computation around the different threads. We evaluate our proposal using data generated from large-scale traffic simulations on which multiple queries are executed. The volume and organisation of the data we feed to the stream-processing pipeline significantly change over time, providing excellent grounds to evaluate our rebinding policy. The evaluation confirms that the performance of stream processing pipelines can be greatly improved using local operator rebinding.