Quickstart: stream processing with Dataflow

Dataflow is a fully-managed service for transforming and enriching data in stream (real-time) and batch modes with equal reliability and expressiveness. It provides a simplified pipeline development environment using the Apache Beam SDK, which has a rich set of windowing and session analysis primitives as well as an ecosystem of source and sink connectors. This quickstart shows you how to use Dataflow to:

  • Read messages published to a Pub/Sub topic
  • Window (or group) the messages by timestamp
  • Write the messages to Cloud Storage

This quickstart introduces you to using Dataflow in Java and Python. SQL is also supported. This quickstart is also offered as a Qwiklabs tutorial which offers temporary credentials to get you started.

You can also start by using UI-based Dataflow templates if you do not intend to do custom data processing.

Before you begin

  1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

  2. In the Google Cloud Console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

    Go to project selector

  3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to confirm that billing is enabled for your project.

  4. Enable the Compute Engine, Google Cloud's operations suite, Cloud Storage, Cloud Storage JSON, Pub/Sub, Cloud Scheduler, Resource Manager, and App Engine APIs.

    Enable the APIs

  5. Create a service account:

    1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Create service account page.

      Go to Create service account
    2. Select a project.

    3. In the Service account name field, enter a name. The Cloud Console fills in the Service account ID field based on this name.

      In the Service account description field, enter a description. For example, Service account for quickstart.

    4. Click Create and continue.

    5. Click the Select a role field.

      Under Quick access, click Basic, then click Owner.

    6. Click Continue.

    7. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

      Do not close your browser window. You will use it in the next step.

  6. Create a service account key:

    1. In the Cloud Console, click the email address for the service account that you created.
    2. Click Keys.
    3. Click Add key, then click Create new key.
    4. Click Create. A JSON key file is downloaded to your computer.
    5. Click Close.

  7. Set the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to the path of the JSON file that contains your service account key. This variable only applies to your current shell session, so if you open a new session, set the variable again.

  8. Install and initialize the Cloud SDK.

  9. Create variables for your bucket, project, and region. Cloud Storage bucket names must be globally unique. Select a Dataflow region close to where you run the commands in this quickstart. 

    BUCKET_NAME=your-bucket-name
PROJECT_ID=$(gcloud config get-value project)
TOPIC_ID=your-topic-id
REGION=dataflow-region

  10. Create a Cloud Storage bucket owned by this project: 

    gsutil mb gs://$BUCKET_NAME

  11. Create a Pub/Sub topic in this project: 

    gcloud pubsub topics create $TOPIC_ID

  12. Create a Cloud Scheduler job in this project. The job publishes a message to a Pub/Sub topic at one-minute intervals.

    If an App Engine app does not exist for the project, this step will create one. 

    gcloud scheduler jobs create pubsub publisher-job --schedule="* * * * *" \
    --topic=$TOPIC_ID --message-body="Hello!"

    Start the job. 

    gcloud scheduler jobs run publisher-job

  13. Use the following commands to clone the quickstart repository and navigate to the sample code directory:

    Java

    git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/java-docs-samples.git
cd java-docs-samples/pubsub/streaming-analytics

    Python

    git clone https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/python-docs-samples.git
cd python-docs-samples/pubsub/streaming-analytics
pip install -r requirements.txt  # Install Apache Beam dependencies

Stream messages from Pub/Sub to Cloud Storage

Code sample

This sample code uses Dataflow to:

  • Read Pub/Sub messages.
  • Window (or group) messages into fixed-size intervals by publish timestamps.

  • Write the messages in each window to files in Cloud Storage.

