how to use Flask with multiprocessing - python-3.x

Concretely, I'm using Flask to process a request, pseudocode like this:
from flask import Flask, request
app = Flask(__name__)
#app.route("/foo", methods=["POST"])
def foo():
data = request.get_json() # {"request_id": "abc", "data": "some text"}
result_a = do_task_a(data) # returns {"result_a": "a"}, maybe about 1 second to finish
result_b = do_task_b(data) # returns {"result_b": "b"}, maybe about 1 second to finish
result_c = do_task_c(data) # returns {"result_c": "c"}, maybe about 1 second to finish
result = {
"result_a": result_a["result_a"],
"result_b": result_b["result_b"],
"result_c": result_c["result_c"]}
return result
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=4000, threaded=False)
Here, do_task_a, do_task_b, do_task_c are completely independent subtasks, I know I can use multiprocessing.Process to create processes to finish these three subtasks, and use join() to wait for subtask done, But I don't know it's proper way to create Process for every request?
Maybe I can use multiprocessing.Queue to help, But I don't find a good way.
I search for multiprocessing, but can't figure out a good solution.

I'm not a python guy, but indeed creating processes is sn expensive operation
If its possible - create threads they're cheaper than processes.
If you run the request multiple times - you can do even better than that, because creating threads per request is still quite expensive
Even more advanced setup is to create a "pre-loaded" thread pool. Like N threads that you always keep in memory ready for running arriving task.
In terms of technical solution I've found This article that explains how to create thread pools in python 3.2+

Related

Multiprocessing with Multiple Functions: Need to add a function to the pool from within another function

I am measuring the metrics of an encryption algorithm that I designed. I have declared 2 functions and a brief sample is as follows:
import sys, random, timeit, psutil, os, time
from multiprocessing import Process
from subprocess import check_output
pid=0
def cpuUsage():
global running
while pid == 0:
time.sleep(1)
running=true
p = psutil.Process(pid)
while running:
print(f'PID: {pid}\t|\tCPU Usage: {p.memory_info().rss/(1024*1024)} MB')
time.sleep(1)
def Encryption()
global pid, running
pid = os.getpid()
myList=[]
for i in range(1000):
myList.append(random.randint(-sys.maxsize,sys.maxsize)+random.random())
print('Now running timeit function for speed metrics.')
p1 = Process(target=metric_collector())
p1.start()
p1.join()
number=1000
unit='msec'
setup = '''
import homomorphic,random,sys,time,os,timeit
myList={myList}
'''
enc_code='''
for x in range(len(myList)):
myList[x] = encryptMethod(a, b, myList[x], d)
'''
dec_code='''
\nfor x in range(len(myList)):
myList[x] = decryptMethod(myList[x])
'''
time=timeit.timeit(setup=setup,
stmt=(enc_code+dec_code),
number=number)
running=False
print(f'''Average Time:\t\t\t {time/number*.0001} seconds
Total time for {number} Iters:\t\t\t {time} {unit}s
Total Encrypted/Decrypted Values:\t {number*len(myList)}''')
sys.exit()
if __name__ == '__main__':
print('Beginning Metric Evaluation\n...\n')
p2 = Process(target=Encryption())
p2.start()
p2.join()
I am sure there's an implementation error in my code, I'm just having trouble grabbing the PID for the encryption method and I am trying to make the overhead from other calls as minimal as possible so I can get an accurate reading of just the functionality of the methods being called by timeit. If you know a simpler implementation, please let me know. Trying to figure out how to measure all of the metrics has been killing me softly.
I've tried acquiring the pid a few different ways, but I only want to measure performance when timeit is run. Good chance I'll have to break this out separately and run it that way (instead of multiprocessing) to evaluate the function properly, I'm guessing.
There are at least three major problems with your code. The net result is that you are not actually doing any multiprocessing.
The first problem is here, and in a couple of other similar places:
p2 = Process(target=Encryption())
What this code passes to Process is not the function Encryption but the returned value from Encryption(). It is exactly the same as if you had written:
x = Encryption()
p2 = Process(target=x)
What you want is this:
p2 = Process(target=Encryption)
This code tells Python to create a new Process and execute the function Encryption() in that Process.
The second problem has to do with the way Python handles memory for Processes. Each Process lives in its own memory space. Each Process has its own local copy of global variables, so you cannot set a global variable in one Process and have another Process be aware of this change. There are mechanisms to handle this important situation, documented in the multiprocessing module. See the section titled "Sharing state between processes." The bottom line here is that you cannot simply set a global variable inside a Process and expect other Processes to see the change, as you are trying to do with pid. You have to use one of the approaches described in the documentation.
The third problem is this code pattern, which occurs for both p1 and p2.
p2 = Process(target=Encryption)
p2.start()
p2.join()
This tells Python to create a Process and to start it. Then you immediately wait for it to finish, which means that your current Process must stop at that point until the new Process is finished. You never allow two Processes to run at once, so there is no performance benefit. The only reason to use multiprocessing is to run two things at the same time, which you never do. You might as well not bother with multiprocessing at all since it is only making your life more difficult.
Finally I am not sure why you have decided to try to use multiprocessing in the first place. The functions that measure memory usage and execution time are almost certainly very fast, and I would expect them to be much faster than any method of synchronizing one Process to another. If you're worried about errors due to the time used by the diagnostic functions themselves, I doubt that you can make things better by multiprocessing. Why not just start with a simple program and see what results you get?

