The Cloud Storage connector is an open source Java library that lets you run Apache Hadoop or Apache Spark jobs directly on data in Cloud Storage, and offers a number of benefits over choosing the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS).
Benefits of the Cloud Storage connector
- Direct data access – Store your data in Cloud Storage and access it directly, with no need to transfer it into HDFS first.
- HDFS compatibility – You can easily access your data in Cloud Storage using the
gs://
prefix instead ofhdfs://
. - Interoperability – Storing data in Cloud Storage enables seamless interoperability between Spark, Hadoop, and Google services.
- Data accessibility – When you shut down a Hadoop cluster, you still have access to your data in Cloud Storage, unlike HDFS.
- High data availability – Data stored in Cloud Storage is highly available and globally replicated without a loss of performance.
- No storage management overhead – Unlike HDFS, Cloud Storage requires no routine maintenance such as checking the file system, upgrading or rolling back to a previous version of the file system, etc.
- Quick startup – In HDFS, a MapReduce job can't start until the
NameNode
is out of safe mode—a process that can take from a few seconds to many minutes depending on the size and state of your data. With Cloud Storage, you can start your job as soon as the task nodes start, leading to significant cost savings over time.
Getting the connector
Cloud Dataproc clusters
The Cloud Storage connector is installed by default on all Cloud Dataproc
cluster nodes under /usr/lib/hadoop/lib/
. It's available in both Spark and
PySpark environments.
Other Spark/Hadoop clusters
You can download the Cloud Storage connector for Hadoop 1.x or the Cloud Storage connector for Hadoop 2.x. See Installing the Cloud Storage connector to install and configure the connector.
Using the connector
There are multiple ways to access data stored in Cloud Storage:
- In a Spark (or PySpark) or Hadoop application using the
gs://
prefix. - The hadoop shell:
hadoop fs -ls gs://CONFIGBUCKET/dir/file
. - The GCP Console Cloud Storage browser.
- Using the
gsutil cp
orgsutil rsync
commands.
Resources
Java version
The Cloud Storage connector requires Java 8.
Apache Maven Dependency Information
<dependency> <groupId>com.google.cloud.bigdataoss</groupId> <artifactId>gcs-connector</artifactId> <version>insert "hadoopX-X.X.X" connector version number here</version> <scope>provided</scope> </dependency>
For more detailed information, see the Cloud Storage connector release notes and Javadoc reference.
What's next
- Learn more about Cloud Storage