.. _persistence-java:
###########
Persistence
###########
Akka persistence enables stateful actors to persist their internal state so that it can be recovered when an actor
is started, restarted after a JVM crash or by a supervisor, or migrated in a cluster. The key concept behind Akka
persistence is that only changes to an actor's internal state are persisted but never its current state directly
(except for optional snapshots). These changes are only ever appended to storage, nothing is ever mutated, which
allows for very high transaction rates and efficient replication. Stateful actors are recovered by replaying stored
changes to these actors from which they can rebuild internal state. This can be either the full history of changes
or starting from a snapshot which can dramatically reduce recovery times. Akka persistence also provides point-to-point
communication with at-least-once message delivery semantics.
.. note::
Java 8 lambda expressions are also supported. (See section :ref:`persistence-lambda-java`)
Akka persistence is inspired by and the official replacement of the `eventsourced`_ library. It follows the same
concepts and architecture of `eventsourced`_ but significantly differs on API and implementation level. See also
:ref:`migration-eventsourced-2.3`
.. _eventsourced: https://github.com/eligosource/eventsourced
Dependencies
============
Akka persistence is a separate jar file. Make sure that you have the following dependency in your project::
com.typesafe.akka
akka-persistence_@binVersion@
@version@
Akka persistence extension comes with few built-in persistence plugins, including
in-memory heap based journal, local file-system based snapshot-store and LevelDB based journal.
LevelDB based plugins will require the following additional dependency declaration::
org.iq80.leveldb
leveldb
0.7
org.fusesource.leveldbjni
leveldbjni-all
1.8
Architecture
============
* *UntypedPersistentActor*: Is a persistent, stateful actor. It is able to persist events to a journal and can react to
them in a thread-safe manner. It can be used to implement both *command* as well as *event sourced* actors.
When a persistent actor is started or restarted, journaled messages are replayed to that actor, so that it can
recover internal state from these messages.
* *UntypedPersistentView*: A view is a persistent, stateful actor that receives journaled messages that have been written by another
persistent actor. A view itself does not journal new messages, instead, it updates internal state only from a persistent actor's
replicated message stream.
* *UntypedPersistentActorAtLeastOnceDelivery*: To send messages with at-least-once delivery semantics to destinations, also in
case of sender and receiver JVM crashes.
* *AsyncWriteJournal*: A journal stores the sequence of messages sent to a persistent actor. An application can control which messages
are journaled and which are received by the persistent actor without being journaled. The storage backend of a journal is pluggable.
Persistence extension comes with a "leveldb" journal plugin, which writes to the local filesystem,
and replicated journals are available as `Community plugins`_.
* *Snapshot store*: A snapshot store persists snapshots of a persistent actor's or a view's internal state. Snapshots are
used for optimizing recovery times. The storage backend of a snapshot store is pluggable.
Persistence extension comes with a "local" snapshot storage plugin, which writes to the local filesystem,
and replicated snapshot stores are available as `Community plugins`_.
.. _Community plugins: http://akka.io/community/
.. _event-sourcing-java:
Event sourcing
==============
The basic idea behind `Event Sourcing`_ is quite simple. A persistent actor receives a (non-persistent) command
which is first validated if it can be applied to the current state. Here, validation can mean anything, from simple
inspection of a command message's fields up to a conversation with several external services, for example.
If validation succeeds, events are generated from the command, representing the effect of the command. These events
are then persisted and, after successful persistence, used to change the actor's state. When the persistent actor
needs to be recovered, only the persisted events are replayed of which we know that they can be successfully applied.
In other words, events cannot fail when being replayed to a persistent actor, in contrast to commands. Event sourced
actors may of course also process commands that do not change application state, such as query commands, for example.
.. _Event Sourcing: http://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/EventSourcing.html
Akka persistence supports event sourcing with the ``UntypedPersistentActor`` abstract class. An actor that extends this
class uses the ``persist`` method to persist and handle events. The behavior of an ``UntypedPersistentActor``
is defined by implementing ``receiveRecover`` and ``receiveCommand``. This is demonstrated in the following example.
.. includecode:: ../../../akka-samples/akka-sample-persistence-java/src/main/java/sample/persistence/PersistentActorExample.java#persistent-actor-example
The example defines two data types, ``Cmd`` and ``Evt`` to represent commands and events, respectively. The
``state`` of the ``ExamplePersistentActor`` is a list of persisted event data contained in ``ExampleState``.
The persistent actor's ``onReceiveRecover`` method defines how ``state`` is updated during recovery by handling ``Evt``
and ``SnapshotOffer`` messages. The persistent actor's ``onReceiveCommand`` method is a command handler. In this example,
a command is handled by generating two events which are then persisted and handled. Events are persisted by calling
``persist`` with an event (or a sequence of events) as first argument and an event handler as second argument.
