ESTemd: A Distributed Processing Framework for Environmental Monitoring based on Apache Kafka Streaming Engine

Abstract: Distributed networks and real-time systems are becoming the most important components for the new computer age, the Internet of Things (IoT), with huge data streams or data sets generated from sensors and data generated from existing legacy systems. The data generated offers the ability to measure, infer and understand environmental indicators, from delicate ecologies and natural resources to urban environments. This can be achieved through the analysis of the heterogeneous data sources (structured and unstructured). In this paper, we propose a distributed framework Event STream Processing Engine for Environmental Monitoring Domain (ESTemd) for the application of stream processing on heterogeneous environmental data. Our work in this area demonstrates the useful role big data techniques can play in an environmental decision support system, early warning and forecasting systems. The proposed framework addresses the challenges of data heterogeneity from heterogeneous systems and real time processing of huge environmental datasets through a publish/subscribe method via a unified data pipeline with the application of Apache Kafka for real time analytics.