How do I retrieve data from a Django DB before sending off Celery task to remote worker?

I have a celery shared_task that is scheduled to run at certain intervals. Every time this task is run, it needs to first retrieve data from the Django DB in order to complete the calculation. This task may or may not be sent to a celery worker that is on a separate machine, so in the celery task I can't make any queries to a local celery database.
So far I have tried using signals to accomplish it, since I know that functions with the wrapper #before_task_publish are executed before the task is even published in the message queue. However, I don't know how I can actually get the data to the task.
#shared_task
def run_computation(data):
perform_computation(data)
#before_task_publish.connect
def receiver_before_task_publish(sender=None, headers=None, body=None, **kwargs):
data = create_data()
# How do I get the data to the task from here?
Is this the right way to approach this in the first place? Or would I be better off making an API route that the celery task can get to retrieve the data?
I'm posting the solution that worked for me, thanks for the help #solarissmoke.
What works best for me is utilizing Celery "chain" callback functions and separate RabbitMQ queues for designating what would be computed locally and what would be computed on the remote worker.
My solution looks something like this:
#app.task
def create_data_task():
# this creates the data to be passed to the analysis function
return create_data()
#app.task
def perform_computation_task(data):
# This performs the computation with given data
return perform_computation(data)
#app.task
def store_results(result):
# This would store the result in the DB here, but for now we just print it
print(result)
#app.task
def run_all_computation():
task = signature("path.to.tasks.create_data_task", queue="default") | signature("path.to.tasks.perform_computation_task", queue="remote_computation") | signature("path.to.tasks.store_results", queue="default")
task()
Its important to note here that these tasks were not run serially; they were in fact separate tasks that are run by the workers and therefore do not block a single thread. The other tasks are only activated by a callback function from the others. I declared two celery queues in RabbitMQ, a default one called default, and one specifically for remote computation called "remote_computation". This is described explicitly here including how to point celery workers at created queues.
It is possible to modify the task data in place, from the before_task_publish handler, so that it gets passed to the task. I will say upfront that there are many reasons why this is not a good idea:
#before_task_publish.connect
def receiver_before_task_publish(sender=None, headers=None, body=None, **kwargs):
data = create_data()
# Modify the body of the task data.
# Body is a tuple, the first entry of which is a tuple of arguments to the task.
# So we replace the first argument (data) with our own.
body[0][0] = data
# Alternatively modify the kwargs, which is a bit more explicit
body[1]['data'] = data
This works, but it should be obvious why it's risky and prone to breakage. Assuming you have control over the task call sites I think it would be better to drop the signal altogether and just have a simple function that does the work for you, i.e.,:
def create_task(data):
data = create_data()
run_computation.delay(data)
And then in your calling code, just call create_task(data) instead of calling the task directly (which is what you presumably do right now).

Asynchronous Communication between few 'loops'