The ``persist`` method persists events asynchronously and the event handler is executed for successfully persisted
events. Successfully persisted events are internally sent back to the persistent actor as individual messages that trigger
event handler executions. An event handler may close over persistent actor state and mutate it. The sender of a persisted
event is the sender of the corresponding command. This allows event handlers to reply to the sender of a command
(not shown).
The main responsibility of an event handler is changing persistent actor state using event data and notifying others
about successful state changes by publishing events.
When persisting events with ``persist`` it is guaranteed that the persistent actor will not receive further commands between
the ``persist`` call and the execution(s) of the associated event handler. This also holds for multiple ``persist``
calls in context of a single command.
If persistence of an event fails, ``onPersistFailure`` will be invoked (logging the error by default)
and the actor will unconditionally be stopped. If persistence of an event is rejected before it is
stored, e.g. due to serialization error, ``onPersistRejected`` will be invoked (logging a warning
by default) and the actor continues with next message.
The easiest way to run this example yourself is to download `Typesafe Activator `_
and open the tutorial named `Akka Persistence Samples with Java `_.
It contains instructions on how to run the ``PersistentActorExample``.
.. note::
It's also possible to switch between different command handlers during normal processing and recovery
with ``getContext().become()`` and ``getContext().unbecome()``. To get the actor into the same state after
recovery you need to take special care to perform the same state transitions with ``become`` and
``unbecome`` in the ``receiveRecover`` method as you would have done in the command handler.
Note that when using ``become`` from ``receiveRecover`` it will still only use the ``receiveRecover``
behavior when replaying the events. When replay is completed it will use the new behavior.
Identifiers
-----------
A persistent actor must have an identifier that doesn't change across different actor incarnations.
The identifier must be defined with the ``persistenceId`` method.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#persistence-id-override
.. _recovery-java:
Recovery
--------
By default, a persistent actor is automatically recovered on start and on restart by replaying journaled messages.
New messages sent to a persistent actor during recovery do not interfere with replayed messages.
They are cached and received by a persistent actor after recovery phase completes.
.. note::
Accessing the ``sender()`` for replayed messages will always result in a ``deadLetters`` reference,
as the original sender is presumed to be long gone. If you indeed have to notify an actor during
recovery in the future, store its ``ActorPath`` explicitly in your persisted events.
Recovery customization
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Applications may also customise how recovery is performed by returning a customised ``Recovery`` object
in the ``recovery`` method of a ``UntypedPersistentActor``, for example setting an upper bound to the replay,
which allows the actor to be replayed to a certain point "in the past" instead to its most up to date state:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#recovery-custom
Recovery can be disabled by returning ``Recovery.none()`` in the ``recovery`` method of a ``PersistentActor``:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#recovery-disabled
Recovery status
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A persistent actor can query its own recovery status via the methods
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#recovery-status
Sometimes there is a need for performing additional initialization when the
recovery has completed, before processing any other message sent to the persistent actor.
The persistent actor will receive a special :class:`RecoveryCompleted` message right after recovery
and before any other received messages.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#recovery-completed
If there is a problem with recovering the state of the actor from the journal, ``onRecoveryFailure``
is called (logging the error by default) and the actor will be stopped.
.. _persist-async-java:
Relaxed local consistency requirements and high throughput use-cases
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If faced with relaxed local consistency requirements and high throughput demands sometimes ``PersistentActor`` and it's
``persist`` may not be enough in terms of consuming incoming Commands at a high rate, because it has to wait until all
Events related to a given Command are processed in order to start processing the next Command. While this abstraction is
very useful for most cases, sometimes you may be faced with relaxed requirements about consistency – for example you may
want to process commands as fast as you can, assuming that Event will eventually be persisted and handled properly in
the background and retroactively reacting to persistence failures if needed.
The ``persistAsync`` method provides a tool for implementing high-throughput persistent actors. It will *not*
stash incoming Commands while the Journal is still working on persisting and/or user code is executing event callbacks.
In the below example, the event callbacks may be called "at any time", even after the next Command has been processed.
The ordering between events is still guaranteed ("evt-b-1" will be sent after "evt-a-2", which will be sent after "evt-a-1" etc.).
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#persist-async
.. note::
In order to implement the pattern known as "*command sourcing*" simply ``persistAsync`` all incoming messages right away,
and handle them in the callback.
.. warning::
The callback will not be invoked if the actor is restarted (or stopped) in between the call to
``persistAsync`` and the journal has confirmed the write.
