big-data-scala-spark-batch-workshop

• references
  • Learning Spark, 2nd Edition
  • Spark in Action, Second Edition
  • https://medium.com/@mrpowers/testing-spark-applications-8c590d3215fa
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43729262/how-to-write-unit-tests-in-spark-2-0/50581218#50581218
  • https://sparkbyexamples.com/spark/spark-read-and-write-json-file/
  • https://sparkbyexamples.com/spark/spark-schema-explained-with-examples/
  • https://sparkbyexamples.com/spark/spark-read-and-write-json-file/
  • https://bigdataprogrammers.com/merging-two-dataframes-in-spark/
  • https://mungingdata.com/apache-spark/aggregations/
  • https://spark.apache.org/docs/3.0.0-preview/sql-getting-started.html#running-sql-queries-programmatically
  • https://stackoverflow.com/a/43812193 (for windows)
  • https://sparkbyexamples.com/spark/spark-sql-dataframe-join/
  • https://towardsdatascience.com/write-clean-and-solid-scala-spark-jobs-28ac4395424a
  • https://www.edureka.co/blog/spark-architecture/
  • https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/cluster-overview.html
  • https://queirozf.com/entries/apache-spark-architecture-overview-clusters-jobs-stages-tasks
  • https://data-flair.training/blogs/apache-spark-rdd-vs-dataframe-vs-dataset/
  • https://medium.com/@venkat34.k/the-three-apache-spark-apis-rdds-vs-dataframes-and-datasets-4caf10e152d8
  • https://towardsdatascience.com/strategies-of-spark-join-c0e7b4572bcf
  • https://medium.com/datakaresolutions/optimize-spark-sql-joins-c81b4e3ed7da
  • https://databricks.com/glossary/tungsten
  • https://jaceklaskowski.gitbooks.io/mastering-spark-sql/content/spark-sql-tungsten.html
  • https://www.dezyre.com/article/how-data-partitioning-in-spark-helps-achieve-more-parallelism/297
  • https://luminousmen.com/post/spark-partitions
  • https://www.24tutorials.com/spark/flatten-json-spark-dataframe/
  • https://medium.com/@dvcanton/wide-and-narrow-dependencies-in-apache-spark-21acf2faf031
  • https://towardsdatascience.com/best-practices-for-caching-in-spark-sql-b22fb0f02d34
  • https://medium.com/@adrianchang/apache-spark-checkpointing-ebd2ec065371
  • http://www.lifeisafile.com/Apache-Spark-Caching-Vs-Checkpointing/
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24696777/what-is-the-relationship-between-workers-worker-instances-and-executors
  • https://www.tutorialkart.com/apache-spark/cluster-managers-supported-in-apache-spark/
  • https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2928186

preface

• goals of this workshop:
  • introduction to spark and its architecture of spark
  • peek under the hood: data representation and optimizations
  • practicing rudimentary use-cases

spark

• unified engine designed for large-scale distributed data processing
• provides in-memory storage for intermediate computations
  • faster than Hadoop MapReduce
• libraries
  • machine learning (MLlib)
  • SQL for interactive queries (Spark SQL)
  • stream processing (Structured Streaming) based on micro-batch processing engine
  • graph processing (GraphX)
• typical Spark scenario
  1. Ingestion of raw data
  2. DQ: data quality
     • example: ensure that all birth dates are in the past
     • example: obfuscate Social Security numbers (SSNs)
  3. Transformation
     • example: join with other datasets, perform aggregations
  4. Publication
     • example: load the data into a data warehouse, save in a file on S3

