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  5. AWS Glue vs Apache Spark

AWS Glue vs Apache Spark

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apache Spark
Apache Spark
Stacks3.1K
Followers3.5K
Votes140
GitHub Stars42.2K
Forks28.9K
AWS Glue
AWS Glue
Stacks461
Followers819
Votes9

AWS Glue vs Apache Spark: What are the differences?

AWS Glue and Apache Spark are both powerful tools used for big data processing and analytics. However, there are key differences between the two:

  1. Data Processing Paradigm: AWS Glue is a fully-managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service, while Apache Spark is an open-source big data processing framework. Glue provides a serverless environment for data preparation and transformation, with support for various data sources and schedules. Spark, on the other hand, is a distributed computing system that offers in-memory processing and batch/streaming capabilities.

  2. Programming Language Support: AWS Glue primarily uses the Apache PySpark framework, which allows developers to write ETL jobs using Python. It also supports Scala and Java programming languages. Apache Spark, on the other hand, provides APIs for programming in Scala, Java, Python, and R. This makes Spark more flexible and compatible with a wider range of development languages.

  3. Deployment Options: AWS Glue is a managed service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which means it is deployed and maintained within the AWS cloud infrastructure. It offers scalability and high availability without the need for manual setup and management. Apache Spark, being an open-source framework, can be deployed on various platforms including on-premises data centers, public clouds, and hybrid environments. This gives users more control over their deployment and infrastructure choices.

  4. Integration with AWS Services: AWS Glue is well-integrated with other AWS services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Athena. This allows users to easily access and process data stored in these services using Glue's ETL capabilities. Apache Spark, while it can also integrate with AWS services, provides more flexibility in terms of integration options and supports a wider range of data sources and connectors.

  5. Scalability and Performance: AWS Glue provides automatic scaling capabilities, allowing the service to handle large datasets and high workloads without manual intervention. It leverages AWS's infrastructure to distribute the processing load efficiently and achieve high performance. Apache Spark, being a distributed computing system, also scales horizontally by adding more nodes to the cluster. It provides in-memory processing, which can significantly improve performance for iterative algorithms and complex analytics tasks.

  6. Cost: AWS Glue follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users pay for the resources consumed while running their ETL jobs. This can be cost-effective for small to medium-scale workloads. Apache Spark, being an open-source framework, is free to use. However, users need to consider the cost of infrastructure and maintenance when deploying and managing Spark clusters.

In summary, AWS Glue is a fully-managed ETL service provided by AWS, while Apache Spark is an open-source big data processing framework. Glue offers a serverless ETL environment with good integration with AWS services, while Spark provides more flexibility in terms of programming languages, deployment options, and data sources. The choice between Glue and Spark depends on specific requirements, preferences, and existing infrastructure.

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Advice on Apache Spark, AWS Glue

Aditya
Aditya

Mar 13, 2021

Review

you can use aws glue service to convert you pipe format data to parquet format , and thus you can achieve data compression . Now you should choose Redshift to copy your data as it is very huge. To manage your data, you should partition your data in S3 bucket and also divide your data across the redshift cluster

220k views220k
Comments
Vamshi
Vamshi

Data Engineer at Tata Consultancy Services

May 29, 2020

Needs adviceonPySparkPySparkAzure Data FactoryAzure Data FactoryDatabricksDatabricks

I have to collect different data from multiple sources and store them in a single cloud location. Then perform cleaning and transforming using PySpark, and push the end results to other applications like reporting tools, etc. What would be the best solution? I can only think of Azure Data Factory + Databricks. Are there any alternatives to #AWS services + Databricks?

269k views269k
Comments
Nilesh
Nilesh

Technical Architect at Self Employed

Jul 8, 2020

Needs adviceonElasticsearchElasticsearchKafkaKafka

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.

576k views576k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Apache Spark
Apache Spark
AWS Glue
AWS Glue

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.

A fully managed extract, transform, and load (ETL) service that makes it easy for customers to prepare and load their data for analytics.

Run programs up to 100x faster than Hadoop MapReduce in memory, or 10x faster on disk;Write applications quickly in Java, Scala or Python;Combine SQL, streaming, and complex analytics;Spark runs on Hadoop, Mesos, standalone, or in the cloud. It can access diverse data sources including HDFS, Cassandra, HBase, S3
Easy - AWS Glue automates much of the effort in building, maintaining, and running ETL jobs. AWS Glue crawls your data sources, identifies data formats, and suggests schemas and transformations. AWS Glue automatically generates the code to execute your data transformations and loading processes.; Integrated - AWS Glue is integrated across a wide range of AWS services.; Serverless - AWS Glue is serverless. There is no infrastructure to provision or manage. AWS Glue handles provisioning, configuration, and scaling of the resources required to run your ETL jobs on a fully managed, scale-out Apache Spark environment. You pay only for the resources used while your jobs are running.; Developer Friendly - AWS Glue generates ETL code that is customizable, reusable, and portable, using familiar technology - Scala, Python, and Apache Spark. You can also import custom readers, writers and transformations into your Glue ETL code. Since the code AWS Glue generates is based on open frameworks, there is no lock-in. You can use it anywhere.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
42.2K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
28.9K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
3.1K
Stacks
461
Followers
3.5K
Followers
819
Votes
140
Votes
9
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 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
Cons
  • 4
    Speed
Pros
  • 9
    Managed Hive Metastore
Integrations
No integrations available
Amazon Redshift
Amazon Redshift
Amazon S3
Amazon S3
Amazon RDS
Amazon RDS
Amazon Athena
Amazon Athena
MySQL
MySQL
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Amazon EMR
Amazon EMR
Amazon Aurora
Amazon Aurora
Oracle
Oracle
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

What are some alternatives to Apache Spark, AWS Glue?

Presto

Presto

Distributed SQL Query Engine for Big Data

Amazon Athena

Amazon Athena

Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.

Apache Flink

Apache Flink

Apache Flink is an open source system for fast and versatile data analytics in clusters. Flink supports batch and streaming analytics, in one system. Analytical programs can be written in concise and elegant APIs in Java and Scala.

lakeFS

lakeFS

It is an open-source data version control system for data lakes. It provides a “Git for data” platform enabling you to implement best practices from software engineering on your data lake, including branching and merging, CI/CD, and production-like dev/test environments.

Druid

Druid

Druid is a distributed, column-oriented, real-time analytics data store that is commonly used to power exploratory dashboards in multi-tenant environments. Druid excels as a data warehousing solution for fast aggregate queries on petabyte sized data sets. Druid supports a variety of flexible filters, exact calculations, approximate algorithms, and other useful calculations.

Apache Kylin

Apache Kylin

Apache Kylin™ is an open source Distributed Analytics Engine designed to provide SQL interface and multi-dimensional analysis (OLAP) on Hadoop/Spark supporting extremely large datasets, originally contributed from eBay Inc.

Splunk

Splunk

It provides the leading platform for Operational Intelligence. Customers use it to search, monitor, analyze and visualize machine data.

Apache Impala

Apache Impala

Impala is a modern, open source, MPP SQL query engine for Apache Hadoop. Impala is shipped by Cloudera, MapR, and Amazon. With Impala, you can query data, whether stored in HDFS or Apache HBase – including SELECT, JOIN, and aggregate functions – in real time.

Vertica

Vertica

It provides a best-in-class, unified analytics platform that will forever be independent from underlying infrastructure.

Azure Synapse

Azure Synapse

It is an analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless on-demand or provisioned resources—at scale. It brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs.

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