Java


import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.beam.examples.common.WriteOneFilePerWindow;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.Pipeline;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.io.gcp.pubsub.PubsubIO;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.Default;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.Description;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.PipelineOptions;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.PipelineOptionsFactory;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.StreamingOptions;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.options.Validation.Required;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.transforms.windowing.FixedWindows;
import org.apache.beam.sdk.transforms.windowing.Window;
import org.joda.time.Duration;

public class PubSubToGcs {
  /*
   * Define your own configuration options. Add your own arguments to be processed
   * by the command-line parser, and specify default values for them.
   */
  public interface PubSubToGcsOptions extends PipelineOptions, StreamingOptions {
    @Description("The Cloud Pub/Sub topic to read from.")
    @Required
    String getInputTopic();

    void setInputTopic(String value);

    @Description("Output file's window size in number of minutes.")
    @Default.Integer(1)
    Integer getWindowSize();

    void setWindowSize(Integer value);

    @Description("Path of the output file including its filename prefix.")
    @Required
    String getOutput();

    void setOutput(String value);
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    // The maximum number of shards when writing output.
    int numShards = 1;

    PubSubToGcsOptions options =
        PipelineOptionsFactory.fromArgs(args).withValidation().as(PubSubToGcsOptions.class);

    options.setStreaming(true);

    Pipeline pipeline = Pipeline.create(options);

    pipeline
        // 1) Read string messages from a Pub/Sub topic.
        .apply("Read PubSub Messages", PubsubIO.readStrings().fromTopic(options.getInputTopic()))
        // 2) Group the messages into fixed-sized minute intervals.
        .apply(Window.into(FixedWindows.of(Duration.standardMinutes(options.getWindowSize()))))
        // 3) Write one file to GCS for every window of messages.
        .apply("Write Files to GCS", new WriteOneFilePerWindow(options.getOutput(), numShards));

    // Execute the pipeline and wait until it finishes running.
    pipeline.run().waitUntilFinish();
  }
}

Python

import argparse
from datetime import datetime
import logging
import random

from apache_beam import DoFn, GroupByKey, io, ParDo, Pipeline, PTransform, WindowInto, WithKeys
from apache_beam.options.pipeline_options import PipelineOptions
from apache_beam.transforms.window import FixedWindows


class GroupMessagesByFixedWindows(PTransform):
    """A composite transform that groups Pub/Sub messages based on publish time
    and outputs a list of tuples, each containing a message and its publish time.
    """

    def __init__(self, window_size, num_shards=5):
        # Set window size to 60 seconds.
        self.window_size = int(window_size * 60)
        self.num_shards = num_shards

    def expand(self, pcoll):
        return (
            pcoll
            # Bind window info to each element using element timestamp (or publish time).
            | "Window into fixed intervals"
            >> WindowInto(FixedWindows(self.window_size))
            | "Add timestamp to windowed elements" >> ParDo(AddTimestamp())
            # Assign a random key to each windowed element based on the number of shards.
            | "Add key" >> WithKeys(lambda _: random.randint(0, self.num_shards - 1))
            # Group windowed elements by key. All the elements in the same window must fit
            # memory for this. If not, you need to use `beam.util.BatchElements`.
            | "Group by key" >> GroupByKey()
        )


class AddTimestamp(DoFn):
    def process(self, element, publish_time=DoFn.TimestampParam):
        """Processes each windowed element by extracting the message body and its
        publish time into a tuple.
        """
        yield (
            element.decode("utf-8"),
            datetime.utcfromtimestamp(float(publish_time)).strftime(
                "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f"
            ),
        )


class WriteToGCS(DoFn):
    def __init__(self, output_path):
        self.output_path = output_path

    def process(self, key_value, window=DoFn.WindowParam):
        """Write messages in a batch to Google Cloud Storage."""

        ts_format = "%H:%M"
        window_start = window.start.to_utc_datetime().strftime(ts_format)
        window_end = window.end.to_utc_datetime().strftime(ts_format)
        shard_id, batch = key_value
        filename = "-".join([self.output_path, window_start, window_end, str(shard_id)])

        with io.gcsio.GcsIO().open(filename=filename, mode="w") as f:
            for message_body, publish_time in batch:
                f.write(f"{message_body},{publish_time}\n".encode("utf-8"))


def run(input_topic, output_path, window_size=1.0, num_shards=5, pipeline_args=None):
    # Set `save_main_session` to True so DoFns can access globally imported modules.
    pipeline_options = PipelineOptions(
        pipeline_args, streaming=True, save_main_session=True
    )

