0
votes

I have the following scenario:

Mobile app produces events that are sent to Event Hub which is input stream source to a Stream Analytics query. From there they are passed through a sequential flow of queries that splits the stream into 2 streams based on criteria, evaluates other conditions and decides whether or not to let the event keep flowing through the pipeline (if it doesn't it is simply discarded). You could classify what we are doing is noise reduction/event filtering. Basically if A just happened don't let A happen again unless B & C happened or X time passes. At the end of the query gauntlet the streams are merged again and the "selected" events are propagated as "chosen" outputs.

My problem is that I need the ability to compare the current event to the previous "chosen" event (not just the previous input event) so in essence I need to join my input stream to my output stream. I have tried various ways to do this and so far none have worked, I know that other CEP engines support this concept. My queries are mostly all defined as temporary results sets inside of a WITH statement (that's where my initial input stream is pulled into the first query and each following query depends on the one above it) but I see no way to either join my input to my output or to join my input to another temporary result set that is further down in the chain. It appears that join only supports inputs?

For the moment I am attempting to work around this limitation with something I really don't want to do in production, but I actually have an output defined going to an Azure Queue then an Azure Function triggered by events on that queue that wakes up and posts it to a different Event hub that is mapped as a recirc feed input back into my queries which I can join to. Still wiring all of that up so not 100% sure it will work but thinking there has to be a better option for this relatively common pattern?

2

2 Answers

1
votes

The WITH statement is indeed the right way to get a previous input joined with some other data. You may need to combine it with the LAG operator, that gets the previous event in a data stream.

Let us know if it works for you.

Thanks,

JS - Azure Stream Analytics

0
votes

AFAIK, the stream analytics job supports two distinct data input types: data stream inputs and reference data inputs. Per my understanding, you could leverage Reference data to perform a lookup or to correlate with your data stream. For more details, you could refer to the following tutorials:

Data input types: Data stream and reference data

Configuring reference data

Tips on refreshing your reference data

Reference Data JOIN (Azure Stream Analytics)