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How to update a running persistent query

Context

You have a persistent query that is running and processing rows, and you want to change it to do something different. You want the new version of the query to start processing rows where the old version left off. This is generally known as upgrading a query.

In action

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-- Before
CREATE STREAM valid_purchases AS
  SELECT *
  FROM purchases
  WHERE cost > 0.00 AND quantity > 0;

-- After
CREATE OR REPLACE STREAM valid_purchases AS
  SELECT *
  FROM purchases
  WHERE quantity > 0;

Upgrade types

ksqlDB provides two mechanisms to change a query that is already running:

  1. In-place upgrades: you modify the behavior of a query, and it resumes from a previously committed offset. The syntax that ksqlDB uses to indicate an in-place upgrade is CREATE OR REPLACE.
  2. Replacing upgrades: you tear down an existing query, and start a new one from either earliest or latest offsets. To accomplish this, you first issue a TERMINATE <query_id>; and a DROP <source> before creating the query again.

Understanding upgrades

Obviously, it would be preferable to always perform an in-place upgrade when you change a query. But because of how streaming programs are constructed, this is not always possible.

To better understand the different types of upgrades that are allowed on persistent queries, here's a taxonomy using the combination of three types of query characteristics: source query, upgrade and (optionally) environment.

Category Characteristic Description
Query Stateful Stateful queries maintain local storage
Windowed Windowed queries maintain a limited amount of state specified by a window in time
Joined Joined queries read from multiple sources
Multistage Multistage queries contain intermediate, non-user visible topics in Kafka
Nondeterministic Nondeterministic queries may produce different results when executing identical input
Simple Queries with none of the above characteristics
Upgrade Transparent Transparent upgrades change the way something is computed (e.g. improving a UDF performance)
Data Selection Data selecting query upgrades change which/how many events are emitted
Schema Evolution Schema evolving query upgrades change the output type of the data
Source Modifying These upgrades change the source data, whether by means of modifying a JOIN or swapping out a source
Topology These upgrades are invisible to the user, but change the topology, such as the number of sub-topologies or the ordering of operations (e.g. filter push down)
Scaling Scaling upgrades change the physical properties of the query in order to enable better performance characteristics.
Unsupported Unsupported upgrades are ones that will semantically change the query in an unsupported way. There are no plans to implement these migrations.
Environment Backfill Backfill requires the output data to be accurate not just from a point in time, but from the earliest point of retained history
Cascading Cascading environments contain queries that are not terminal, but rather feed into downstream stream processing tasks
Exactly Once Exactly Once environments do not allow for data duplication or missed events
Ordered Ordered environments require that a single offset delineates pre- and post-migration (no events are interleaved)
Live Live environments describe queries that cannot afford downtime, either by means of acting as live storage (e.g. responding to pull queries) or feeding into high availability systems (powering important functionality)

ksqlDB supports only in-place upgrades for data selection and schema evolution upgrades on a limited subset of query characteristics. ksqlDB doesn't guarantee validity of any environments when performing an in-place upgrade.

Any in place upgrades on windowed or joined sources, as well as upgrades on any table aggregation, are not yet supported.

In-place upgrades

Imagine a query that reads from a stream of purchases made at ksqlDB's flagship store, ksqlMart, and filters out transactions that might be invalid:

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CREATE STREAM purchases (
  product_id INT KEY,
  name VARCHAR,
  cost DOUBLE,
  quantity INT
);

CREATE STREAM valid_purchases AS
  SELECT *
  FROM purchases
  WHERE cost > 0.00 AND quantity > 0;

Data selection

Over time, ksqlMart changes its return policy and begins issuing full refunds. These records have a negative cost column value. Since these records are now valid, ksqlMart needs to update the query to remove the cost > 0.00 clause:

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CREATE OR REPLACE STREAM valid_purchases AS
  SELECT *
  FROM purchases
  WHERE quantity > 0;

The CREATE OR REPLACE statement instructs ksqlDB to terminate the old query, and create a new one that will continue from the last record that the previous query processed. Note that this means any previously processed data with negative cost will not be included, even if issuing the query with SET 'auto.offset.reset'='earliest';.

This query upgrade is a simple, data selecting upgrade because it doesn't involve any aggregations; the only change is the criteria to emit rows. ksqlDB supports nearly all data selection modifications on source queries.

Schema evolution

Over time, ksqlMart gets more sophisticated in their usage of Kafka to monitor their input. They start publishing a new field to the purchases stream, named popularity. In order to reflect this change in their valid_purchases stream, they need to issue two different commands:

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CREATE OR REPLACE STREAM purchases (
  product_id INT KEY,
  name VARCHAR,
  cost DOUBLE,
  quantity INT,
  popularity DOUBLE
);

CREATE OR REPLACE STREAM valid_purchases AS
  SELECT *
  FROM purchases
  WHERE quantity > 0;

There are a few things to note in the above statements:

  1. Data declaration statements can be updated using CREATE OR REPLACE.
  2. ksqlMart re-issued the SELECT * statement even though the statement text is identical to the previous statement they issued. This is necessary because ksqlDB resolves SELECT * at the time the query was issued, which means that any updates to purchases after issuing a CREATE AS SELECT statement aren't picked up in valid_purchases.

Schema Evolution upgrades have much stricter requirements than Data Selection upgrades. ksqlDB supports only adding new columns at the end of the schema. Removing, renaming, or changing the type of any existing field is invalid.

Stateful data selection

The previous examples all involve stateless upgrades, but ksqlDB also enables data selection and limited schema evolution upgrades on some stateful queries. ksqlMart, as is common with data-driven companies that leverage ksqlDB, also has queries that generate analytics on their purchases:

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CREATE TABLE purchase_stats AS
  SELECT product_id,
         COUNT(*) AS num_sales,
         AVG(cost * quantity) AS average_sale
  FROM valid_purchases 
  GROUP BY product_id;

After some time, they realize that the purchase_stats stream doesn't account properly for refunds. They're OK with having the initial purchase count toward the purchase_stats, but they don't want the refund to increment the COUNT(*) aggregation, so they update their query in place to add a filter for this condition:

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CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE purchase_stats AS
  SELECT product_id,
         COUNT(*) AS num_sales,
         AVG(cost * quantity) AS average_sale
  FROM valid_purchases 
  WHERE cost > 0
  GROUP BY product_id;

This updated query ensures only that new refunds don't count toward the stats, but anything that was counted before will remain.

If ksqlMart wanted to backfill the data properly, they would need to issue a replacing upgrade that read from the earliest offset in the valid_purchases stream:

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TERMINATE CTAS_PURCHASE_STATS_0;

DROP STREAM purchase_stats;

SET 'auto.offset.reset'='earliest';

-- read from the start and create a new table
CREATE TABLE purchase_stats AS
  SELECT product_id,
         COUNT(*) AS num_sales,
         AVG(cost * quantity) AS average_sale
  FROM valid_purchases 
  WHERE cost > 0
  GROUP BY product_id;

This solution becomes more difficult if there are downstream consumers of the purchase_stats table.

Additional restrictions on stateful data selection

ksqlDB maintains state in order to accomplish stateful tasks such as aggregations. To ensure that all intermediate state is compatible, ksqlDB ensures that the intermediate schema is identical when changing a filter, which means that ksqlMart can only change filters to include fields that are already selected and can't remove a filter which is the only reference to a field.

Last update: 2022-04-13