.. _defer-java:
Deferring actions until preceding persist handlers have executed
----------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes when working with ``persistAsync`` you may find that it would be nice to define some actions in terms of
''happens-after the previous ``persistAsync`` handlers have been invoked''. ``PersistentActor`` provides an utility method
called ``deferAsync``, which works similarly to ``persistAsync`` yet does not persist the passed in event. It is recommended to
use it for *read* operations, and actions which do not have corresponding events in your domain model.
Using this method is very similar to the persist family of methods, yet it does **not** persist the passed in event.
It will be kept in memory and used when invoking the handler.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#defer
Notice that the ``sender()`` is **safe** to access in the handler callback, and will be pointing to the original sender
of the command for which this ``deferAsync`` handler was called.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#defer-caller
.. warning::
The callback will not be invoked if the actor is restarted (or stopped) in between the call to
``deferAsync`` and the journal has processed and confirmed all preceding writes.
.. _nested-persist-calls-java:
Nested persist calls
--------------------
It is possible to call ``persist`` and ``persistAsync`` inside their respective callback blocks and they will properly
retain both the thread safety (including the right value of ``sender()``) as well as stashing guarantees.
In general it is encouraged to create command handlers which do not need to resort to nested event persisting,
however there are situations where it may be useful. It is important to understand the ordering of callback execution in
those situations, as well as their implication on the stashing behaviour (that ``persist()`` enforces). In the following
example two persist calls are issued, and each of them issues another persist inside its callback:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#nested-persist-persist
When sending two commands to this ``PersistentActor``, the persist handlers will be executed in the following order:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#nested-persist-persist-caller
First the "outer layer" of persist calls is issued and their callbacks applied, after these have successfully completed
the inner callbacks will be invoked (once the events they are persisting have been confirmed to be persisted by the journal).
And only after all these handlers have been successfully invoked, the next command will delivered to the persistent Actor.
In other words, the stashing of incoming commands that is guaranteed by initially calling ``persist()`` on the outer layer
is extended until all nested ``persist`` callbacks have been handled.
It is also possible to nest ``persistAsync`` calls, using the same pattern:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#nested-persistAsync-persistAsync
In this case no stashing is happening, yet the events are still persisted and callbacks executed in the expected order:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#nested-persistAsync-persistAsync-caller
While it is possible to nest mixed ``persist`` and ``persistAsync`` with keeping their respective semantics
it is not a recommended practice as it may lead to overly complex nesting.
.. _failures-java:
Failures
--------
If persistence of an event fails, ``onPersistFailure`` will be invoked (logging the error by default)
and the actor will unconditionally be stopped.
The reason that it cannot resume when persist fails is that it is unknown if the even was actually
persisted or not, and therefore it is in an inconsistent state. Restarting on persistent failures
will most likely fail anyway, since the journal is probably unavailable. It is better to stop the
actor and after a back-off timeout start it again. The ``akka.pattern.BackoffSupervisor`` actor
is provided to support such restarts.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#backoff
If persistence of an event is rejected before it is stored, e.g. due to serialization error,
``onPersistRejected`` will be invoked (logging a warning by default) and the actor continues with
next message.
If there is a problem with recovering the state of the actor from the journal when the actor is
started, ``onRecoveryFailure`` is called (logging the error by default) and the actor will be stopped.
Atomic writes
-------------
Each event is of course stored atomically, but it is also possible to store several events atomically by
using the ``persistAll`` or ``persistAllAsync`` method. That means that all events passed to that method
are stored or none of them are stored if there is an error.
The recovery of a persistent actor will therefore never be done partially with only a subset of events persisted by
`persistAll`.
Some journals may not support atomic writes of several events and they will then reject the ``persistAll``
command, i.e. ``onPersistRejected`` is called with an exception (typically ``UnsupportedOperationException``).
Batch writes
------------
To optimize throughput, a persistent actor internally batches events to be stored under high load before
writing them to the journal (as a single batch). The batch size dynamically grows from 1 under low and moderate loads
to a configurable maximum size (default is ``200``) under high load. When using ``persistAsync`` this increases
the maximum throughput dramatically.
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#max-message-batch-size
A new batch write is triggered by a persistent actor as soon as a batch reaches the maximum size or if the journal completed
writing the previous batch. Batch writes are never timer-based which keeps latencies at a minimum.
Message deletion
----------------
It is possible to delete all messages (journaled by a single persistent actor) up to a specified sequence number,
persistent actors may call the ``deleteMessages`` method.
Deleting messages in event sourcing based applications is typically either not used at all, or used in conjunction with
:ref:`snapshotting `, i.e. after a snapshot has been successfully stored, a ``deleteMessagess(toSequenceNr)``
up until the sequence number of the data held by that snapshot can be issued, to safely delete the previous events,
while still having access to the accumulated state during replays - by loading the snapshot.
