Acxiom is a marketing and data analytics company that provides services to many of the largest companies in various industries. They process large amounts of customer data to develop insights and models that help clients better understand their customers and target them with personalized marketing. To effectively handle big data sets, Acxiom developed a distributed system using microservices and ØMQ, an open-source messaging library, to break problems into smaller tasks that can be processed concurrently across multiple servers.

1. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
bb
1
Better connections. Better results.

2. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
How to effectively process large data sets
Big Data in practice
Mariusz Róg, Team Leader of Engineering,
Acxiom Global Service Center, Poland

3. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The talk
3
The solution
Who we are
The problem

4. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Who we are ?
4
„One of the biggest companies
you've never heard of.”
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acxiom

5. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Who we work for?
• 7 of the top 10 credit card issuers
• 7 of the top 10 retail banks
• 7 of the top 10 retailers
• 6 of the top 10 telecom / media companies
• 7 of the top 10 automotive manufacturers
• 7 of the top 10 U.S. hotels
• 5 of the top 10 technology companies
• 3 of the top 5 brokerage firms
• 3 of the top 5 pharmaceutical manufacturers
• 8 of the top 10 insurance providers
• 7 of the top 10 hotels
• 3 of the top 5 domestic airlines
• 4 of the top 5 gaming companies
The trademarks and registered trademarks on this page are the
property of their respective owners. Stats updated as of 7/8/13.

6. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Where we are?
Note: Acxiom also delivers solutions in many geographies where it
does not have a physical presence.
Argentina
Australia
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
(including Hong Kong
and Taiwan)
Colombia
Egypt
France
Germany
India
Indonesia
Israel
Japan
Jordan
Korea
Kuwait
Lebanon
Malaysia
Mexico
Mongolia
New Zealand
Oman
Philippines
Poland
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Africa
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Venezuela
Vietnam
Acxiom provides data, processing, consulting,
SMS / digital and / or other services to more than
7,500 recurring clients around the globe in
approximately 50 countries and 20 languages.
Offices located in these markets
Services available in these markets
Sample of Countries

7. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
What we do?
7
We do data!
Marketing and information management services
SaaS development
Analitics
Customers developement services
Technical and marketing consultingITO support and consulting
Technology R&D
Big Data managment PII and Web security
PII and Healthcare
world wide compilance
Forrester Research named Acxiom one of the largest database
marketing services and technology providers in the world

8. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
We transform.
8
Formerly Microsoft,
aQuantive &
Razorfish
Formerly
MySpace,
MTV & AOL
Formerly CFO
Amazon, NBC &
Electronic Arts
Formerly
Architect
of Google
Analytics
Dennis D. Self
CIO, SVP
Formerly
Electronic Arts
and HP

9. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The Acxiom Audience operating
system

10. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Audience Propensities
10

11. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Regression Model
11

12. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The talk
12
The solution
Who we are
The problem

13. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The flow
13
Age
f(x,y,z,...)
f(x,y,z,...)

14. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The problem
14
• 21 dimentions (avg inputs)
For example
• 3823 regression models
• 31B (avg size)
• 242271350 people (242M)

15. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The BIG problem
15
3823 x 21 x 31 x 242271350 = 602 958 394 553 550 B
376 cores
47 nodes @ 8x3 Ghz and 32 GB
~548 TB
More than a week!

16. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The talk
16
The solution
Who we are
The problem

17. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
3 Steps
17
µservices
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
µ
virtual infrastructure
the system

18. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Can’t say much...
18

19. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The foundation
We needed a communication framework
• It’s needed to be Fast
• It’s needed to be Stable
• It’s needed to be Concurrent
19

20. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The ØMQ
20

21. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
It is not a Messaging Queue or ESB
21

22. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Confused?
22

23. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Authors
iMatix
23
Real time financial systems

24. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
ØMQ
24
Source: http://zguide2.zeromq.org/

25. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Confused again?
25

26. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
What it is ?
• Ø latency communication framework
• Queue based framework
• Concurrency framework
• Easy and intuitive API
• LGPL
Example…
26

27. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Client
private static final ZMQ.Context zmqContext = ZMQ.context(zmqThreadCount);
ZMQ.Socket socket = zmqContext.socket(ZMQ.REQ);
socket.setSendTimeOut(sendTimeout);
socket.connect("tcp://*:5555");
// ZMQ_MSG_FLAGS 0 = blocking socket type
boolean messageSent = socket.send(msg, ZMQ_MSG_FLAGS);
if(!messageSent){
LOG.error("Error receiving response for {}", this);
}
byte[] responseMsg = socket.recv(ZMQ_MSG_FLAGS);
if(responseMsg == null){
LOG.error("Error receiving response for {}", this);
}
27

28. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Server
private static final ZMQ.Context zmqContext = ZMQ.context(zmqThreadCount);
...
ZMQ.Socket socket = zmqContext.socket(ZMQ.REQ);
socket.setReceiveTimeOut(receiveTimeout);
socket.bind("tcp://*:5555");
socket.bind("inproc://workers");
while (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() == false) {
byte[] recivedBytes = socket.recv(0);
if(recivedBytes == null){
LOG.error("Error receiving response for {}", this);
}
boolean messageSent = socket.send(msg, ZMQ_MSG_FLAGS);
if(!messageSent){
LOG.error("Error receiving response for {}", this);
}
}
28

29. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
ØMQ Message
• Atomic
• Can be Multipart
• Source/Dest
• Can be Routed/Proxed/Analized
• Data agnostic
preffered Google Protobuf
29

30. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
ØMQ Socket Types
30
• Unicast
• TCP („tcp://localhost:5555”)
• IPC („ipc://storeandforward”)
• INPROC („inproc://emailThread”)
• Multicast
• PGM/EPGM („epgm://192.168.1.1:5555”)

31. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Basic Patterns
31
source: http://zguide.zeromq.org/

32. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Advanced Patterns
32
source: http://zguide.zeromq.org/

33. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Growing
zmq - 0MQ lightweight messaging kernel
zmq_bind - accept connections on a socket
zmq_close - close 0MQ socket
zmq_connect - connect a socket
zmq_cpp - interface between 0MQ and C++ applications
zmq_device - start built-in 0MQ device
zmq_pgm - 0MQ reliable multicast transport using PGM
zmq_errno - retrieve value of errno for the calling thread
zmq_getsockopt - get 0MQ socket options
zmq_init - initialise 0MQ context
zmq_inproc - 0MQ local in-process (inter-thread) communication transport
zmq_ipc - 0MQ local inter-process communication transport
zmq_msg_close - release 0MQ message
zmq_msg_copy - copy content of a message to another message
zmq_msg_data - retrieve pointer to message content
zmq_msg_init_data - initialise 0MQ message from a supplied buffer
zmq_msg_init_size - initialise 0MQ message of a specified size
zmq_msg_init - initialise empty 0MQ message
zmq_msg_move - move content of a message to another message
zmq_msg_size - retrieve message content size in bytes
zmq_pgm - 0MQ reliable multicast transport using PGM
zmq_poll - input/output multiplexing
zmq_recv - receive a message from a socket
zmq_send - send a message on a socket
zmq_setsockopt - set 0MQ socket options
zmq_socket - create 0MQ socket
zmq_strerror - get 0MQ error message string
zmq_tcp - 0MQ unicast transport using TCP
zmq_term - terminate 0MQ context
zmq_version - report 0MQ library version
33
zmq - 0MQ lightweight messaging kernel
zmq_bind - accept incoming connections on a socket
zmq_close - close 0MQ socket
zmq_connect - create outgoing connection from socket
zmq_ctx_destroy - terminate a 0MQ context
zmq_ctx_get - get context options
zmq_ctx_new - create new 0MQ context
zmq_ctx_set - set context options
zmq_ctx_shutdown - shutdown a 0MQ context
zmq_ctx_term - destroy a 0MQ context
zmq_curve_keypair - generate a new CURVE keypair
zmq_curve - secure authentication and confidentiality
zmq_disconnect - Disconnect a socket
zmq_pgm - 0MQ reliable multicast transport using PGM
zmq_errno - retrieve value of errno for the calling thread
zmq_getsockopt - get 0MQ socket options
zmq_init - initialise 0MQ context
zmq_inproc - 0MQ local in-process (inter-thread) communication transport
zmq_ipc - 0MQ local inter-process communication transport
zmq_msg_close - release 0MQ message
zmq_msg_copy - copy content of a message to another message
zmq_msg_data - retrieve pointer to message content
zmq_msg_get - get message property
zmq_msg_init_data - initialise 0MQ message from a supplied buffer
zmq_msg_init_size - initialise 0MQ message of a specified size
zmq_msg_init - initialise empty 0MQ message
zmq_msg_more - indicate if there are more message parts to receive
zmq_msg_move - move content of a message to another message
zmq_msg_recv - receive a message part from a socket
zmq_msg_send - send a message part on a socket
zmq_msg_set - set message property
zmq_msg_size - retrieve message content size in bytes
zmq_null - no security or confidentiality
zmq_pgm - 0MQ reliable multicast transport using PGM
zmq_plain - clear-text authentication
zmq_poll - input/output multiplexing
zmq_proxy_steerable - start built-in 0MQ proxy with PAUSE/RESUME/TERMINATE control flow
zmq_proxy - start built-in 0MQ proxy
zmq_recvmsg - receive a message part from a socket
zmq_recv - receive a message part from a socket
zmq_send_const - send a constant-memory message part on a socket
zmq_sendmsg - send a message part on a socket
zmq_send - send a message part on a socket
zmq_setsockopt - set 0MQ socket options
zmq_socket_monitor - register a monitoring callback
zmq_socket - create 0MQ socket
zmq_strerror - get 0MQ error message string
zmq_tcp - 0MQ unicast transport using TCP
zmq_term - terminate 0MQ context
zmq_unbind - Stop accepting connections on a socket
zmq_version - report 0MQ library version
zmq_z85_decode - decode a binary key from Z85 printable text
zmq_z85_encode - encode a binary key as Z85 printable text
ØMQ v 2.2 ØMQ v 4.0

34. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Cross platform
34
• NetMQ
https://github.com/zeromq/netmq
Haxe
C++
C# Clojure
CL Erlang
F#
Felix
Go
Haskell
Java
Lua
Node.js
Objective-CPerl
PHP
Python
Racket
ooc
Basic
Ada
Tcl
Scala
Ruby
Q
• JeroMQ
https://github.com/zeromq/jeromq

35. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Visit us on
35
https://developer.myacxiom.com/
http://acxiom.com/about-acxiom/careers/

36. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 Acxiom Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
QA: Mariusz.Rog@Acxiom.com
Thank You!