Apache Flink

Apache Flink is an open-source distributed stream processing framework for stateful computations over unbounded and bounded data streams. It enables the development and execution of high-performance, scalable, and fault-tolerant applications for various use cases, including event-driven applications, real-time analytics, and data pipelines (ETL). Flink is designed for processing data at scale, offering capabilities like exactly-once state consistency, event-time processing, and sophisticated late data handling. It provides layered APIs, including SQL for stream and batch data, a DataStream API, and the ProcessFunction for fine-grained control over time and state. Its operational focus ensures flexible deployment, high availability, and the use of savepoints for application updates and scaling. This framework is ideal for developers and data engineers who need to build robust, real-time data processing applications that require strong consistency guarantees and high throughput. Its ability to handle very large state and scale out across clusters makes it suitable for demanding enterprise environments.