Persistence status handling
---------------------------
Persisting, deleting and replaying messages can either succeed or fail.
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| **Method** | **Success** | **Failure / Rejection** | **After failure handler invoked** |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ``persist`` / ``persistAsync`` | persist handler invoked | ``onPersistFailure`` | Actor is stopped. |
| | +-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| | | ``onPersistRejected`` | No automatic actions. |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ``recovery`` | ``RecoverySuccess`` | ``onRecoveryFailure`` | Actor is stopped. |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ``deleteMessages`` | ``DeleteMessagesSuccess`` | ``DeleteMessagesFailure`` | No automatic actions. |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
The most important operations (``persist`` and ``recovery``) have failure handlers modelled as explicit callbacks which
the user can override in the ``PersistentActor``. The default implementations of these handlers emit a log message
(``error`` for persist/recovery failures, and ``warning`` for others), logging the failure cause and information about
which message caused the failure.
For critical failures, such as recovery or persisting events failing, the persistent actor will be stopped after the failure
handler is invoked. This is because if the underlying journal implementation is signalling persistence failures it is most
likely either failing completely or overloaded and restarting right-away and trying to persist the event again will most
likely not help the journal recover – as it would likely cause a `Thundering herd problem`_, as many persistent actors
would restart and try to persist their events again. Instead, using a ``BackoffSupervisor`` (as described in :ref:`failures-java`) which
implements an exponential-backoff strategy which allows for more breathing room for the journal to recover between
restarts of the persistent actor.
.. note::
Journal implementations may choose to implement a retry mechanisms, e.g. such that only after a write fails N number
of times a persistence failure is signalled back to the user. In other words, once a journal returns a failure,
it is considered *fatal* by Akka Persistence, and the persistent actor which caused the failure will be stopped.
Check the documentation of the journal implementation you are using for details if/how it is using this technique.
.. _Thundering herd problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundering_herd_problem
.. _persistent-views-java:
Persistent Views
================
Persistent views can be implemented by extending the ``UntypedPersistentView`` trait and implementing the ``onReceive``
and the ``persistenceId`` methods.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#view
The ``persistenceId`` identifies the persistent actor from which the view receives journaled messages. It is not necessary
the referenced persistent actor is actually running. Views read messages from a persistent actor's journal directly. When a
persistent actor is started later and begins to write new messages, the corresponding view is updated automatically, by
default.
It is possible to determine if a message was sent from the Journal or from another actor in user-land by calling the ``isPersistent``
method. Having that said, very often you don't need this information at all and can simply apply the same logic to both cases
(skip the ``if isPersistent`` check).
Updates
-------
The default update interval of all persistent views of an actor system is configurable:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocSpec.scala#auto-update-interval
``UntypedPersistentView`` implementation classes may also override the ``autoUpdateInterval`` method to return a custom update
interval for a specific view class or view instance. Applications may also trigger additional updates at
any time by sending a view an ``Update`` message.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#view-update
If the ``await`` parameter is set to ``true``, messages that follow the ``Update`` request are processed when the
incremental message replay, triggered by that update request, completed. If set to ``false`` (default), messages
following the update request may interleave with the replayed message stream. Automated updates always run with
``await = false``.
Automated updates of all persistent views of an actor system can be turned off by configuration:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocSpec.scala#auto-update
Implementation classes may override the configured default value by overriding the ``autoUpdate`` method. To
limit the number of replayed messages per update request, applications can configure a custom
``akka.persistence.view.auto-update-replay-max`` value or override the ``autoUpdateReplayMax`` method. The number
of replayed messages for manual updates can be limited with the ``replayMax`` parameter of the ``Update`` message.
Recovery
--------
Initial recovery of persistent views works in the very same way as for a persistent actor (i.e. by sending a ``Recover`` message
to self). The maximum number of replayed messages during initial recovery is determined by ``autoUpdateReplayMax``.
Further possibilities to customize initial recovery are explained in section :ref:`recovery-java`.
.. _persistence-identifiers-java:
Identifiers
-----------
A persistent view must have an identifier that doesn't change across different actor incarnations.
The identifier must be defined with the ``viewId`` method.
The ``viewId`` must differ from the referenced ``persistenceId``, unless :ref:`snapshots-java` of a view and its
persistent actor shall be shared (which is what applications usually do not want).
.. _snapshots-java:
Snapshots
=========
Snapshots can dramatically reduce recovery times of persistent actor and views. The following discusses snapshots
in context of persistent actor but this is also applicable to persistent views.
Persistent actor can save snapshots of internal state by calling the ``saveSnapshot`` method. If saving of a snapshot
succeeds, the persistent actor receives a ``SaveSnapshotSuccess`` message, otherwise a ``SaveSnapshotFailure`` message
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#save-snapshot
During recovery, the persistent actor is offered a previously saved snapshot via a ``SnapshotOffer`` message from
which it can initialize internal state.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#snapshot-offer
The replayed messages that follow the ``SnapshotOffer`` message, if any, are younger than the offered snapshot.
