A system for generating and utilizing a streaming data anchor, comprising: a processing system comprising a processor and a memory having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the processing system to: by an input node during normal operation of a streaming data processing system: in response to a request for streaming data from a downstream node (130, 140), determine to generate an anchor; in response to the determination to generate the anchor, instead of storing a property associated with the streaming data directly in the anchor, store a value of the property associated with the streaming data in a persistent indexed data structure, wherein entries are only added to the persistent indexed data structure for properties that have not been previously included in the data structure; generate the anchor that describes a particular point in time in a data stream, the anchor comprising an index into the persistent indexed data structure of the stored value of the property associated with the streaming data; and provide the generated anchor and the streaming data to the downstream node; and by the input node during recovery of the downstream node: receive a request for streaming data starting with the particular point in time in the data stream referenced by the anchor, including receiving the anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; retrieve the value of the property associated with the streaming data from the persistent indexed data structure based upon the received anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; and provide a batch of streaming data to the downstream node, wherein the batch of streaming data starts with the particular point in time referenced by the anchor, and, the batch of streaming data is based upon the retrieved value of the property. by an input node during normal operation of a streaming data processing system: in response to a request for streaming data from a downstream node (130, 140), determine to generate an anchor; in response to the determination to generate the anchor, instead of storing a property associated with the streaming data directly in the anchor, store a value of the property associated with the streaming data in a persistent indexed data structure, wherein entries are only added to the persistent indexed data structure for properties that have not been previously included in the data structure; generate the anchor that describes a particular point in time in a data stream, the anchor comprising an index into the persistent indexed data structure of the stored value of the property associated with the streaming data; and provide the generated anchor and the streaming data to the downstream node; and in response to a request for streaming data from a downstream node (130, 140), determine to generate an anchor; in response to the determination to generate the anchor, instead of storing a property associated with the streaming data directly in the anchor, store a value of the property associated with the streaming data in a persistent indexed data structure, wherein entries are only added to the persistent indexed data structure for properties that have not been previously included in the data structure; generate the anchor that describes a particular point in time in a data stream, the anchor comprising an index into the persistent indexed data structure of the stored value of the property associated with the streaming data; and provide the generated anchor and the streaming data to the downstream node; and by the input node during recovery of the downstream node: receive a request for streaming data starting with the particular point in time in the data stream referenced by the anchor, including receiving the anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; retrieve the value of the property associated with the streaming data from the persistent indexed data structure based upon the received anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; and provide a batch of streaming data to the downstream node, wherein the batch of streaming data starts with the particular point in time referenced by the anchor, and, the batch of streaming data is based upon the retrieved value of the property. receive a request for streaming data starting with the particular point in time in the data stream referenced by the anchor, including receiving the anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; retrieve the value of the property associated with the streaming data from the persistent indexed data structure based upon the received anchor with the index into the persistent indexed data structure; and provide a batch of streaming data to the downstream node, wherein the batch of streaming data starts with the particular point in time referenced by the anchor, and, the batch of streaming data is based upon the retrieved value of the property.