Hi, You should definitely take a look at Apache Sqoop as previously mentioned, if your file is large enough and you have several map jobs running and hitting your database concurrently, you will experience issues at the db level. In terms of speculative jobs (redundant jobs) running to deal with slow jobs, you have control over that in Hadoop. You can turn off speculative jobs or make sure when one job is finished the other one for the same input file is shutdown.
Good Luck, On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 7:43 AM, MONTMORY Alain < alain.montm...@thalesgroup.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I am going to try to response to your response in the text. I am not an > hadoop expert but we are facing the same kind of problem (dealing with file > which are external to HDFS) in our project and we use hadoop. > > [@@THALES GROUP RESTRICTED@@] > > > -----Message d'origine----- > De : Per Steffensen [mailto:st...@designware.dk <st...@designware.dk>] > Envoyé : vendredi 26 août 2011 13:13 > À : mapreduce-user@hadoop.apache.org > Objet : From a newbie: Questions and will MapReduce fit our needs > > Hi > > We are considering to use MapReduce for a project. I am participating in > an "investigation"-phase where we try to reveal if we would benefit from > using the MapReduce framework. > > A little bit about the project: > We will be receiving data from the "outside world" in files via FTP. It > will be a mix of very small files (50 records/lines) and very big files > (5mio+ records/lines). The FTP server will be running in a DMZ where we > have no plans of using any Hadoop technology. For every file arriving > over FTP we will add a message (just pointing to that file) to a MQ also > running in DMZ - how we do that is not relevant for my questions here. > In the secure zone of our system we plan to run many machines (shards if > you like) a.o. being consumers on the MQ in DMZ. Their job will be a.o. > to "load" (storing i db, indexing etc.) the files pointed to by the > messages they receive from the MQ. For resonably small files they will > probably just do the "loading" of the entire file themselves. For very > big files we would like to have more machines/shards, than the single > machine/shard that happens to receive the corresponding message, > participating in "loading" that particular file. > > Questions: > > - In general, do you think MapReduce will be beneficial for us to use? > Please remember that the files to be "loaded" does not live on a HDFS. > Any descriptions on why you would suggest that we use MapReduce will be > very velcome. > > Response : Yes because you could treat the "big file" in parallel and the > parallesisation done by hadoop is very effective. To treat your file you > need to have an InputFormat class which is able to read it. Here, two > solutions : > > 1. you copy your file inside the HDFS file system and you use > "FileInputFormat" (for text based file some are already produced by > hadoop). > inconvenient the copy may be long…(in our case it is unacceptable) and this > copy is an extra cost in the whole treatment > > > > 1. You make your "BigFile" accessible by NFS or other Shared FS from > Hadoop cluster Node. The first job in your treatment pipeline read the file > and split it by record offset *reference* (Output1 : record from 0 to N > , Ouput2 : N to M and so on…) > > > > 1. On each OuputX a Map task is launch in // which will treat file > (still accessible through sharedFS) from reord N to M according to OutputX > info > > > - Reading about MapReduce it sounds to be a general framework able to > split a "big job" into many smaller "sub-jobs", and have those > "sub-jobs" executed concurrently (potentially on other different > machines), all-in-all to complete the "big job". This could be used for > many other things than "working with files", but then again examples and > some of the descriptions makes it sound like it is all only about "jobs > working with files". Is MapReduce only usefull/concerned with "jobs" > related to "working with files" or is it more general-purpose so that it > is usefull for any > > split-big-job-into-many-smaller-jobs-and-have-those-executed-in-parallel-problem? > > Response : Hadoop are not only specialised with (while i think it is 99% of > its utilisation…). As a say before your input are accessible through > InputFormat interface. > > - I believe we will end up having a HDFS over the disks on the > machines/shards in secure zone. Is HDFS a "must have" for MapReduce to > work at all? E.g. HDFS might be the way sub-jobs are distributed and/or > persisted (so that they will not be forgotten i case of a shard > breakdown or something). > > Response : Hadoop can work on other FS (Amazon S3 for example), or with > other style of input (like NoSql Cassandra table), but i think there is a > need for either a small HDFS to store the working space of running jobs. I > think that most of usage rely on HDFS which take care of data localisation. > The JobTracker launch the job on the node which hold the data in its local > disk to avoid netwok exchange… > > - I think it sounds like an overhead to copy the big file (it will have > to be deleted after succesful "loading") from the FTP server disk in DMZ > to the HDFS in secure zone, just to be able to use MapReduce to > distribute the work of "loading" it. We might want to do it in way so > that each "sub-job" (of a "big job" about loading e.g. a big file > big.txt) just points to big.txt together with from- and to- indexes into > the file. Each "sub-job" will then have to only read the part of big.txt > from from-index to to-index and "load" that. Will we be able to do > something like that using MapReduce