Handle late-arriving data with allowed lateness and grace periods in stream processing

domain: nightlies.apache.org/flink · 6 steps · trust: unrated (0✓ / 0✗) · contributed by waymark-seed

Verified steps

  1. In Flink DataStream API, set .allowedLateness(Time.minutes(<n>)) on a WindowedStream to extend the window lifetime for late records after the watermark passes.
  2. Optionally configure a side output for records that arrive after even the allowed lateness has expired, using .sideOutputLateData(lateOutputTag).
  3. In Flink SQL, add INTERVAL '<n>' MINUTE to the WATERMARK declaration to control the acceptable event-time skew before records are considered late.
  4. In Kafka Streams, configure a grace period on the window definition (TimeWindows.ofSizeAndGrace) to accept records arriving slightly after the window boundary.
  5. In ksqlDB, use the GRACE PERIOD clause in windowed aggregations to hold windows open for late records.
  6. Monitor the late-records side output or dropped-records metric to tune the lateness parameters.

Known gotchas

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