They finally recover the persistent actor to its current (i.e. latest) state.
In general, a persistent actor is only offered a snapshot if that persistent actor has previously saved one or more snapshots
and at least one of these snapshots matches the ``SnapshotSelectionCriteria`` that can be specified for recovery.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#snapshot-criteria
If not specified, they default to ``SnapshotSelectionCriteria.latest()`` which selects the latest (= youngest) snapshot.
To disable snapshot-based recovery, applications should use ``SnapshotSelectionCriteria.none()``. A recovery where no
saved snapshot matches the specified ``SnapshotSelectionCriteria`` will replay all journaled messages.
.. note::
In order to use snapshots a default snapshot-store (``akka.persistence.snapshot-store.plugin``) must be configured,
or the persistent actor can pick a snapshot store explicitly by overriding ``String snapshotPluginId()``.
Since it is acceptable for some applications to not use any snapshotting, it is legal to not configure a snapshot store,
however Akka will log a warning message when this situation is detected and then continue to operate until
an actor tries to store a snapshot, at which point the the operation will fail (by replying with an ``SaveSnapshotFailure`` for example).
Snapshot deletion
-----------------
A persistent actor can delete individual snapshots by calling the ``deleteSnapshot`` method with the sequence number of
when the snapshot was taken.
To bulk-delete a range of snapshots matching ``SnapshotSelectionCriteria``,
persistent actors should use the ``deleteSnapshots`` method.
Snapshot status handling
------------------------
Saving or deleting snapshots can either succeed or fail – this information is reported back to the persistent actor via
status messages as illustrated in the following table.
============================================== ========================== ==============================
**Method** **Success** **Failure message**
============================================== ========================== ==============================
``saveSnapshot(Any)`` ``SaveSnapshotSuccess`` ``SaveSnapshotFailure``
``deleteSnapshot(Long)`` ``DeleteSnapshotSuccess`` ``DeleteSnapshotFailure``
``deleteSnapshots(SnapshotSelectionCriteria)`` ``DeleteSnapshotsSuccess`` ``DeleteSnapshotsFailure``
============================================== ========================== ==============================
.. _at-least-once-delivery-java:
At-Least-Once Delivery
======================
To send messages with at-least-once delivery semantics to destinations you can extend the ``UntypedPersistentActorWithAtLeastOnceDelivery``
class instead of ``UntypedPersistentActor`` on the sending side. It takes care of re-sending messages when they
have not been confirmed within a configurable timeout.
.. note::
At-least-once delivery implies that original message send order is not always preserved
and the destination may receive duplicate messages. That means that the
semantics do not match those of a normal :class:`ActorRef` send operation:
* it is not at-most-once delivery
* message order for the same sender–receiver pair is not preserved due to
possible resends
* after a crash and restart of the destination messages are still
delivered—to the new actor incarnation
These semantics is similar to what an :class:`ActorPath` represents (see
:ref:`actor-lifecycle-scala`), therefore you need to supply a path and not a
reference when delivering messages. The messages are sent to the path with
an actor selection.
Use the ``deliver`` method to send a message to a destination. Call the ``confirmDelivery`` method
when the destination has replied with a confirmation message.
Relationship between deliver and confirmDelivery
------------------------------------------------
To send messages to the destination path, use the ``deliver`` method. If the persistent actor is not currently recovering,
this will send the message to the destination actor. When recovering, messages will be buffered until they have been confirmed using ``confirmDelivery``.
Once recovery has completed, if there are outstanding messages that have not been confirmed (during the message replay),
the persistent actor will resend these before sending any other messages.
Deliver requires a ``deliveryIdToMessage`` function to pass the provided ``deliveryId`` into the message so that correlation
between ``deliver`` and ``confirmDelivery`` is possible. The ``deliveryId`` must do the round trip. Upon receipt
of the message, destination actor will send the same``deliveryId`` wrapped in a confirmation message back to the sender.
The sender will then use it to call ``confirmDelivery`` method to complete delivery routine.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceDocTest.java#at-least-once-example
The ``deliveryId`` generated by the persistence module is a strictly monotonically increasing sequence number
without gaps. The same sequence is used for all destinations of the actor, i.e. when sending to multiple
destinations the destinations will see gaps in the sequence. It is not possible to use custom ``deliveryId``.
