feat: adding the overview text in section 5

1 files changed, 20 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/content/implementation.tex b/content/implementation.tex
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@@ -11,7 +11,26 @@ presents the rationale for using the specific software packages, \Cref{ss:data_f
 \section{Overview}\label{ss:implementation_overview}
 
 At the onset of the project, we decided \gls{my_system} will use only state-of-the-art software, deployed in the industry or evaluated in peer-reviewed scientific publications.
-In order to facilitate visualizations and interactive dashboards, we decided to use \texttt{Grafana}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Grafana}.
+In order to facilitate visualizations and interactive dashboards, we decided to use \code{Grafana}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Grafana}.
+To enable the flow of data into the digital twin, we use \code{Kafka}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Confluent}.
+To store the in-band data we use a \code{Redis}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Redis} cache, and for out-of-band data we use a \code{PostgreSQL}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Postgresql}.
+To enable predictive analytics, we chose a discrete-event simulator, \code{OpenDC}~\cite{GitHub:software/OpenDC}.
+The \code{Analytics Engine}, \code{Monitoring Service}, and \code{HTTP Server} are described in detail in \Cref{ss:programming}.
+
+\code{Grafana} is a state-of-the-art industry tool to visualize dashboards.
+We posit it is crucial to include a user-friendly \gls{ui}.
+A number of previous publications on digital twinning find dashboards important~\cite{DBLP:conf/sc/TaheriBPRHDEWPM24, DBLP:conf/wosp/SumanCNTMI24, DBLP:conf/wosp/NicolaeTKLI26}.
+We chose \code{Grafana} instead of other software packages because of its seamless integration with \code{PostgreSQL}.
+\code{Grafana} provides good separation of concerns and compartmentalization as it does not store the displayed metrics itself.
+Instead, it queries the \code{PostgreSQL} database in real-time~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Grafana}, unlike \eg \code{InfluxDB}.
+Good alternatives to \code{Grafana} are \code{Kibana}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Kibana}, \code{Prometheus}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Prometheus}, and \code{Graphite}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Graphite}.
+
+\code{Kafka}, particularly \code{Kafka} developed by Confluent~\cite{Wikipedia:article/Confluent} is a battle-tested message broker that provides versatile capabilities to transfer huge volumes of data with little latency, in real-time.
+We decided to use \code{Confluent Kafka} instead of \code{Kafka} developed by the Apache Foundation, because of it's masterful connector system allowing to easily add sources and sinks (\eg \code{PostgreSQL} sink, \code{Redis} sink, \code{OpenDC} source).
+Additionally, as opposed to \code{Apache Kafka}, \code{Confluent Kafka} comes equipped with a \code{Schema Registry}.
+The \code{Schema Registry} is a important component that allows the storage of database and cache schemas for easy retrieval.
+With \code{Schema Registry}, we ensure that the data stored in \code{PostgreSQL} tables and in \code{Redis} streams contains the exact same schema.
+Moreover, \code{Schema Registry} is compatible with versatile data interchange formats, such as \code{ProtoBuf}~\cite{Wikipedia:article/ProtoBuf}.
 
 \section{Data Flow}\label{ss:data_flow}