In software engineering, a pipeline consists of a chain of processing elements, arranged so that the output of each element is the input of the next. The concept is analogous to a physical pipeline. Usually some amount of buffering is provided between consecutive elements. The information that flows in these pipelines is often a stream of records, bytes, or bits, and the elements of a pipeline may be called filters. This is also called the pipe(s) and filters design pattern which is monolithic. Its advantages are simplicity and low cost while its disadvantages are lack of elasticity, fault tolerance and scalability. Connecting elements into a pipeline is analogous to function composition.