Multisink

Multisink is a pattern or component in information systems that routes data from a single source to multiple destinations, enabling fan-out of events, messages, or signals. It is a generalization of the idea of a sink in which one input is connected to several outputs.

In practice, a multisink can be implemented through broadcast, multicast, or publish-subscribe mechanisms. A central producer or router duplicates or forwards each item to multiple sinks, which may include databases, files, processing services, dashboards, or other networks. Sinks can operate synchronously or asynchronously, and the architecture may support dynamic addition or removal of sinks without interrupting the source.

Common use cases include logging and telemetry, where a single data stream is sent to local storage, a cloud-based analytics service, and an archival system at the same time; data engineering pipelines that fan out streams to multiple processors or storage layers; and IoT architectures that publish sensor data to monitoring dashboards, rule engines, and long-term repositories.

Key design considerations involve backpressure and flow control, fault tolerance, ordering guarantees, and idempotency. If one sink fails, the system must decide whether to retry, drop, or compensate without affecting other sinks. Durability and consistency requirements may influence whether sinks operate independently or share a single transactional context. Security and access control must be enforced at each sink to prevent data leakage or exposure.

Related concepts include fan-out, fork, and tee-like patterns in streaming and messaging systems, as well as publish-subscribe and data routing architectures.