Hadoop Questions & Answers

What is the difference between Hadoop and Traditional RDBMS?

    Hadoop :

          Processes semi-structured and unstructured data.
          Schema on Read
          Data discovery and Massive Storage/Processing of Unstructured data.
          Writes are Fast 

    RDBMS

         Processes structured data.

         Schema on Write

        Best suited for OLTP and complex ACID transactions

        Reads are Fast

What do the 4 V’s of Big Data denote?

IBM has a nice, simple explanation for the four critical features of big data:
a) Volume –Scale of data
b) Velocity –Analysis of streaming data
c) Variety – Different forms of data
d) Veracity –Uncertainty of data

How big data analysis helps businesses increase their revenue? Give an example

Big data analysis is helping businesses differentiate themselves – for example Walmart the world’s largest retailer in 2014 in terms of revenue - is using big data analytics to increase its sales through better predictive analytics, providing customized recommendations and launching new products based on customer preferences and needs. Walmart observed a significant 10% to 15% increase in online sales for $1 billion in incremental revenue. There are many more companies like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pandora, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, etc. using big data analytics to boost their revenue.

Name some companies that use Hadoop

Yahoo (One of the biggest user & more than 80% code contributor to Hadoop)
Facebook
Netflix
Amazon
Adobe
eBay
Hulu
Spotify
Rubikloud
Twitter

Differentiate between Structured and Unstructured data

Data which can be stored in traditional database systems in the form of rows and columns, for example the online purchase transactions can be referred to as Structured Data. Data which can be stored only partially in traditional database systems, for example, data in XML records can be referred to as semi structured data. Unorganized and raw data that cannot be categorized as semi structured or structured data is referred to as unstructured data. Facebook updates, Tweets on Twitter, Reviews, web logs, etc. are all examples of unstructured data.

On what concept the Hadoop framework works?

Hadoop Framework works on the following two core components-

1)HDFS – Hadoop Distributed File System is the java based file system for scalable and reliable storage of large datasets. Data in HDFS is stored in the form of blocks and it operates on the Master Slave Architecture.

2)Hadoop MapReduce-This is a java based programming paradigm of Hadoop framework that provides scalability across various Hadoop clusters. MapReduce distributes the workload into various tasks that can run in parallel. Hadoop jobs perform 2 separate tasks- job. The map job breaks down the data sets into key-value pairs or tuples. The reduce job then takes the output of the map job and combines the data tuples to into smaller set of tuples. The reduce job is always performed after the map job is executed.

What are the main components of a Hadoop Application?

Hadoop applications have wide range of technologies that provide great advantage in solving complex business problems.

Core components of a Hadoop application are-

1) Hadoop Common

2) HDFS

3) Hadoop MapReduce

4) YARN

Data Access Components are - Pig and Hive

Data Storage Component is - HBase

Data Integration Components are - Apache Flume, Sqoop, Chukwa

Data Management and Monitoring Components are - Ambari, Oozie and Zookeeper.

Data Serialization Components are - Thrift and Avro

Data Intelligence Components are - Apache Mahout and Drill.

What is Hadoop streaming?

Hadoop distribution has a generic application programming interface for writing Map and Reduce jobs in any desired programming language like Python, Perl, Ruby, etc. This is referred to as Hadoop Streaming. Users can create and run jobs with any kind of shell scripts or executable as the Mapper or Reducers.

What is the best hardware configuration to run Hadoop?

The best configuration for executing Hadoop jobs is dual core machines or dual processors with 4GB or 8GB RAM that use ECC memory. Hadoop highly benefits from using ECC memory though it is not low - end. ECC memory is recommended for running Hadoop because most of the Hadoop users have experienced various checksum errors by using non ECC memory. However, the hardware configuration also depends on the workflow requirements and can change accordingly.

What are the most commonly defined input formats in Hadoop?

The most common Input Formats defined in Hadoop are:

·        Text Input Format- This is the default input format defined in Hadoop.

·        Key Value Input Format- This input format is used for plain text files wherein the files are broken down into lines.

·        Sequence File Input Format- This input format is used for reading files in sequence.

What is Big Data?

Big data is defined as the voluminous amount of structured, unstructured or semi-structured data that has huge potential for mining but is so large that it cannot be processed using traditional database systems. Big data is characterized by its high velocity, volume and variety that requires cost effective and innovative methods for information processing to draw meaningful business insights. More than the volume of the data – it is the nature of the data that defines whether it is considered as Big Data or not.