components overview

• components and architecture
  • SparkSession
    • a single unified entry point to all of Spark’s functionality
    • use cases
      • defining DataFrames and Datasets
      • reading from data sources
      • writing to data lakes
      • accessing catalog metadata
      • issuing Spark SQL queries
    • there is a unique SparkSession for your application, no matter how many nodes it runs
  • Spark driver
    • process running the main() function of the application
    • instantiates SparkSession
    • communicates with the cluster manager
    • requests resources (CPU, memory, etc.) from the cluster manager for Spark’s executors (JVMs)
    • plans and coordinates the execution: transforms operations into directed acyclic graph (DAG) and schedules them
      • keeps track of available resources to execute tasks
      • schedules tasks to run "close" to the data where possible (data locality)
    • distributes operations execution across the Spark executors
    • once the resources are allocated, it communicates directly with the executors
    • resides on master node
  • Spark master & Cluster manager
    • Cluster Manager can be separate from the Master process
    • Spark master requests resources and makes resources available to the Driver
      • monitors the status and health of resources
      • is not involved in the execution of the application and the coordination of its tasks and stages
    • Cluster manager is a process responsible for monitoring the Worker nodes and reserving resources on these nodes upon request by the Master
      • Master then makes these cluster resources available to the Driver in the form of Executors
  • Worker node
    • any node that can run application code in the cluster
    • may not share filesystems with one another
  • Spark executor
    • is a process that executes tasks on the workers often in parallel
    • communicates with the driver program
    • workers hold many executors, for many application
  • Job
    • is a sequence of Stages, triggered by an action (ex. .count())
  • Stage
    • a sequence of Tasks that can all be run in parallel without a shuffle
    • example: .read.map.filter
  • Task
    • unit of work that will be sent to one executor
    • is a single operation (ex. .map or .filter) applied to a single Partition
    • is executed as a single thread in an Executor
    • example: 2 Partitions, operation: filter() => 2 Tasks, one for each Partition
  • Shuffle
    • operation where data is re-partitioned across a cluster
      • by having all the data needed to calculate on a single node, we reduce the overhead on the shuffle (the need for serialization and network traffic)
    • costly operation - a lot of data travels via the network
    • example: join
  • Partition
    • enable parallelization: data is split into Partitions so that each Executor can operate on a single part
      • once the user has submitted his job into the cluster, each partition is sent to a specific executor for further processing
      • the more partitions the more work is distributed to executors, with a smaller number of partitions the work will be done in larger pieces
    • every machine in a spark cluster contains one or more partitions
      • single partition do not span multiple machines
    • good starting point: number of partitions equal to the number of cores
      • example
        • 4 cores and 5 partitions
        • processing of each partition takes 5 minutes
        • total time: 10 minutes (4 in parallel in 5 minutes, then 1 in 5 minutes)
  • deployment on Kubernetes
    • Spark driver: Runs in a Kubernetes pod
    • Spark executor: Each worker runs within its own pod
    • Cluster manager: Kubernetes Master

data representation

• RDD (Resilient Distributed Datasets)
  • fundamental data structure of Spark
  • immutable distributed collection of data
    • data itself is in partitions
• Dataset and DataFrame
  • take on two characteristics: DataFrame - untyped and Dataset - typed
  • Dataset is a collection of strongly typed JVM objects
    • has also an untyped view called a DataFrame, which is a Dataset of Row
      • Row is a generic untyped JVM object that may hold different types of fields
        • get first column of given row: val name = row.getString(0)
  • DataFrames are similar to distributed in-memory tables with named columns with types (integer, string, array, map, etc), schemas
    • no primary or foreign keys or indexes in Spark
    • data can be nested, as in a JSON or XML document
      • it's often useful to flattening JSON to facilitate using sql syntax
        • flattening JSON = converting the structures into fields and exploding the arrays into distinct rows
        • example: perform aggregates (group by)
  • conversion: DataFrame -> Dataset

    val bloggersDS = spark
      .read
      .json("path")
      .load()
      .as[TargetClass]
    

