Overview

Functionality

Here are the methods exposed by the OnlineStore interface, along with the core functionality supported by the method:

  • online_write_batch: write feature values to the online store

  • online_read: read feature values from the online store

  • update: update infrastructure (e.g. tables) in the online store

  • teardown: teardown infrastructure (e.g. tables) in the online store

  • plan: generate a plan of infrastructure changes based on feature repo changes

There is also additional functionality not properly captured by these interface methods:

  • support for on-demand transforms

  • readable by Python SDK

  • readable by Java

  • readable by Go

  • support for entityless feature views

  • support for concurrent writing to the same key

  • support for ttl (time to live) at retrieval

  • support for deleting expired data

Finally, there are multiple data models for storing the features in the online store. For example, features could be:

  • collocated by feature view

  • collocated by feature service

  • collocated by entity key

See this issue for a discussion around the tradeoffs of each of these data models.

Functionality Matrix

There are currently five core online store implementations: SqliteOnlineStore, RedisOnlineStore, DynamoDBOnlineStore, SnowflakeOnlineStore, and DatastoreOnlineStore. There are several additional implementations contributed by the Feast community (PostgreSQLOnlineStore, HbaseOnlineStore, and CassandraOnlineStore), which are not guaranteed to be stable or to match the functionality of the core implementations. Details for each specific online store, such as how to configure it in a feature_store.yaml, can be found here.

Below is a matrix indicating which online stores support what functionality.

Sqlite

Redis

DynamoDB

Snowflake

Datastore

Postgres

Hbase

write feature values to the online store

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

read feature values from the online store

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

update infrastructure (e.g. tables) in the online store

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

teardown infrastructure (e.g. tables) in the online store

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

generate a plan of infrastructure changes

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

yes

support for on-demand transforms

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

readable by Python SDK

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

readable by Java

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

readable by Go

yes

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

support for entityless feature views

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

support for concurrent writing to the same key

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

support for ttl (time to live) at retrieval

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

support for deleting expired data

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no

collocated by feature view

yes

no

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

collocated by feature service

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

no

collocated by entity key

no

yes

no

no

no

no

no

no