FPGA Rule Processing for Low-Latency Event Stream Decisions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional business rule processing systems face challenges with large and growing rule sets and data volumes, leading to high latency and potential bottlenecks in decision-making, especially when handling high-speed data streams.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a hardware-accelerated coprocessor system that streams data into a reconfigurable logic device, such as an FPGA, to perform rule condition checks at bus bandwidth rates, significantly reducing latency by generating rule condition check results directly on the coprocessor.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If conventional business rule processing systems are used to handle large rule sets and data volumes, then the system can process data, but latency increases and bottlenecks occur in decision-making
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces conventional software-based rule processing on general-purpose processors with hardware-accelerated processing using FPGAs and coprocessors. This substitution of mechanical/software systems with hardware systems enables parallel processing of rule conditions at bus bandwidth rates, dramatically reducing latency while maintaining high throughput for large data volumes
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the rule processing system into multiple parallel processing paths, where different coprocessors or FPGA modules handle different rule conditions simultaneously. This segmentation allows the system to process multiple rules in parallel rather than sequentially, improving throughput without increasing latency
2Productivity
If more processing power is added to handle growing rule sets and data volumes, then processing capacity increases, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces specialized coprocessors and FPGA devices as intermediary hardware components between the main processor and data streams. These intermediaries handle the complex rule processing tasks, allowing the main processor to remain simple while delegating complex operations to dedicated hardware modules, thus increasing capacity without proportionally increasing overall system complexity
3Loss of time
If rule condition checks are performed at bus bandwidth rates using hardware acceleration, then latency is reduced, but hardware resources and system cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs reconfigurable logic devices such as FPGAs that can dynamically be configured to match specific rule sets. This dynamic reconfigurability allows the hardware to adapt to different processing requirements without requiring dedicated hardware for each rule scenario, reducing overall hardware resource requirements while maintaining low latency performance
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed herein is a method and system for hardware-accelerating various data processing operations in a rule-based decision-making system such as a business rules engine, an event stream processor, and a complex event stream processor. Preferably, incoming data streams are checked against a plurality of rule conditions. Among the data processing operations that are hardware-accelerated include rule condition check operations, filtering operations, and path merging operations. The rule condition check operations generate rule condition check results for the processed data streams, wherein the rule condition check results are indicative of any rule conditions which have been satisfied by the data streams. The generation of such results with a low degree of latency provides enterprises with the ability to perform timely decision-making based on the data present in received data streams.