However, you can send a custom correlation identifier in the message to the destination. You must then retain
a mapping between the internal ``deliveryId`` (passed into the ``deliveryIdToMessage`` function) and your custom
correlation id (passed into the message). You can do this by storing such mapping in a ``Map(correlationId -> deliveryId)``
from which you can retrieve the ``deliveryId`` to be passed into the ``confirmDelivery`` method once the receiver
of your message has replied with your custom correlation id.
The ``UntypedPersistentActorWithAtLeastOnceDelivery`` class has a state consisting of unconfirmed messages and a
sequence number. It does not store this state itself. You must persist events corresponding to the
``deliver`` and ``confirmDelivery`` invocations from your ``PersistentActor`` so that the state can
be restored by calling the same methods during the recovery phase of the ``PersistentActor``. Sometimes
these events can be derived from other business level events, and sometimes you must create separate events.
During recovery calls to ``deliver`` will not send out the message, but it will be sent later
if no matching ``confirmDelivery`` was performed.
Support for snapshots is provided by ``getDeliverySnapshot`` and ``setDeliverySnapshot``.
The ``AtLeastOnceDeliverySnapshot`` contains the full delivery state, including unconfirmed messages.
If you need a custom snapshot for other parts of the actor state you must also include the
``AtLeastOnceDeliverySnapshot``. It is serialized using protobuf with the ordinary Akka
serialization mechanism. It is easiest to include the bytes of the ``AtLeastOnceDeliverySnapshot``
as a blob in your custom snapshot.
The interval between redelivery attempts is defined by the ``redeliverInterval`` method.
The default value can be configured with the ``akka.persistence.at-least-once-delivery.redeliver-interval``
configuration key. The method can be overridden by implementation classes to return non-default values.
The maximum number of messages that will be sent at each redelivery burst is defined by the
``redeliveryBurstLimit`` method (burst frequency is half of the redelivery interval). If there's a lot of
unconfirmed messages (e.g. if the destination is not available for a long time), this helps to prevent an overwhelming
amount of messages to be sent at once. The default value can be configured with the
``akka.persistence.at-least-once-delivery.redelivery-burst-limit`` configuration key. The method can be overridden
by implementation classes to return non-default values.
After a number of delivery attempts a ``AtLeastOnceDelivery.UnconfirmedWarning`` message
will be sent to ``self``. The re-sending will still continue, but you can choose to call
``confirmDelivery`` to cancel the re-sending. The number of delivery attempts before emitting the
warning is defined by the ``warnAfterNumberOfUnconfirmedAttempts`` method. The default value can be
configured with the ``akka.persistence.at-least-once-delivery.warn-after-number-of-unconfirmed-attempts``
configuration key. The method can be overridden by implementation classes to return non-default values.
The ``UntypedPersistentActorWithAtLeastOnceDelivery`` class holds messages in memory until their successful delivery has been confirmed.
The limit of maximum number of unconfirmed messages that the actor is allowed to hold in memory
is defined by the ``maxUnconfirmedMessages`` method. If this limit is exceed the ``deliver`` method will
not accept more messages and it will throw ``AtLeastOnceDelivery.MaxUnconfirmedMessagesExceededException``.
The default value can be configured with the ``akka.persistence.at-least-once-delivery.max-unconfirmed-messages``
configuration key. The method can be overridden by implementation classes to return non-default values.
.. _event-adapters-java:
Event Adapters
==============
.. note::
Complete documentation featuring use-cases and implementation examples for this feature will follow shortly.
In long running projects using event sourcing sometimes the need arises to detach the data model from the domain model
completely.
Event Adapters help in situations where:
- **Version Migrations** – existing events stored in *Version 1* should be "upcasted" to a new *Version 2* representation,
and the process of doing so involves actual code, not just changes on the serialization layer. For these scenarios
the ``toJournal`` function is usually an identity function, however the ``fromJournal`` is implemented as
``v1.Event=>v2.Event``, performing the neccessary mapping inside the fromJournal method.
This technique is sometimes refered to as "upcasting" in other CQRS libraries.
- **Separating Domain and Data models** – thanks to EventAdapters it is possible to completely separate the domain model
from the model used to persist data in the Journals. For example one may want to use case classes in the
domain model, however persist their protocol-buffer (or any other binary serialization format) counter-parts to the Journal.
A simple ``toJournal:MyModel=>MyDataModel`` and ``fromJournal:MyDataModel=>MyModel`` adapter can be used to implement this feature.
- **Journal Specialized Data Types** – exposing data types understood by the underlying Journal, for example for data stores which
understand JSON it is possible to write an EventAdapter ``toJournal:Any=>JSON`` such that the Journal can *directly* store the
json instead of serializing the object to its binary representation.
