Operational transformation for fun with python

Max Klymyshyn CTO at CartFresh

What is Operational Transformation

It’s gonna be HUGE.

What is Operational Transformation

Technology or family of algorithms for advanced

collaborative software systems

OT is one of approaches in overall data

synchronization domain

OT is backbone for popular products like Google

Docs and famous failures like Google Wave

Why Operational Transformation

High-latency environments like cellular networks,

bad WIFI connections, packet losses etc.

Real-time collaboration systems like Google

Docs, collaborative text editors

The Idea

Assumption

OT optimisticly assumes that whatever operations

are currently being applied to the document on any given client will not conflict with any operations that might be applied at this same moment by one of the other clients.

Variables

G is groupware system S is set of sites (S1, S2 ..) O is set of parametrized operators:

O1 = insert[X; P] insert X at position P O2 = delete[P]

p request priority

Naïve data flow schema

SITE ATIME

SITE B

T1 T1

O[A] = insert(0, “T2”) O[B] = insert(2, “T3”)

T2,T1 T1,T3

T2,T3,T1 T2,T1,T3RECONCILIATION

LOCAL OPS

O[A] = insert(0, “T2”)O[B] = insert(2, “T3”)

Properties

The Precedence property –execution of

operations should be in same order on all sites

The Convergence Property – all objects are

identical at all sites at quiescence

In order to achieve convergence property order of the operations on all sites should be the same.

OT Functions (Matrix)

Given operations oi and oj with priorities pi and

pj respectively

We’re defining transformation function that o’i = T(oj, oi, pj, pi)

o’j = T(oi, oj, pi, pj)

T(oi, oj) = (o’i, o’j)

where

oj’ ∘ oi = oj ∘ o’i

Data flow schema with OT

SITE ATIME

SITE B

T1 T1

O[A] = insert(0, “T2”) O[B] = insert(2, “T3”)

T2,T1 T1,T3

RECONCILIATION

LOCAL OPS

T2,T1,T3 T2,T1,T3

O[A] = insert(0, “T2”)O[B] = insert(2, “T3”)

O[A]’ = T(O[A] , O[B]) = insert(0, “T2”)

O[B]’ = T(O[B], O[A]) = insert(4, “T3”) TRANSFORMATION

Existing Algorithms

dOPT (GROVE)

GOT

GOTO

STD

SOCT

ABT

But here is the problem

1 2

3 4

Let’s build some stuff

CHANNEL

SITE 1..N

BROADCASTRECEIVE

def execute(self): """dOPT implementation"""

for site_id, state, op, priority in self.queue: # remote less than local, transformation required

… APPLY TRANSFORMATION …

self.apply_commands.append(op) self.log.append([site_id, state, op, priority]) if not site_id in self.state: self.state[site_id] = 0 self.state[site_id] += 1

self.q = []

if self.state.get(site_id, 0) > state.get(site_id, 0): entry = self.log.pop()

while entry and op: k_site_id, k_state, k_op, k_priority = entry

# we don't need to transform operations from same site if k_site_id == site_id: entry = self.log.pop() if self.log else [] continue

if state.get(k_site_id, 0) <= k_state.get(k_site_id, 0): op = self.transform(op, k_op, priority, k_priority)

entry = self.log.pop() if self.log else []

def demo(args): conn = Channel() site1 = Site(1, conn) site2 = Site(2, conn) site3 = Site(3, conn) sites = [site1, site2, site3] conn.register(1, site1) conn.register(2, site2) conn.register(3, site3)

site1.generate(["T1", 0]) # T1 site2.generate(["T3", 2]) # T1T3 site2.generate(["T4", 2]) # T1T4T3 site3.generate(["T2", 2]) # T1T2T4T3 site1.generate(["T0", 0]) # T0T1T2T4T3

[s.execute() for s in sites] [s.show_state() for s in sites]

[CHANNEL] Site 1 registered [CHANNEL] Site 2 registered [CHANNEL] Site 3 registered [EXEC] Site 1 [TRANSFORM] (site 2, 1) ==> ['T4', 2] ['T1', 0] [TRANSFORM] [RESULT] ['T4', 2] [EXEC] Site 2 [EXEC] Site 3 [FINAL STATE] Site #1:

T0T1T2T4T3

[FINAL STATE] Site #2:

T0T1T2T4T3

[FINAL STATE] Site #3:

T0T1T2T4T3

Operational Transformation today

Operations Composition –commands with same

length or other similarities merged into one command

Wave protocol, Jupiter realtime messaging etc.

ShareJS (javascript) etc.

Conclusion

Operational Transformation drawbacks

Huge complexity of transformation functions

I suspect it might be easier using prover with code generation but this idea should be verified

There’s A LOT of papers about OT and it’s hard

to find the shiny one

Joseph Gentle who is a former Google Wave engineer

and an author of the Share.JS library wrote,

"Unfortunately, implementing OT sucks. There's a million algorithms with different tradeoffs, mostly trapped in academic papers. The algorithms are really

hard and time consuming to implement correctly. […] Wave took 2 years to write and if we rewrote it today,

it would take almost as long to write a second time."

Data Synchronization problem

CRDT - Commutative or Convergent Replicated Data Types (and whole family called conflict-free replicated data types)

Differential Synchronization

RAFT, PAXOS and other quorum-based protocols

Thanks!

@maxmaxmaxmax

https://github.com/joymax/uapycon2017-op-demo

Stuffhttps://www.lri.fr/~mbl/ENS/CSCW/2012/papers/Ellis-SIGMOD89.pdf

http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/understanding-and-applying-operational-transformation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-free_replicated_data_type#Eventual_consistency

http://fitzgeraldnick.com/2011/03/26/operational-transformation-an-introduction.html

https://github.com/jvanveen/py-infinote

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8112/803b7a72ba8fcbe7de3a2a3f3cec00fa9e80.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_software

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimistic_replication

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_synchronization