I have 3 classes that represent nearly isolated processes that can be run concurrently (meant to be persistent, like 3 main() loops).
class DataProcess:
...
def runOnce(self):
...
class ComputeProcess:
...
def runOnce(self):
...
class OtherProcess:
...
def runOnce(self):
...
Here's the pattern I'm trying to achieve:
start various streams
start each process
allow each process to publish to any stream
allow each process to listen to any stream (at various points in it's loop) and behave accordingly (allow for interruption of it's current task or not, etc.)
For example one 'process' Listens for external data. Another process does computation on some of that data. The computation process might be busy for a while, so by the time it comes back to start and checks the stream, there may be many values that piled up. I don't want to just use a queue because, actually I don't want to be forced to process each one in order, I'd rather be able to implement logic like, "if there is one or multiple things waiting, just run your process one more time, otherwise go do this interruptible task while you wait for something to show up."
That's like a lot, right? So I was thinking of using an actor model until I discovered RxPy. I saw that a stream is like a subject
from reactivex.subject import BehaviorSubject
newData = BehaviorSubject()
newModel = BehaviorSubject()
then I thought I'd start 3 threads for each of my high level processes:
thread = threading.Thread(target=data)
threads = {'data': thread}
thread = threading.Thread(target=compute)
threads = {'compute': thread}
thread = threading.Thread(target=other)
threads = {'other': thread}
for thread in threads.values():
thread.start()
and I thought the functions of those threads should listen to the streams:
def data():
while True:
DataProcess().runOnce() # publishes to stream inside process
def compute():
def run():
ComuteProcess().runOnce()
newData.events.subscribe(run())
newModel.events.subscribe(run())
def other():
''' not done '''
ComuteProcess().runOnce()
Ok, so that's what I have so far. Is this pattern going to give me what I'm looking for?
Should I use threading in conjunction with rxpy or just use rxpy scheduler stuff to achieve concurrency? If so how?
I hope this question isn't too vague, I suppose I'm looking for the simplest framework where I can have a small number of computational-memory units (like objects because they have internal state) that communicate with each other and work in parallel (or concurrently). At the highest level I want to be able to treat these computational-memory units (which I've called processes above) as like individuals who mostly work on their own stuff but occasionally broadcast or send a message to a specific other individual, requesting information or providing information.
Am I perhaps actually looking for an actor model framework? or is this RxPy setup versatile enough to achieve that without extreme complexity?
Thanks so much!

Question on measuring the time taken for a process pool execution

I am trying to see how much time it takes to perform the same action using a ProcessPool and a ThreadPool. The action is to make 1000 API call and return a JSON object. While doing this via ThreadPool, it takes about 68s. But the same takes only 0.2s with process pool. This makes me think if I am measuring the time incorrectly. Any thoughts on this would be helpful. I am pasting my code below for your reference:
def geturl(url):
#print("The process",os.getpid()," is working on this URL")
response=requests.get(url)
data=response.json()
return data['albumId']
# Approach two: Using a Process Pool
t3=time.time()
with concurrent.futures.ProcessPoolExecutor(max_workers=10) as P:
process_futures={P.submit(geturl,url):url for url in urls}
for P_future in concurrent.futures.as_completed(process_futures):
print(P_future.done())
t4=time.time()
print(t4-t3)
# Approach one: Using a Thread Pool
import concurrent.futures
t1=time.time()
with concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=10) as thread:
thread_futures={thread.submit(geturl,url):url for url in urls}
for future in concurrent.futures.as_completed(thread_futures):
pass
t2=time.time()
print(t2-t1)

Is at a good idea to use ThreadPoolExecutor with one worker?

I have a simple rest service which allows you to create task. When a client requests a task - it returns a unique task number and starts executing in a separate thread. The easiest way to implement it
class Executor:
def __init__(self, max_workers=1):
self.executor = ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers)
def execute(self, body, task_number):
# some logic
pass
def some_rest_method(request):
body = json.loads(request.body)
task_id = generate_task_id()
Executor(max_workers=1).execute(body)
return Response({'taskId': task_id})
Is it a good idea to create each time ThreadPoolExecutor with one (!) workers if i know than one request - is one new task (new thread). Perhaps it is worth putting them in the queue somehow? Maybe the best option is to create a regular stream every time?
Is it a good idea to create each time ThreadPoolExecutor...
No. That completely defeats the purpose of a thread pool. The reason for using a thread pool is so that you don't create and destroy a new thread for every request. Creating and destroying threads is expensive. The idea of a thread pool is that it keeps the "worker thread(s)" alive and re-uses it/them for each next request.
...with just one thread
There's a good use-case for a single-threaded executor, though it probably does not apply to your problem. The use-case is, you need a sequence of tasks to be performed "in the background," but you also need them to be performed sequentially. A single-thread executor will perform the tasks, one after another, in the same order that they were submitted.
Perhaps it is worth putting them in the queue somehow?
You already are putting them in a queue. Every thread pool has a queue of pending tasks. When you submit a task (i.e., executor.execute(...)) that puts the task into the queue.
what's the best way...in my case?
The bones of a simplistic server look something like this (pseudo-code):
POOL = ThreadPoolExecutor(...with however many threads seem appropriate...)
def service():
socket = create_a_socket_that_listens_on_whatever_port()
while True:
client_connection = socket.accept()
POOL.submit(request_handler, connection=connection)
def request_handler(connection):
request = receive_request_from(connection)
reply = generate_reply_based_on(request)
send_reply_to(reply, connection)
connection.close()
def main():
initialize_stuff()
service()
Of course, there are many details that I have left out. I can't design it for you. Especially not in Python. I've written servers like this in other languages, but I'm pretty new to Python.

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