If you group by the host that you have computed using the UDF, Spark is always going to shuffle your dataset, even if the end result is that all the new partitions look exactly like the old partitions, just placed on differrent nodes. Remember the hostname will probably hash differrently than the partition key of the data.
Let's say, you are trying to do is read a file, apply a UDF, and write out to file. Without your "performance improvement", Spark will read partitions , apply the UDF to the rows in the partitions, and write the rows out.. With your upgrade, it will read the partitions, apply the hostname udf, shuffle by host name, apply the UDF on the shuffled rows, and write the data out If your intent is to increase efficiency, this will do the opposite of what you are trying to do On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 1:23 PM Patrick McCarthy <pmccar...@dstillery.com.invalid> wrote: > When debugging some behavior on my YARN cluster I wrote the following > PySpark UDF to figure out what host was operating on what row of data: > > @F.udf(T.StringType()) > def add_hostname(x): > > import socket > > return str(socket.gethostname()) > > It occurred to me that I could use this to enforce node-locality for other > operations: > > df.withColumn('host', add_hostname(x)).groupBy('host').apply(...) > > When working on a big job without obvious partition keys, this seems like > a very straightforward way to avoid a shuffle, but it seems too easy. > > What problems would I introduce by trying to partition on hostname like > this? > ________________________________________________________ The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and/or proprietary to Capital One and/or its affiliates and may only be used solely in performance of work or services for Capital One. The information transmitted herewith is intended only for use by the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, retransmission, dissemination, distribution, copying or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from your computer.