All posts by Alex Volok
Scripting PySpark DataFrames
Developing Spark applications means dealing with Spark DataFrames. These objects are in-memory data structures accessible via various APIs but locally scoped. Sometimes we need to use them outside the runtime environment. Scripting a dataframe as the collection of Python commands that fully reproduce this object is a possible and occasionally preferred solution. The use cases […]
Delta Properties and Check Constraints at Scale
Delta arguably is the most popular data format in the current Data Engineering landscape. It is mainly used with Databricks/Spark ecosystem; however, this is optional. It is a universal open-source format and works great out of the box. However, it might be that the default behavior is not sufficient for some use cases, and then […]
Towards Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional
I decided to obtain the Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional recognition within 2023. It was a New Year Resolution goal that resonated well with my career path. Surprisingly, few related study materials, blog posts, or forum discussions were available. I passed the exam on the first try, though, going blindly. This story is a compilation […]
Delta-RS & DuckDB: Read and Write Delta Without Spark
I have used Apache Spark (often as Azure Databricks) for some years and see it as a sledgehammer in data processing. It is a reliable tool built on JVM, which does in-memory processing and can spin up multiple workers to distribute workload to handle various use cases. It does not matter: whether small or considerable […]
Databricks Observability: Processing Collected Ganglia Metrics
Introduction In this article, we will explore the use of collected Ganglia metrics and their preparation for observability tools like Grafana. We will begin by examining how the metrics files are organized and what kind of content they hold. Then, we will discuss how the metrics going to be processed by creating a notebook to […]