• schemas
  • defines the column names and associated data types for a DataFrame
  • inferring a schema (plus inferring data types)
    • requires separate job to read a large portion of file to infer the schema
    • can be expensive and time-consuming
    • no errors detection if data doesn’t match the schema
  • defining a schema
    • programmatically: val schema = StructType(Array(StructField("author", StringType, false)
    • DDL: val schema = "author STRING, title STRING, pages INT"

data import / export

• typical use case: read from on-premise database and push to cloud storage (Amazon S3)
• data source types
  • file (CSV, JSON, XML, Avro, Parquet, and ORC, etc)
  • relational and nonrelational database
  • other data provider: (REST) service, etc
• DataFrameReader
  • core construct for reading data into a DataFrame
  • supports many formats such as JSON, CSV, Parquet, Text, Avro, ORC, etc.
• DataFrameWriter
  • it saves data to a data source
  • after the files have been successfully exported, Spark will add a _SUCCESS file to the directory

file formats

• problem with traditional file formats
  • big data files need to be splittable
    • JSON and XML are not easy to split
  • CSV cannot store hierarchical information (like JSON or XML)
  • none designed to incorporate metadata
  • quite heavy in size (especially JSON and XML)
• big data formats: Avro, ORC, or Parquet
  • Avro
    • schema-based serialization format (binary data)
    • supports dynamic modification of the schema
    • row-based, so easier to split
  • ORC
    • columnar storage format
    • supports compression
  • Parquet
    • columnar storage format
    • supports compression
    • add columns at the end of the schema
    • Parquet metadata usually contains the schema
      • if the DataFrame is written as Parquet, the schema is preserved as part of the Parquet metadata
        • subsequent reads do not require you to supply a schema
    • default and preferred data source for Spark
    • files are stored in a directory structure: data files, metadata, a number of compressed files, and some status files

data transformation

• operations can be classified into two types
  • actions
    • example: count(), save()
    • triggers evaluation
  • transformations

    • DataFrame -> DataFrame

    • example: select(), filter()

    • evaluated lazily

      • results are recorded as a lineage
        • allows to optimize queries (rearrange certain transformations, coalesce them, etc.)
        • provides fault tolerance: reproduce its state by replaying the lineage

    • two types

      

aggregations

• DataFrame API

  Dataset<Row> apiDf = df
      .groupBy(col("firstName"), col("lastName"), col("state"))
      .agg(
          sum("quantity"),
          sum("revenue"),
          avg("revenue"));
  

  is equivalent to

  df.createOrReplaceTempView("orders");
  
  String sqlStatement = "SELECT " +
      " firstName, " +
      " lastName, " +
      " state, " +
      " SUM(quantity), " +
      " SUM(revenue), " +
      " AVG(revenue) " +
      " FROM orders " +
      " GROUP BY firstName, lastName, state";
  
  Dataset<Row> sqlDf = spark.sql(sqlStatement);
  

joins

• Broadcast Hash Join (map-side-only join)
  • used when joining small with large
    • small = fitting in the driver’s and executor’s memory
  • smaller data set is broadcasted by the driver to all Spark executors
  • by default if the smaller data set is less than 10 MB
  • does not involve any shuffle of the data set
• Shuffle Sort Merge Join
  • used when joining two large data sets
  • default join algorithm
  • pre-requirement: partitions have to be co-located
    • all rows having the same value for the join key should be stored in the same partition
    • otherwise, there will be shuffle operations to co-locate the data
  • has two phases
    • sort phase
      • sorts each data set by its desired join key
    • merge phase
      • iterates over each key in the row from each data set and merges the rows if the two keys match

sql

• tables

  ids.write
      .option("path", "/tmp/five_ids")
      .saveAsTable("five_ids")
  