or is it all kind of "based on > operating on files on the HDFS"? > > Response : I don't clearly understand all what you said but it sounds like > to me not far from the solution we use and that i proposed to you in > previous response. > > - Depending on the answer to the above question, we might want to be > able to make the disk on the FTP server "join" the HDFS, in a way so > that it is visible, but in a way so that data on it will not get copied > in several copies (for redundancy matters) thoughout the disks on the > shards (the "real" part of the HDFS) - remember the file will have to be > deleted as soon as it has been "loaded". Is there such a > concept/possibility of making "external" disk visible from HDFS, to > enable MapReduce to work on files on such disks, without the files on > such disks automatically will be copied to several different other disks > (on the shards)? > > Response : Hadoop jobs are (generally) Java jobs so it is still possible to > open file external to HDFS provides they could be accessed (through NFS or > Other shared FS (Glouster FS, GPFS, etc)).. > > - As it understand it, each "sub-job" (the result of the > split-operation) will be run on new dedicated JVM. It sounds like a big > overhead to start a new JVM just to run a "small" job. Is it correct > that each "sub-job" will run on its own new JVM that has to be started > for that purpose only? If yes, it seems to me like the overhead is only > "worth it" for fairly large "sub-jobs". Do you agree? > > Response : due to Hadoop overhead to launch a task on a task tracker, it is > not recommended to have jobs running less than a minute. In the proposed > solution we could adjust the time by the number of record treated in one > OutputX split… > remenber that the jobs are launch on different computers. With modern java > JVM the overhead of launching a JVM is not so eavy. Hadoop try (since 0.19) > to reuse JVM which are already exist to launch similar jobs see : > mapred.job.reuse.jvm.num.tasks > property > > If yes, I find the "WordCount" example on > http://hadoop.apache.org/common/docs/current/mapred_tutorial.html kinda > stupid, because it seems like each "sub-job" is only about handling one > single line, and that seems to me to be way too small "sub-jobs" to make > it "worth the effort" to move it to a remote machine and start a new JVM > to handle it. Do you agree that it is stupid (yes, it is just an > example, I know), or what did I miss? > > Response : 99% of the example deal with word count… it is a big problem > where i have to face when i begin with hadoop…and Yes one job to treat one > line is not efficient (seen response above…) > > - Finally with respect to side effects. When handling the files we plan > to load the records in the files into some kind of database (maybe > several instances of a database). It is important that each record will > only get inserted into one database once. As I understand it, MapReduce > will make every "sub-job" run in several instances concurrently on > several different machines, in order to make sure that it is finished > quickly even if one of the attempts to handle the particular "sub-job" > fails. It that true? > If yes, isnt that a big problem with respect to "sub-jobs" with side > effects (like inserting into a database)? Or are there some kind of > build-in assumption that all side effects are done on HDFS and that HDFS > supports some kind of transaction-handling so that it is easy for > MapReduce to rollback the side effects of one of the "identical" > sub-jobs if two should both succeed? > In general, is it a build-in thing that each sub-job is running in one > single transaction, so that it is not possible that a sub-job will > "partly" succeed and "partly" fail (e.g. if it has to load 10000 records > into a database, and succeeds with 9999 of those it might be stupud to > roll it all back in order to try it all all-over again) > > Response : Have a look to Apache sqoop may it could help you import/export > data into a database. Otherwise your could set a reduce phase in your > treatment and in the reduce the input key are sorted for the whole data set > and then you could deal with "will only get inserted into one database once" > > I know my english is not perfect, but I hope you at least get the > essence of my questions. I hope you will try to answer all the > questions, even though some of them might seem stupid to you. Remember > that I am a newbie :-) I have been running thourgh the FAQ, but didnt > find any answers to my questions (maybe because they are stupid :-) ). I > wasnt able to search the archives of the mailing-list, so I quickly gave > up finding my answers in "old threads". Can someone point me to a way of > searching in the archives? > > Response : My english is not perfect too! > extra advice : use a 0.20.xxx version (we use a 0.20.2 cloudera > distrbution) and old api (the 0.21 version and New API (mapreduce package) > are not yet complete and stable, see Todd Lipcon advice..). Don't be afraid > by multiple depreaceated class using old API…they are not so depreaceated. I > spend a lot of time at the begining trying to use New API.. > Hadoop framework is not so simple to handle, if your file contains text > information consider use of high level tool like pig or hive. If your file > contains binary information consider use of cascading > (*www.cascading.org*<http://www.cascading.org>) > library. For us it dramasticly simplify the writting (but we have complex > query to do on the binary data hold in Hadoop), depends on the kind of > treatment you have to perform… > > hope my response could help you.. > Regards Alain Montmory > (Thales company) > > Regards, Per Steffensen > >
