Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Amazon Aurora

798
733
+ 1
55
Apache Spark

2.9K
3.5K
+ 1
140
Add tool

Amazon RDS for Aurora vs Apache Spark: What are the differences?

Introduction

Amazon RDS for Aurora and Apache Spark are two popular technologies used in data processing and analytics. While both offer solutions for handling large-scale data, there are several key differences between them.

  1. Data Storage: Amazon RDS for Aurora uses a distributed, fault-tolerant storage system that replicates data across multiple Availability Zones for high durability and availability. On the other hand, Apache Spark does not have its own storage system but can integrate with various data storage systems like Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) or Amazon S3.

  2. Processing Paradigm: Amazon RDS for Aurora is a managed relational database service, which means it follows a traditional query-based processing paradigm commonly used in SQL databases. In contrast, Apache Spark is a distributed computing system that utilizes in-memory processing and follows a more batch or streaming-oriented processing paradigm.

  3. Scalability: Amazon RDS for Aurora provides automatic scaling capabilities, allowing it to handle a growing workload by adjusting the compute and storage resources. Apache Spark, on the other hand, is designed to scale horizontally by adding more worker nodes to the cluster, enabling it to handle large-scale data processing tasks.

  4. Processing Speed: Due to its in-memory processing capabilities, Apache Spark can perform faster data processing operations compared to Amazon RDS for Aurora, which relies on disk-based storage. This makes Spark suitable for real-time or near-real-time processing scenarios where high-speed data analysis is required.

  5. Data Processing Capabilities: Apache Spark offers a wide range of data processing capabilities, including batch processing, interactive queries, machine learning, and streaming analytics. Amazon RDS for Aurora primarily focuses on traditional SQL-based query processing, although it also supports some advanced analytic features like window functions and common table expressions.

  6. Use Cases: Amazon RDS for Aurora is well-suited for applications that require a highly available and scalable relational database, such as e-commerce platforms or content management systems. Apache Spark, on the other hand, is commonly used in big data analytics, machine learning, and real-time data processing scenarios where speed and scalability are critical.

In summary, the key differences between Amazon RDS for Aurora and Apache Spark lie in their data storage, processing paradigms, scalability, processing speed, data processing capabilities, and use cases.

Advice on Amazon Aurora and Apache Spark
Nilesh Akhade
Technical Architect at Self Employed · | 5 upvotes · 519.6K views

We have a Kafka topic having events of type A and type B. We need to perform an inner join on both type of events using some common field (primary-key). The joined events to be inserted in Elasticsearch.

In usual cases, type A and type B events (with same key) observed to be close upto 15 minutes. But in some cases they may be far from each other, lets say 6 hours. Sometimes event of either of the types never come.

In all cases, we should be able to find joined events instantly after they are joined and not-joined events within 15 minutes.

See more
Replies (2)
Recommends
on
ElasticsearchElasticsearch

The first solution that came to me is to use upsert to update ElasticSearch:

  1. Use the primary-key as ES document id
  2. Upsert the records to ES as soon as you receive them. As you are using upsert, the 2nd record of the same primary-key will not overwrite the 1st one, but will be merged with it.

Cons: The load on ES will be higher, due to upsert.

To use Flink:

  1. Create a KeyedDataStream by the primary-key
  2. In the ProcessFunction, save the first record in a State. At the same time, create a Timer for 15 minutes in the future
  3. When the 2nd record comes, read the 1st record from the State, merge those two, and send out the result, and clear the State and the Timer if it has not fired
  4. When the Timer fires, read the 1st record from the State and send out as the output record.
  5. Have a 2nd Timer of 6 hours (or more) if you are not using Windowing to clean up the State

Pro: if you have already having Flink ingesting this stream. Otherwise, I would just go with the 1st solution.

See more
Akshaya Rawat
Senior Specialist Platform at Publicis Sapient · | 3 upvotes · 363.7K views
Recommends
on
Apache SparkApache Spark

Please refer "Structured Streaming" feature of Spark. Refer "Stream - Stream Join" at https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/structured-streaming-programming-guide.html#stream-stream-joins . In short you need to specify "Define watermark delays on both inputs" and "Define a constraint on time across the two inputs"

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Amazon Aurora
Pros of Apache Spark
  • 14
    MySQL compatibility
  • 12
    Better performance
  • 10
    Easy read scalability
  • 9
    Speed
  • 7
    Low latency read replica
  • 2
    High IOPS cost
  • 1
    Good cost performance
  • 61
    Open-source
  • 48
    Fast and Flexible
  • 8
    One platform for every big data problem
  • 8
    Great for distributed SQL like applications
  • 6
    Easy to install and to use
  • 3
    Works well for most Datascience usecases
  • 2
    Interactive Query
  • 2
    Machine learning libratimery, Streaming in real
  • 2
    In memory Computation

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Amazon Aurora
Cons of Apache Spark
  • 2
    Vendor locking
  • 1
    Rigid schema
  • 4
    Speed

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Amazon Aurora?

Amazon Aurora is a MySQL-compatible, relational database engine that combines the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases. Amazon Aurora provides up to five times better performance than MySQL at a price point one tenth that of a commercial database while delivering similar performance and availability.

What is Apache Spark?

Spark is a fast and general processing engine compatible with Hadoop data. It can run in Hadoop clusters through YARN or Spark's standalone mode, and it can process data in HDFS, HBase, Cassandra, Hive, and any Hadoop InputFormat. It is designed to perform both batch processing (similar to MapReduce) and new workloads like streaming, interactive queries, and machine learning.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Amazon Aurora?
What companies use Apache Spark?
See which teams inside your own company are using Amazon Aurora or Apache Spark.
Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Amazon Aurora?
What tools integrate with Apache Spark?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Mar 24 2021 at 12:57PM

Pinterest

GitJenkinsKafka+7
3
2142
MySQLKafkaApache Spark+6
2
2004
Aug 28 2019 at 3:10AM

Segment

PythonJavaAmazon S3+16
7
2557
DockerAmazon EC2Scala+8
6
2710
What are some alternatives to Amazon Aurora and Apache Spark?
Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS gives you access to the capabilities of a familiar MySQL, Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server database engine. This means that the code, applications, and tools you already use today with your existing databases can be used with Amazon RDS. Amazon RDS automatically patches the database software and backs up your database, storing the backups for a user-defined retention period and enabling point-in-time recovery. You benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with your Database Instance (DB Instance) via a single API call.
Google Cloud SQL
Run the same relational databases you know with their rich extension collections, configuration flags and developer ecosystem, but without the hassle of self management.
Azure SQL Database
It is the intelligent, scalable, cloud database service that provides the broadest SQL Server engine compatibility and up to a 212% return on investment. It is a database service that can quickly and efficiently scale to meet demand, is automatically highly available, and supports a variety of third party software.
Cloud DB for Mysql
It is a fully managed cloud cache service that enables you to easily configure a MySQL database with a few settings and clicks and operate it reliably with NAVER's optimization settings, and that automatically recovers from failures.
PlanetScaleDB
It is a fully managed cloud native database-as-a-service built on Vitess and Kubernetes. A MySQL compatible highly scalable database. Effortlessly deploy, manage, and monitor your databases in multiple regions and across cloud providers.
See all alternatives