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3Program, Framework, or Platform

In this chapter, we explore how we can process data in motion. There are three possibilities:

• Writing a standalone program

• Using a distributed framework

• Using a specialized platform

The standalone program is the build-your-own approach using a standard programming language such as C++ or Java. The distributed framework provides the building blocks for distributed processing in the context of a specific programming language. The platform approach is a superset of the previous choices and adds capabilities that make it a more complete environment.

We explore the pros and cons of each approach in implementing a solution that will run a strategic system for the enterprise.

Build Your Own

When you think about it, processing data in motion is the same thing as having a program process data for you. It is tempting to think that we could simply write programs from scratch to answer all our needs. The reason why it is not appropriate is better explained through an example.

Let’s say you want to process information that comes from a file and write the result into a database. To make things simple, the file lines are comma-delimited and each represents a row to store in the database. This is illustrated in Figure 3-1 below.

Figure 3-1 Simple program reading a file and writing to DB

This program reads a file one line at a time. It then processes the line, ...