  • each table is associated with its relevant metadata (the schema, partitions, physical location where the actual data resides, etc.)
    • metadata is stored in a central metastore
      • by default: Apache Hive metastore
        • Catalog is the interface for managing a metastore
          • spark.catalog.listDatabases()
          • spark.catalog.listTables()
          • spark.catalog.listColumns("us_delay_flights_tbl")
        • location: /user/hive/warehouse
  • two types of tables
    • managed
      • Spark manages metadata and the data
      • example: local filesystem, HDFS, Amazon S3
      • note that SQL command such as DROP TABLE deletes both the metadata and the data
        • with an unmanaged table, the same command will delete only the metadata
    • unmanaged
      • Spark only manages the metadata
      • example: Cassandra
• views
  • vs table: views don’t actually hold the data
    • tables persist after application terminates, but views disappear
  • to enable a table-like SQL usage in Spark - create a view

    df.createOrReplaceTempView("geodata");
    
    Dataset<Row> smallCountries = spark.sql("SELECT * FROM ...");
    

optimizations

• at the core of the Spark SQL engine are the Catalyst optimizer and Project Tungsten
• note that a lot of the issues can come from key skewing: the data is so fragmented among partitions that a join operation becomes very long

tungsten

• focuses on enhancing three key areas
  • memory management and binary processing
    • manage memory explicitly
      • off-heap binary memory management
    • eliminate the overhead of JVM object model and garbage collection
      • Java objects have large overheads — header info, hashcode, Unicode info, etc.
      • instead use binary in-memory data representation aka Tungsten row format
  • cache-aware computation
    • algorithms and data structures to exploit memory hierarchy (L1, L2, L3)
    • cache-aware computations with cache-aware layout for high cache hit rates
  • code generation
    • exploit modern compilers and CPUs
    • generates JVM bytecode to access Tungsten-managed memory structures that gives a very fast access
    • uses the Janino compiler - super-small, super-fast Java compiler

catalyst

• similar concept to RDBMS query optimizer
• converts computational query and converts it into an execution plan
• Phase 1: Analysis
  • Spark SQL engine generates AST tree for the SQL or DataFrame query
• Phase 2: Logical optimization
  • catalyst constructs a set of multiple plans and using its cost-based optimizer assign costs to each plan
• Phase 3: Physical planning
  • Spark SQL generates an optimal physical plan for the selected logical plan
• Phase 4: Code generation
  • generating efficient Java bytecode to run on each machine

caching

• Spark maintains a history of all transformations you may apply to a DataFrame or RDD
  • this enables Spark to be fault tolerant
  • however Spark programs take a huge performance hit when fault occurs as the entire set of transformations to RDD have to be recomputed
• if you reuse a dataframe for different analyses, it is a good idea to cache it
  • steps are executed each time you run an analytics pipeline
  • example: DataFrames commonly used during iterative machine learning training
• caching vs persistence
  • persist() provides more control over how and where data is stored
    • DISK_ONLY, OFF_HEAP, etc.
  • both are lazy transformations
    • immediately after calling the function nothing happens with the data but the query plan is updated by the Cache Manager by adding a new operator — InMemoryRelation
• caching vs checkpointing
  • whatever is the case of failure, re-calculating the lost partitions is the most expensive operation
    • best strategy is to start from some checkpoint in case of failure
  • checkpoint() method will truncate the logical plan (DAG) and save the content of the dataframe to disk
    • re-computations need not be done all the way from beginning, instead the checkpoint is used as the beginning of re-calculation
  • cache will be cleaned when the session ends
    • checkpoints will stay on disk
  • example where checkpointing would be preferred over caching
    • DataFrame of taxes for a previous year - they are unlikely to change once calculated so it would be much better to checkpoint and save them forever so that they can be consistently reused in the future

user-defined functions

val cubed = (s: Long) => { s * s * s } // define function

spark.udf.register("cubed", cubed) // register UDF

spark.sql("SELECT id, cubed(id) AS id_cubed FROM ...") // use

• excellent choice for performing data quality rules
• UDF’s internals are not visible to Catalyst
  • UDF is treated as a black box for the optimizer
  • Spark won’t be able to analyze the context where the UDF is called
    • if you make dataframe API calls before or after, Catalyst can’t optimize the full transformation
    • should be at the beginning or the end of transformations