Background

In the implementation of the Pulsar Transaction, each topic is configured with a Transaction Buffer to prevent consumers from reading uncommitted messages, which are invisible until the transaction is committed. Transaction Buffer works with Position (maxReadPosition) and TxnID Set (aborts). The broker only dispatches messages, before the maxReadPosition, to the consumers. When the broker dispatches the messages before maxReadPosition to the consumer, the messages sent by aborted transactions will get filtered by the Transaction Buffer.

Motivation

Currently, Pulsar transactions do not have configurable isolation levels. By introducing isolation level configuration for consumers, we can enhance the flexibility of Pulsar transactions.

Let's consider an example:

System: Financial Transaction System

Operations: Large volume of deposit and withdrawal operations, a small number of transfer operations.

Roles:

Client A1
Client A2
User Account B1
User Account B2
Request Topic C
Real-time Monitoring System D
Business Processing System E

Client Operations:

Withdrawal: Client A1 decreases the deposit amount from User Account B1 or B2.
Deposit: Client A1 increases the deposit amount in User Account B1 or B2.
Transfer: Client A2 decreases the deposit amount from User Account B1 and increases it in User Account B2. Or vice versa.

Real-time Monitoring System D: Obtains the latest data from Request Topic C as quickly as possible to monitor transaction data and changes in bank reserves in real-time. This is necessary for the timely detection of anomalies and real-time decision-making.

Business Processing System E: Reads data from Request Topic C, then actually operates User Accounts B1, B2.

User Scenario: Client A1 sends a large number of deposit and withdrawal requests to Request Topic C. Client A2 writes a small number of transfer requests to Request Topic C.

In this case, Business Processing System E needs a read-committed isolation level to ensure operation consistency and Exactly Once semantics. The real-time monitoring system does not care if a small number of transfer requests are incomplete (dirty data). What it cannot tolerate is a situation where a large number of deposit and withdrawal requests cannot be presented in real time due to a small number of transfer requests (the current situation is that uncommitted transaction messages can block the reading of committed transaction messages).

In this case, it is necessary to set different isolation levels for different consumers/subscriptions. The uncommitted transactions do not impact actual users' bank accounts. Business Processing System E only reads committed transactional messages and operates users' accounts. It needs Exactly-once semantic. Real-time Monitoring System D reads uncommitted transactional messages. It does not need Exactly-once semantic.

They use different subscriptions and choose different isolation levels. One needs transaction, one does not. In general, multiple subscriptions of the same topic do not all require transaction guarantees. Some want low latency without the exact-once semantic guarantee, and some must require the exactly-once guarantee. We just provide a new option for different subscriptions.

Goal

In Scope

Implement Read Committed and Read Uncommitted isolation levels for Pulsar transactions. Allow consumers to configure isolation levels during the building process.

Out of Scope

None.

High Level Design

Add a configuration ‘subscriptionIsolationLevel’ in the consumer builder to allow users to choose different transaction isolation levels.

Detailed Design

Public-facing Changes

Update the PulsarConsumer builder process to include isolation level configurations for Read Committed and Read Uncommitted.

Before the Change

The PulsarConsumer builder process currently does not include isolation level configurations. The consumer creation process might look like this:

PulsarClient client = PulsarClient.builder().serviceUrl("pulsar://localhost:6650").build();

Consumer<String> consumer = client.newConsumer(Schema.STRING)
        .topic("persistent://my-tenant/my-namespace/my-topic")
        .subscriptionName("my-subscription")
        .subscriptionType(SubscriptionType.Shared)
        .subscribe();

After the Change

Update the PulsarConsumer builder process to include isolation level configurations for Read Committed and Read Uncommitted. Introduce a new method subscriptionIsolationLevel() in the consumer builder, which accepts an enumeration value representing the isolation level:

public enum SubscriptionIsolationLevel {
    // Consumer can only consume all transactional messages which have been committed.
    READ_COMMITTED,

    // Consumer can consume all messages, even transactional messages which have been aborted.
    READ_UNCOMMITTED;
}

Then, modify the consumer creation process to include the new isolation level configuration:

PulsarClient client = PulsarClient.builder().serviceUrl("pulsar://localhost:6650").build();

Consumer<String> consumer = client.newConsumer(Schema.STRING)
        .topic("persistent://my-tenant/my-namespace/my-topic")
        .subscriptionName("my-subscription")
        .subscriptionType(SubscriptionType.Shared)
        .subscriptionIsolationLevel(SubscriptionIsolationLevel.READ_COMMITTED) // Adding the isolation level configuration
        .subscribe();

With this change, users can now choose between Read Committed and Read Uncommitted isolation levels when creating a new consumer. If the isolationLevel() method is not called during the builder process, the default isolation level will be Read Committed. Note that this is a subscription dimension configuration, and all consumers under the same subscription need to be configured with the same IsolationLevel.

Design & Implementation Details

Client Changes

Update the PulsarConsumer builder to accept isolation level configurations for Read Committed and Read Uncommitted levels.

In order to achieve the above goals, the following modifications need to be made:

Added IsolationLevel related fields and methods in ConsumerConfigurationData and ConsumerBuilderImpl and ConsumerImpl
Modify PulsarApi.CommandSubscribe, add field -- IsolationLevel

message CommandSubscribe {

    enum IsolationLevel {
    READ_COMMITTED = 0;
    READ_UNCOMMITTED = 1;
    }
    optional IsolationLevel isolation_level = 20 [default = READ_COMMITTED];
}

Broker changes

Modify the transaction buffer and dispatching mechanisms to handle messages based on the chosen isolation level.