[GitHub] [flink-web] sthm commented on a diff in pull request #517: [FLINK-24370] Addition of blog post describing features and usage of the Async Sink…

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sthm commented on code in PR #517:
URL: https://github.com/apache/flink-web/pull/517#discussion_r861651452


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_posts/2022-03-16-async-sink-base.md:
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@@ -0,0 +1,169 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "The Generic Asynchronous Base Sink"
+date: 2022-04-30 16:00:00
+authors:
+- CrynetLogistics:
+  name: "Zichen Liu"
+excerpt: An overview of the new AsyncBaseSink and how to use it for building your own concrete sink
+---
+
+Flink sinks share a lot of similar behavior. All sinks batch records according to user-defined buffering hints, sign requests, write them to the destination, retry unsuccessful or throttled requests, and participate in checkpointing.
+
+This is why for [Flink 1.15](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLINK/FLIP-171%3A+Async+Sink) we have decided to create the `AsyncSinkBase`, an abstract sink with a number of common functionalities extracted. 
+
+This is a base implementation for asynchronous sinks, which you should use whenever you need to implement a sink that doesn't offer transactional capabilities. Adding support for a new destination now only requires a lightweight shim that implements the specific interfaces of the destination using a client that supports async requests.
+
+This common abstraction will reduce the effort required to maintain individual sinks that extend from this abstract sink, with bug fixes and improvements to the sink core benefiting all implementations that extend it. The design of `AsyncSinkBase` focuses on extensibility and a broad support of destinations. The core of the sink is kept generic and free of any connector-specific dependencies.
+
+The sink base is designed to participate in checkpointing to provide at-least-once semantics and can work directly with destinations that provide a client that supports asynchronous requests. Alternatively, concrete sink implementers may manage their own thread pool with a synchronous client.
+
+In this post, we will go over the details of the AsyncSinkBase so that you can start using it to build your own concrete sink.
+
+{% toc %}
+
+# Adding the base sink as a dependency
+
+In order to use the base sink, you will need to add the following dependency to your project. The example below follows the Maven syntax:
+
+```xml
+<dependency>
+  <groupId>org.apache.flink</groupId>
+  <artifactId>flink-connector-base</artifactId>
+  <version>${flink.version}</version>
+</dependency>
+```
+
+# The Public Interfaces of AsyncSinkBase
+
+## Generic Types
+
+`<InputT>` – type of elements in a DataStream that should be passed to the sink
+
+`<RequestEntryT>` – type of a payload containing the element and additional metadata that is required to submit a single element to the destination
+
+
+## Element Converter Interface
+
+[ElementConverter](https://github.com/apache/flink/blob/master/flink-connectors/flink-connector-base/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/connector/base/sink/writer/ElementConverter.java)
+
+```java
+public interface ElementConverter<InputT, RequestEntryT> extends Serializable {
+    RequestEntryT apply(InputT element, SinkWriter.Context context);
+}
+```
+The concrete sink implementation should provide a way to convert from an element in the DataStream to the payload type that contains all the additional metadata required to submit that element to the destination by the sink. Ideally, this would be hidden from the end user since it allows concrete sink implementers to adapt to changes in the destination API without breaking end user code.
+
+## Sink Writer Interface
+
+[AsyncSinkWriter](https://github.com/apache/flink/blob/master/flink-connectors/flink-connector-base/src/main/java/org/apache/flink/connector/base/sink/writer/AsyncSinkWriter.java)
+
+```java
+public abstract class AsyncSinkWriter<InputT, RequestEntryT extends Serializable>
+        implements StatefulSink.StatefulSinkWriter<InputT, BufferedRequestState<RequestEntryT>> {
+    // ...
+    protected abstract void submitRequestEntries(
+            List<RequestEntryT> requestEntries, Consumer<List<RequestEntryT>> requestResult);
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+In this method, sink implementers should use the destination clients to submit `requestEntries` asynchronously to be written.
+
+Should any elements fail to be persisted, they should be requeued back in the buffer for retry using `requestResult.accept(...list of failed entries...)`. However, retrying any element that is known to be faulty and consistently failing, will result in that element being requeued forever, therefore a sensible strategy for determining what should be retried is highly recommended.

Review Comment:
   We should call out that this method needs to be called with an empty list in case no requests need to be retried.



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