Introduction to Performance Optimization
Learn about techniques for unlocking performance optimization in PySpark.
PySpark empowers Python developers with the distributed computing capabilities of Spark. However, PySpark is predominantly built in Java, leveraging the Py4J Java library to enable dynamic calls between Python and Java.
This architecture is necessary due to the lack of a native method to code in Python and execute within the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). As a result, Py4J operates as a proxy, facilitating the transfer of Python code to the JVM and retrieving results as needed. While this architectural choice provides the advantage of PySpark’s accessibility for Python programmers, it does introduce some overhead compared to working with Spark natively in its original programming language, Scala.
Why performance optimization for PySpark
When compared to the native execution of Spark using Scala, PySpark displays a certain level of performance lag in specific operations. This is because of various factors such as data size, data complexity, the underlying hardware infrastructure, the inherent nature of the processing tasks, and so on. In light of ...