/nw-sd-patterns-advanced
Advanced distributed patterns - event sourcing, CQRS, saga, stream processing, append-only log, exactly-once delivery, sequencer, double-entry ledger, erasure coding, order book, watermarks
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SKILL.md
nw-sd-patterns-advanced.SKILL.mdname: nw-sd-patterns-advanced
description: Advanced distributed patterns - event sourcing, CQRS, saga, stream processing, append-only log, exactly-once delivery, sequencer, double-entry ledger, erasure coding, order book, watermarks
user-invocable: false
disable-model-invocation: true
Advanced Distributed Patterns
Event Sourcing
**Problem**: need audit trail, state reconstruction, temporal queries.
**Core idea**: store every state change as immutable event, not current state.
Events: [WalletCreated: balance=0] [Deposited: +100] [Transferred: -30] [Deposited: +50]
Current state: 0 + 100 - 30 + 50 = 120
**Benefits**: complete audit trail | temporal queries ("balance on Jan 15?") | rebuild state from scratch | debug by replay | event-driven architecture
**Challenges**: computing state requires replaying all events -- use snapshots | schema evolution (events immutable) | store grows indefinitely -- compaction/archiving | eventual consistency for read models
**Snapshots**: periodically save computed state | current state = latest snapshot + events after it | trade-off: recovery speed vs storage
**Used in**: payment systems, banking, trading platforms, audit-critical systems
CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)
**Problem**: read and write models have different optimization needs.
**Architecture**: Commands -> Write Model (normalized, consistency) -> events/CDC -> Read Model (denormalized, query-optimized) <- Queries
**When**: very different read/write patterns | read model needs heavy denormalization | different scaling for reads vs writes | paired with Event Sourcing
**Trade-offs**: eventual consistency between models | increased complexity (two models) | sync lag
Saga Pattern
**Problem**: distributed transactions across services without 2PC.
**Core idea**: sequence of local transactions, each with compensating action.
Choreography Saga
Each service listens for events and acts | no central coordinator | simpler but harder to track/debug
Orchestration Saga
Central orchestrator coordinates sequence | more control, easier to reason about | orchestrator is SPOF
**Example -- money transfer**: 1. Debit A $100 -> success | 2. Credit B $100 -> FAIL | 3. Compensate: credit A back $100
**TCC variant (Try-Confirm/Cancel)**: Try: reserve resources | Confirm: finalize | Cancel: release. Better for inventory/booking.
**Trade-offs**: no ACID across services | compensating actions must be idempotent | temporary inconsistency visible | complex failure scenarios
Stream Processing
**Windowing**: Tumbling (fixed, non-overlapping) | Sliding (fixed, overlapping) | Session (gap-based, closes after inactivity)
**Processing guarantees**: at-most-once (fire-and-forget, may lose) | at-least-once (retry, may duplicate) | exactly-once (hardest, checkpointing + idempotent sinks)
**Checkpointing**: periodically save processor state | on failure restart from checkpoint | Flink: barrier-based (Chandy-Lamport)
**Backpressure**: consumer slower than producer | buffer, drop, or slow producer | Kafka handles naturally (consumer pulls at own pace)
Append-Only Log (Kafka-style)
**Structure**: segments of sequential offsets | Segment 0: [0..999] | Segment 1: [1000..1999]
**Why fast**: sequential writes only (saturates disk) | OS page cache for reads | zero-copy (sendfile) disk-to-network | batch writes amortize syscalls
**Retention**: time-based (delete old segments) | size-based (cap total) | compaction (keep latest per key)
Exactly-Once Delivery
True exactly-once is theoretically impossible. Achieve effectively-once through:
**Idempotent producer**: sequence number per message, broker deduplicates | Kafka supports natively
**Transactional processing**: read -> process -> write output + commit offset atomically | crash mid-tx -> abort -> replay
**Idempotent consumer**: track processed message IDs | check before processing, skip if seen | DB unique constraint or dedup cache
**End-to-end**: idempotent producer + transactional processing + idempotent consumer
Sequencer Pattern
**Problem**: multiple inputs need deterministic ordered processing.
All events pass through single sequencer | assigns monotonic sequence number | downstream processes in order | deterministic: same sequence = same state
**Properties**: single-threaded (ordering guarantee) | append to durable log | throughput limited -- shard by entity (per-symbol in exchange)
**Recovery**: standby reads same log | on primary failure: standby continues | downstream replays from last processed sequence
**Used in**: stock exchanges, matching engines, event sourcing
Double-Entry Ledger
**Rule**: every transaction produces exactly two entries -- debit and credit of equal amount.
Transaction: A pays $100 to B
Entry 1: DEBIT A $100
Entry 2: CREDIT B $100
Invariant: SUM(debits) = SUM(credits) -- always
Immutable entries (corrections via counter-entries) | balance = SUM(credits) - SUM(debits) | self-balancing: errors immediately detectable | regulatory requirement for financial systems
Reconciliation
Export records from each system | match by transaction_id | identify: missing records, amount mismatches, status discrepancies | alert on mismatches
