Book Image

Apache Spark 2: Data Processing and Real-Time Analytics

By : Romeo Kienzler, Md. Rezaul Karim, Sridhar Alla, Siamak Amirghodsi, Meenakshi Rajendran, Broderick Hall, Shuen Mei
Book Image

Apache Spark 2: Data Processing and Real-Time Analytics

By: Romeo Kienzler, Md. Rezaul Karim, Sridhar Alla, Siamak Amirghodsi, Meenakshi Rajendran, Broderick Hall, Shuen Mei

Overview of this book

Apache Spark is an in-memory, cluster-based data processing system that provides a wide range of functionalities such as big data processing, analytics, machine learning, and more. With this Learning Path, you can take your knowledge of Apache Spark to the next level by learning how to expand Spark's functionality and building your own data flow and machine learning programs on this platform. You will work with the different modules in Apache Spark, such as interactive querying with Spark SQL, using DataFrames and datasets, implementing streaming analytics with Spark Streaming, and applying machine learning and deep learning techniques on Spark using MLlib and various external tools. By the end of this elaborately designed Learning Path, you will have all the knowledge you need to master Apache Spark, and build your own big data processing and analytics pipeline quickly and without any hassle. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Mastering Apache Spark 2.x by Romeo Kienzler • Scala and Spark for Big Data Analytics by Md. Rezaul Karim, Sridhar Alla • Apache Spark 2.x Machine Learning Cookbook by Siamak Amirghodsi, Meenakshi Rajendran, Broderick Hall, Shuen MeiCookbook
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Spark graph processing


Graph processing is another very important topic when it comes to data analysis. In fact, a majority of problems can be expressed as a graph.

A graph is basically, a network of items and their relationships to each other. Items are called nodes and relationships are called edges. Relationships can be directed or undirected. Relationships, as well as items, can have properties. So a map, for example, can be represented as a graph as well. Each city is a node and the streets between the cities are edges. The distance between the cities can be assigned as properties on the edge.

The Apache Spark GraphX module allows Apache Spark to offer fast big data in-memory graph processing. This allows you to run graph algorithms at scale.

One of the most famous algorithms, for example, is the traveling salesman problem. Consider the graph representation of the map mentioned earlier. A salesman has to visit all cities of a region but wants to minimize the distance that he has to travel. As the distances between all the nodes are stored on the edges, a graph algorithm can actually tell you the optimal route. GraphX is able to create, manipulate, and analyze graphs using a variety of built-in algorithms.

It introduces two new data types to support graph processing in Spark--VertexRDD and EdgeRDD--to represent graph nodes and edges. It also introduces graph processing algorithms, such as PageRank and triangle processing.