Implementing an EventAdapter is rather stright forward:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistenceEventAdapterDocTest.java#identity-event-adapter
Then in order for it to be used on events coming to and from the journal you must bind it using the below configuration syntax:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceEventAdapterDocSpec.scala#event-adapters-config
It is possible to bind multiple adapters to one class *for recovery*, in which case the ``fromJournal`` methods of all
bound adapters will be applied to a given matching event (in order of definition in the configuration). Since each adapter may
return from ``0`` to ``n`` adapted events (called as ``EventSeq``), each adapter can investigate the event and if it should
indeed adapt it return the adapted event(s) for it, other adapters which do not have anything to contribute during this
adaptation simply return ``EventSeq.empty``. The adapted events are then delivered in-order to the ``PersistentActor`` during replay.
.. note::
More advanced techniques utilising advanced binary serialization formats such as protocol buffers or kryo / thrift / avro
will be documented very soon. These schema evolutions often may need to reach into the serialization layer, however
are much more powerful in terms of flexibly removing unused/deprecated classes from your classpath etc.
Storage plugins
===============
Storage backends for journals and snapshot stores are pluggable in the Akka persistence extension.
Directory of persistence journal and snapshot store plugins is available at the Akka Community Projects page, see `Community plugins`_
Plugins can be selected either by "default", for all persistent actors and views,
or "individually", when persistent actor or view defines it's own set of plugins.
When persistent actor or view does NOT override ``journalPluginId`` and ``snapshotPluginId`` methods,
persistence extension will use "default" journal and snapshot-store plugins configured in the ``reference.conf``::
akka.persistence.journal.plugin = ""
akka.persistence.snapshot-store.plugin = ""
However, these entries are provided as empty "", and require explicit user configuration via override in the user ``application.conf``.
For an example of journal plugin which writes messages to LevelDB see :ref:`local-leveldb-journal-java`.
For an example of snapshot store plugin which writes snapshots as individual files to the local filesystem see :ref:`local-snapshot-store-java`.
Applications can provide their own plugins by implementing a plugin API and activate them by configuration.
Plugin development requires the following imports:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#plugin-imports
.. _journal-plugin-api-java:
Journal plugin API
------------------
A journal plugin extends ``AsyncWriteJournal``.
``AsyncWriteJournal`` is an actor and the methods to be implemented are:
.. includecode:: ../../../akka-persistence/src/main/java/akka/persistence/journal/japi/AsyncWritePlugin.java#async-write-plugin-api
If the storage backend API only supports synchronous, blocking writes, the methods should be implemented as:
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#sync-journal-plugin-api
A journal plugin must also implement the methods defined in ``AsyncRecovery`` for replays and sequence number recovery:
.. includecode:: ../../../akka-persistence/src/main/java/akka/persistence/journal/japi/AsyncRecoveryPlugin.java#async-replay-plugin-api
A journal plugin can be activated with the following minimal configuration:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#journal-plugin-config
The specified plugin ``class`` must have a no-arg constructor. The ``plugin-dispatcher`` is the dispatcher
used for the plugin actor. If not specified, it defaults to ``akka.persistence.dispatchers.default-plugin-dispatcher``.
The journal plugin instance is an actor so the methods corresponding to requests from persistent actors
are executed sequentially. It may delegate to asynchronous libraries, spawn futures, or delegate to other
actors to achive parallelism.
Don't run journal tasks/futures on the system default dispatcher, since that might starve other tasks.
Snapshot store plugin API
-------------------------
A snapshot store plugin must extend the ``SnapshotStore`` actor and implement the following methods:
.. includecode:: ../../../akka-persistence/src/main/java/akka/persistence/snapshot/japi/SnapshotStorePlugin.java#snapshot-store-plugin-api
A snapshot store plugin can be activated with the following minimal configuration:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#snapshot-store-plugin-config
The specified plugin ``class`` must have a no-arg constructor. The ``plugin-dispatcher`` is the dispatcher
used for the plugin actor. If not specified, it defaults to ``akka.persistence.dispatchers.default-plugin-dispatcher``.
The snapshot store instance is an actor so the methods corresponding to requests from persistent actors
are executed sequentially. It may delegate to asynchronous libraries, spawn futures, or delegate to other
actors to achive parallelism.
Don't run snapshot store tasks/futures on the system default dispatcher, since that might starve other tasks.
Plugin TCK
----------
In order to help developers build correct and high quality storage plugins, we provide an Technology Compatibility Kit (`TCK `_ for short).
The TCK is usable from Java as well as Scala projects, for Java you need to include the akka-persistence-tck-experimental dependency::
com.typesafe.akka
akka-persistence-tck-experimental_${scala.version}
2.3.5
test
To include the Journal TCK tests in your test suite simply extend the provided ``JavaJournalSpec``:
.. includecode:: ./code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#journal-tck-java
We also provide a simple benchmarking class ``JavaJournalPerfSpec`` which includes all the tests that ``JavaJournalSpec``
has, and also performs some longer operations on the Journal while printing it's performance stats. While it is NOT aimed
to provide a proper benchmarking environment it can be used to get a rough feel about your journals performance in the most
typical scenarios.