    with Pipeline(options=pipeline_options) as pipeline:
        (
            pipeline
            # Because `timestamp_attribute` is unspecified in `ReadFromPubSub`, Beam
            # binds the publish time returned by the Pub/Sub server for each message
            # to the element's timestamp parameter, accessible via `DoFn.TimestampParam`.
            # https://beam.apache.org/releases/pydoc/current/apache_beam.io.gcp.pubsub.html#apache_beam.io.gcp.pubsub.ReadFromPubSub
            | "Read from Pub/Sub" >> io.ReadFromPubSub(topic=input_topic)
            | "Window into" >> GroupMessagesByFixedWindows(window_size, num_shards)
            | "Write to GCS" >> ParDo(WriteToGCS(output_path))
        )


if __name__ == "__main__":
    logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument(
        "--input_topic",
        help="The Cloud Pub/Sub topic to read from."
        '"projects/<PROJECT_ID>/topics/<TOPIC_ID>".',
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--window_size",
        type=float,
        default=1.0,
        help="Output file's window size in minutes.",
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--output_path",
        help="Path of the output GCS file including the prefix.",
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--num_shards",
        type=int,
        default=5,
        help="Number of shards to use when writing windowed elements to GCS.",
    )
    known_args, pipeline_args = parser.parse_known_args()

    run(
        known_args.input_topic,
        known_args.output_path,
        known_args.window_size,
        known_args.num_shards,
        pipeline_args,
    )

Start the pipeline

To start the pipeline, run the following command:

Java

mvn compile exec:java \
  -Dexec.mainClass=com.examples.pubsub.streaming.PubSubToGcs \
  -Dexec.cleanupDaemonThreads=false \
  -Dexec.args=" \
    --project=$PROJECT_ID \
    --region=$REGION \
    --inputTopic=projects/$PROJECT_ID/topics/$TOPIC_ID \
    --output=gs://$BUCKET_NAME/samples/output \
    --gcpTempLocation=gs://$BUCKET_NAME/temp \
    --runner=DataflowRunner \
    --windowSize=2"

Python

python PubSubToGCS.py \
  --project=$PROJECT_ID \
  --region=$REGION \
  --input_topic=projects/$PROJECT_ID/topics/$TOPIC_ID \
  --output_path=gs://$BUCKET_NAME/samples/output \
  --runner=DataflowRunner \
  --window_size=2 \
  --num_shards=2 \
  --temp_location=gs://$BUCKET_NAME/temp

The preceding command runs locally and launches a Dataflow job that runs in the cloud. When the command returns JOB_MESSAGE_DETAILED: Workers have started successfully, exit the local program using Ctrl+C.

Observe job and pipeline progress

You can observe the job's progress in the Dataflow console.

Go to the Dataflow console

Observe the job's progress

Open the job details view to see:

  • Job structure
  • Job logs
  • Stage metrics

Observe the job's progress

You may have to wait a few minutes to see the output files in Cloud Storage.

Observe the job's progress

Alternatively, use the command line below to check which files have been written out.

gsutil ls gs://${BUCKET_NAME}/samples/

The output should look like the following:

Java

gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:30-22:32-0-of-1
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:32-22:34-0-of-1
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:34-22:36-0-of-1
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:36-22:38-0-of-1

Python

gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:30-22:32-0
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:30-22:32-1
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:32-22:34-0
gs://{$BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output-22:32-22:34-1

Cleanup

  1. Delete the Cloud Scheduler job.

    gcloud scheduler jobs delete publisher-job

  2. In the Dataflow console, stop the job. Cancel the pipeline without draining it.

  3. Delete the topic.

    gcloud pubsub topics delete $TOPIC_ID

  4. Delete the files created by the pipeline.

    gsutil -m rm -rf "gs://${BUCKET_NAME}/samples/output*"
gsutil -m rm -rf "gs://${BUCKET_NAME}/temp/*"

  5. Remove the Cloud Storage bucket.

    gsutil rb gs://${BUCKET_NAME}

What's next