The Apache Software Foundation has elevated its Flink big data system to Top-Level Project status. The open source tool offers both processing and analytics capabilities for real-time or batch data. It can serve as an alternative to Hadoop MapReduce or it can be used alongside Hadoop. “Flink?s technology draws inspiration from Hadoop, MPP databases and data streaming systems, but fuses those in a unique way,” explained Flink vice president Stephan Ewen.
“The combination of batch and true low-latency streaming is unique in Flink,” added Flink Project Management Committee member Kostas Tzoumas. “Combining these styles of processing, often termed ‘lambda architecture,’ is becoming increasingly popular. Unlike pure batch or streaming engines, through its hybrid engine Flink can support both high-performance and sophisticated batch programs as well as real-time streaming programs with low latency and complex streaming semantics.”
