Spark Job in Fabric

[nnk9]

Hi Everyone,

While I was checking with Spark Jobs in Fabric, I got a question why do we require Spark Jobs when we have Notebooks. Is there any specific functionality for Spark Jobs?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @nnk9 ,

Thanks for using Fabric Community.

Key Factors for Choosing Between Notebooks and Spark Job Definitions:

• Development Style:
  • Notebooks: Ideal for iterative development and exploration. You can write code, see results, and make adjustments quickly.
  • Spark Job Definitions: More suited for production-ready code with a defined workflow.
• Complexity:
  • Notebooks: Can become cumbersome for complex pipelines due to lack of structure.
  • Spark Job Definitions: Designed for handling intricate and resource-intensive Spark jobs effectively.
• Scalability:
  • Notebooks: Not ideal for large-scale data processing as they might not be as optimized.
  • Spark Job Definitions: Built for handling massive datasets efficiently.
• Collaboration:
  • Notebooks: Facilitate collaborative work through shared notebooks and immediate feedback.
  • Spark Job Definitions: Collaboration might require additional tools or version control systems.

Real-World Scenarios:

• Scenario 1: Exploratory Data Analysis (Notebook): A data scientist is exploring a new dataset. They use a notebook to write Spark code to clean, analyze, and visualize the data. They can try different approaches and see the results immediately.
• Scenario 2: Production ETL Pipeline (Spark Job Definition): A company needs to automate a daily data processing pipeline that extracts data from various sources, transforms it, and loads it into a data warehouse. A Spark job definition is used to define the steps and schedule the job to run every day.

Limitations and Challenges:

• Notebooks:
  • Maintainability: Complex notebooks can become messy and difficult to maintain in the long run.
  • Scalability: Notebooks may not be the most efficient option for large-scale production workloads.
• Spark Job Definitions:
  • Interactivity: Less suitable for quick exploration and visualization due to the non-interactive nature of execution.
  • Collaboration: Collaboration features might not be as intuitive compared to notebooks.

In Conclusion:

• Notebooks: Best for prototyping, iterative development, data exploration, and smaller-scale data processing.
• Spark Job Definitions: Ideal for production-level scheduled jobs, complex pipelines, and large-scale data processing.

Remember, you can leverage both approaches! Use notebooks for initial exploration and development, then translate the refined code into Spark job definitions for production runs. This combines the strengths of both methods for a smooth workflow.

Hope this is helpful. Please let me know incase of further queries.

[nnk9]

Hi @Anonymous 

Thanks for the quick reply. After reading the above, I got one more query so do you suggest Notebooks for testing environment and Spark Jobs for production?

[Anonymous]

Hi @nnk9 ,

We cannot say it like that.
Main idea of Notebook is for interactive mode. If you want to study the data and schedule it we can use Notebooks.
On other hand, Spark Job Definitions is like we don't want an interactive mode. While we basically have already written code and want to upload it in Fabric and execute them. We don't expect much changes to it on our daily basis.

So whether we should use it in Testing or Production depends on our use case.

Hope this is helpful. Please let me know incase of further queries.

[nnk9]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Got it! Thanks for the response.