Book Image

Spark for Data Science

By : Srinivas Duvvuri, Bikramaditya Singhal
Book Image

Spark for Data Science

By: Srinivas Duvvuri, Bikramaditya Singhal

Overview of this book

This is the era of Big Data. The words ‘Big Data’ implies big innovation and enables a competitive advantage for businesses. Apache Spark was designed to perform Big Data analytics at scale, and so Spark is equipped with the necessary algorithms and supports multiple programming languages. Whether you are a technologist, a data scientist, or a beginner to Big Data analytics, this book will provide you with all the skills necessary to perform statistical data analysis, data visualization, predictive modeling, and build scalable data products or solutions using Python, Scala, and R. With ample case studies and real-world examples, Spark for Data Science will help you ensure the successful execution of your data science projects.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Spark for Data Science
Credits
Foreword
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Advantages and limitations


The R language has long been the lingua franca of data scientists. Its simple-to-understand DataFrame abstraction, expressive APIs, and vibrant package ecosystem are exactly what the analysts needed. The main challenge was with the scalability. SparkR bridges that gap by providing distributed in-memory DataFrames without leaving the R eco-system. Such a symbiotic relationship allows users to gain the following benefits:

  • There is no need for the analyst to learn a new language

  • The SparkR APIs are similar to R APIs

  • You can access SparkR from R studio, along with the autocomplete feature

  • Performing interactive, exploratory analysis of a very large dataset is no longer hindered by memory limitations or long turnaround times

  • Accessing data from different types of data sources becomes a lot easier. Most of the tasks which were imperative before have become declarative. Check Chapter 4, Unified Data Access, to learn more

  • You can freely mix dplyr such as Spark functions, SQL...