In order to include the ``SnapshotStore`` TCK tests in your test suite simply extend the ``SnapshotStoreSpec``:
.. includecode:: ./code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#snapshot-store-tck-java
In case your plugin requires some setting up (starting a mock database, removing temporary files etc.) you can override the
``beforeAll`` and ``afterAll`` methods to hook into the tests lifecycle:
.. includecode:: ./code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#journal-tck-before-after-java
We *highly recommend* including these specifications in your test suite, as they cover a broad range of cases you
might have otherwise forgotten to test for when writing a plugin from scratch.
Pre-packaged plugins
====================
.. _local-leveldb-journal-java:
Local LevelDB journal
---------------------
LevelDB journal plugin config entry is ``akka.persistence.journal.leveldb`` and it writes messages to a local LevelDB
instance. The default location of the LevelDB files is a directory named ``journal`` in the current working
directory. This location can be changed by configuration where the specified path can be relative or absolute:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#journal-config
With this plugin, each actor system runs its own private LevelDB instance.
.. _shared-leveldb-journal-java:
Shared LevelDB journal
----------------------
A LevelDB instance can also be shared by multiple actor systems (on the same or on different nodes). This, for
example, allows persistent actors to failover to a backup node and continue using the shared journal instance from the
backup node.
.. warning::
A shared LevelDB instance is a single point of failure and should therefore only be used for testing
purposes. Highly-available, replicated journal are available as `Community plugins`_.
A shared LevelDB instance is started by instantiating the ``SharedLeveldbStore`` actor.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#shared-store-creation
By default, the shared instance writes journaled messages to a local directory named ``journal`` in the current
working directory. The storage location can be changed by configuration:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#shared-store-config
Actor systems that use a shared LevelDB store must activate the ``akka.persistence.journal.leveldb-shared``
plugin.
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#shared-journal-config
This plugin must be initialized by injecting the (remote) ``SharedLeveldbStore`` actor reference. Injection is
done by calling the ``SharedLeveldbJournal.setStore`` method with the actor reference as argument.
.. includecode:: code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocTest.java#shared-store-usage
Internal journal commands (sent by persistent actors) are buffered until injection completes. Injection is idempotent
i.e. only the first injection is used.
.. _local-snapshot-store-java:
Local snapshot store
--------------------
Local snapshot store plugin config entry is ``akka.persistence.snapshot-store.local`` and it writes snapshot files to
the local filesystem. The default storage location is a directory named ``snapshots`` in the current working
directory. This can be changed by configuration where the specified path can be relative or absolute:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#snapshot-config
Custom serialization
====================
Serialization of snapshots and payloads of ``Persistent`` messages is configurable with Akka's
:ref:`serialization-java` infrastructure. For example, if an application wants to serialize
* payloads of type ``MyPayload`` with a custom ``MyPayloadSerializer`` and
* snapshots of type ``MySnapshot`` with a custom ``MySnapshotSerializer``
it must add
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceSerializerDocSpec.scala#custom-serializer-config
to the application configuration. If not specified, a default serializer is used.
Testing
=======
When running tests with LevelDB default settings in ``sbt``, make sure to set ``fork := true`` in your sbt project
otherwise, you'll see an ``UnsatisfiedLinkError``. Alternatively, you can switch to a LevelDB Java port by setting
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#native-config
or
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistencePluginDocSpec.scala#shared-store-native-config
in your Akka configuration. The LevelDB Java port is for testing purposes only.
Configuration
=============
There are several configuration properties for the persistence module, please refer
to the :ref:`reference configuration `.
Multiple persistence plugin configurations
==========================================
By default, persistent actor or view will use "default" journal and snapshot store plugins
configured in the following sections of the ``reference.conf`` configuration resource:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceMultiDocSpec.scala#default-config
Note that in this case actor or view overrides only ``persistenceId`` method:
.. includecode:: ../java/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceMultiDocTest.java#default-plugins
When persistent actor or view overrides ``journalPluginId`` and ``snapshotPluginId`` methods,
the actor or view will be serviced by these specific persistence plugins instead of the defaults:
.. includecode:: ../java/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceMultiDocTest.java#override-plugins
Note that ``journalPluginId`` and ``snapshotPluginId`` must refer to properly configured ``reference.conf``
plugin entries with standard ``class`` property as well as settings which are specific for those plugins, i.e.:
.. includecode:: ../scala/code/docs/persistence/PersistenceMultiDocSpec.scala#override-config