**Schedule**: T+1 (most common) | real-time (critical systems) | monthly full balance
Erasure Coding
**Problem**: high durability without 3x storage overhead.
Split data into k data + m parity chunks (Reed-Solomon) | store k+m across nodes | any k of k+m can reconstruct
**Example (4+2)**: 6 chunks total, 1.5x overhead (vs 3x for triple replication), tolerates 2 failures
**Trade-offs**: storage efficient | higher CPU for encode/decode | higher read latency (multiple nodes) | expensive repair
**Used in**: S3, HDFS, Azure Storage, Google Colossus
Time-Series Data Management
**Write**: append-only, batch, compress (delta-of-delta timestamps, XOR values)
**Storage tiering**: Hot (<24h, raw, memory/SSD) | Warm (1-
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name: nw-sd-patterns-advanced description: Advanced distributed patterns - event sourcing, CQRS, saga, stream processing, append-only log, exactly-once delivery, sequencer, double-entry ledger, erasure coding, order book, watermarks user-invocable: false disable-model-invocation: true
Advanced Distributed Patterns
Event Sourcing
**Problem**: need audit trail, state reconstruction, temporal queries.
**Core idea**: store every state change as immutable event, not current state.
Events: [WalletCreated: balance=0] [Deposited: +100] [Transferred: -30] [Deposited: +50] Current state: 0 + 100 - 30 + 50 = 120
**Benefits**: complete audit trail | temporal queries ("balance on Jan 15?") | rebuild state from scratch | debug by replay | event-driven architecture
**Challenges**: computing state requires replaying all events -- use snapshots | schema evolution (events immutable) | store grows indefinitely -- compaction/archiving | eventual consistency for read models
**Snapshots**: periodically save computed state | current state = latest snapshot + events after it | trade-off: recovery speed vs storage
**Used in**: payment systems, banking, trading platforms, audit-critical systems
CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation)
**Problem**: read and write models have different optimization needs.
**Architecture**: Commands -> Write Model (normalized, consistency) -> events/CDC -> Read Model (denormalized, query-optimized) <- Queries
**When**: very different read/write patterns | read model needs heavy denormalization | different scaling for reads vs writes | paired with Event Sourcing
**Trade-offs**: eventual consistency between models | increased complexity (two models) | sync lag
Saga Pattern
**Problem**: distributed transactions across services without 2PC.
**Core idea**: sequence of local transactions, each with compensating action.
Choreography Saga
Each service listens for events and acts | no central coordinator | simpler but harder to track/debug
Orchestration Saga
Central orchestrator coordinates sequence | more control, easier to reason about | orchestrator is SPOF
**Example -- money transfer**: 1. Debit A $100 -> success | 2. Credit B $100 -> FAIL | 3. Compensate: credit A back $100
**TCC variant (Try-Confirm/Cancel)**: Try: reserve resources | Confirm: finalize | Cancel: release. Better for inventory/booking.
**Trade-offs**: no ACID across services | compensating actions must be idempotent | temporary inconsistency visible | complex failure scenarios
Stream Processing
**Windowing**: Tumbling (fixed, non-overlapping) | Sliding (fixed, overlapping) | Session (gap-based, closes after inactivity)
**Processing guarantees**: at-most-once (fire-and-forget, may lose) | at-least-once (retry, may duplicate) | exactly-once (hardest, checkpointing + idempotent sinks)
**Checkpointing**: periodically save processor state | on failure restart from checkpoint | Flink: barrier-based (Chandy-Lamport)
**Backpressure**: consumer slower than producer | buffer, drop, or slow producer | Kafka handles naturally (consumer pulls at own pace)
Append-Only Log (Kafka-style)
**Structure**: segments of sequential offsets | Segment 0: [0..999] | Segment 1: [1000..1999]
**Why fast**: sequential writes only (saturates disk) | OS page cache for reads | zero-copy (sendfile) disk-to-network | batch writes amortize syscalls
**Retention**: time-based (delete old segments) | size-based (cap total) | compaction (keep latest per key)
Exactly-Once Delivery
True exactly-once is theoretically impossible. Achieve effectively-once through:
**Idempotent producer**: sequence number per message, broker deduplicates | Kafka supports natively
**Transactional processing**: read -> process -> write output + commit offset atomically | crash mid-tx -> abort -> replay
**Idempotent consumer**: track processed message IDs | check before processing, skip if seen | DB unique constraint or dedup cache
**End-to-end**: idempotent producer + transactional processing + idempotent consumer
Sequencer Pattern
**Problem**: multiple inputs need deterministic ordered processing.
All events pass through single sequencer | assigns monotonic sequence number | downstream processes in order | deterministic: same sequence = same state
**Properties**: single-threaded (ordering guarantee) | append to durable log | throughput limited -- shard by entity (per-symbol in exchange)
**Recovery**: standby reads same log | on primary failure: standby continues | downstream replays from last processed sequence
**Used in**: stock exchanges, matching engines, event sourcing
Double-Entry Ledger
**Rule**: every transaction produces exactly two entries -- debit and credit of equal amount.
Transaction: A pays $100 to B Entry 1: DEBIT A $100 Entry 2: CREDIT B $100 Invariant: SUM(debits) = SUM(credits) -- always
Immutable entries (corrections via counter-entries) | balance = SUM(credits) - SUM(debits) | self-balancing: errors immediately detectable | regulatory requirement for financial systems
Reconciliation
Export records from each system | match by transaction_id | identify: missing records, amount mismatches, status discrepancies | alert on mismatches
**Schedule**: T+1 (most common) | real-time (critical systems) | monthly full balance
Erasure Coding
**Problem**: high durability without 3x storage overhead.
Split data into k data + m parity chunks (Reed-Solomon) | store k+m across nodes | any k of k+m can reconstruct
**Example (4+2)**: 6 chunks total, 1.5x overhead (vs 3x for triple replication), tolerates 2 failures
**Trade-offs**: storage efficient | higher CPU for encode/decode | higher read latency (multiple nodes) | expensive repair
**Used in**: S3, HDFS, Azure Storage, Google Colossus
Time-Series Data Management
**Write**: append-only, batch, compress (delta-of-delta timestamps, XOR values)
**Storage tiering**: Hot (<24h, raw, memory/SSD) | Warm (1-
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