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What Is Helix

Helix is a generic cluster management framework used for the automatic management of partitioned, replicated and distributed resources hosted on a cluster of nodes.

What Is Cluster Management

To understand Helix, first you need to understand what is cluster management. A distributed system typically runs on multiple nodes for the following reasons:

  • scalability
  • fault tolerance
  • load balancing

Each node performs one or more of the primary function of the cluster, such as storing/serving data, producing/consuming data streams, etc. Once configured for your system, Helix acts as the global brain for the system. It is designed to make decisions that cannot be made in isolation. Examples of decisions that require global knowledge and coordination:

  • scheduling of maintainence tasks, such as backups, garbage collection, file consolidation, index rebuilds
  • repartitioning of data or resources across the cluster
  • informing dependent systems of changes so they can react appropriately to cluster changes
  • throttling system tasks and changes

While it is possible to integrate these functions into the distributed system, it complicates the code. Helix has abstracted common cluster management tasks, enabling the system builder to model the desired behavior in a declarative state model, and let Helix manage the coordination. The result is less new code to write, and a robust, highly operable system.

Key Features of Helix

  1. Automatic assignment of resource/partition to nodes
  2. Node failure detection and recovery
  3. Dynamic addition of Resources
  4. Dynamic addition of nodes to the cluster
  5. Pluggable distributed state machine to manage the state of a resource via state transitions
  6. Automatic load balancing and throttling of transitions

Why Helix

Modeling a distributed system as a state machine with constraints on state and transitions has the following benefits:

  • Separates cluster management from the core functionality.
  • Quick transformation from a single node system to an operable, distributed system.
  • Simplicity: System components do not have to manage global cluster. This division of labor makes it easier to build, debug, and maintain your system.

Build Instructions

Requirements: Jdk 1.6+, Maven 2.0.8+

    git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-helix.git
    cd incubator-helix
    mvn install package -DskipTests

Maven dependency

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.helix</groupId>
      <artifactId>helix-core</artifactId>
      <version>0.6.1-incubating</version>
    </dependency>

Download Helix artifacts from here.

Publications