word

Apache Spark

ah-PAH-chee SPARK

əˈpɑːtʃiː spɑːrk

Listen

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Syllable breakdown

ApacheSpark

Dictionary meaning

an open-source, distributed computing framework designed for large-scale data processing; dramatically faster than its predecessor Hadoop MapReduce by performing in-memory computation; supports batch processing, interactive queries (Spark SQL), stream processing (Spark Streaming), machine learning (MLlib), and graph processing (GraphX); developed at UC Berkeley's AMPLab and donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 2013; the de facto standard for big data processing

History and origin

Named after the Apache Software Foundation, which maintains it; 'Spark' refers to its speed — it 'sparked' a revolution in big data processing

Examples

The data team rewrote their ETL pipeline in Apache Spark, reducing runtime from 8 hours to 20 minutes.
Apache Spark's unified API supports Python, Scala, Java, and R, making it accessible to diverse teams.

Pronunciation tips

Apache (the foundation) is pronounced 'ah-PAH-chee', as in the Native American people. Do not confuse Apache Spark with Apache Kafka — both are Apache projects but serve different purposes.

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