Apache Spark is a unified computing engine and a set of libraries for parallel data processing on computer clusters. As of this writing, Spark is the most actively developed open source engine for this task, making it a standard tool for any developer or data scientist interested in big data. Spark supports multiple widely used programming languages (Python, Java, Scala, and R), includes libraries for diverse tasks ranging from SQL to streaming and machine learning, and runs anywhere from a laptop to a cluster of thousands of servers. This makes it an easy system to start with and scale-up to big data processing or incredibly large scale.
Figure 1-1 illustrates all the components and libraries Spark offers to end-users.
Figure 1-1. Spark’s toolkit
You’ll notice the categories roughly correspond to the different parts of this book. That should really come as no surprise; our goal here is to educate you on all aspects of Spark, and Spark is composed of a number of different components.
Given that you’re reading this book, you might already know a little bit about Apache Spark and what it can do. Nonetheless, in this chapter, we want to briefly cover the overriding philosophy behind Spark as well as the context it was developed in (why is everyone suddenly excited about parallel data processing?) and its history. We will also outline the first few ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
