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Apache Beam VS Google Cloud Dataproc

Compare Apache Beam VS Google Cloud Dataproc and see what are their differences

Apache Beam logo Apache Beam

Apache Beam provides an advanced unified programming model to implement batch and streaming data processing jobs.

Google Cloud Dataproc logo Google Cloud Dataproc

Managed Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop service which is fast, easy to use, and low cost
  • Apache Beam Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-31
  • Google Cloud Dataproc Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09

Apache Beam features and specs

  • Unified Model
    Apache Beam provides a unified programming model that simplifies the development of both batch and stream processing applications. This reduces the complexity in maintaining separate codebases for different types of data processing needs.
  • Portability
    The portability of Apache Beam allows developers to write their code once and run it on different execution engines like Apache Flink, Apache Spark, and Google Cloud Dataflow, offering flexibility in choosing the right runtime environment.
  • Rich SDKs
    Apache Beam offers rich SDKs for multiple languages including Java, Python, and Go, allowing a broader range of developers to leverage its capabilities without being restricted to a single programming language.
  • Windowing and Triggering
    It provides powerful abstractions for windowing and triggering, enabling developers to handle out-of-order data and late data arrivals efficiently, which is crucial for accurate stream processing.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Beam

  • Complexity
    Although Apache Beam simplifies certain aspects of data processing, its unified model and advanced features can introduce complexity, making it potentially challenging for developers unfamiliar with distributed data processing concepts.
  • Limited Language Support
    While Apache Beam supports Java, Python, and Go, the level of feature support and maturity can vary between these SDKs, which might limit adoption for developers using other programming languages.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction layer provided by Beam to ensure portability might result in a performance overhead compared to using execution engines directly, potentially affecting performance-sensitive applications.
  • Evolving Ecosystem
    As an evolving framework, Apache Beam’s APIs and ecosystem components might change over time, requiring continuous learning and adaptation from developers to keep up with the latest updates and best practices.

Google Cloud Dataproc features and specs

  • Managed Service
    Google Cloud Dataproc is a fully managed service, which reduces the complexity of deploying, managing, and scaling big data clusters like Hadoop and Spark.
  • Integration with Google Cloud
    Seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud services like Google Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Google Cloud Pub/Sub, allowing for easy data handling and processing.
  • Scalability
    Can quickly scale resources up or down to meet the computing demands, making it flexible for different workload sizes and types.
  • Cost Efficiency
    Offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, and can utilize preemptible VMs for reduced costs, making it a cost-effective option for running big data workloads.
  • Customizability
    Supports custom image management and initialization actions, allowing users to tailor clusters to meet specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of Google Cloud Dataproc

  • Complex Pricing
    Understanding and predicting costs can be challenging due to various pricing factors like cluster size, usage duration, and types of instances used.
  • Learning Curve
    Dataproc requires familiarity with Google Cloud and big data tools, which may present a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Limited Customization Compared to Self-Managed
    While customizable, it may not offer as much flexibility and control as self-managed on-premises solutions, which can be limiting for highly specialized configurations.
  • Dependency on Google Cloud Ecosystem
    As a Google Cloud service, users are somewhat locked into the Google ecosystem, which may not be ideal for those using a multi-cloud strategy.
  • Potential Latency for Large Data Transfers
    Transferring large datasets between Dataproc and other services, especially across regions, might introduce latency issues.

Apache Beam videos

How to Write Batch or Streaming Data Pipelines with Apache Beam in 15 mins with James Malone

More videos:

  • Review - Best practices towards a production-ready pipeline with Apache Beam
  • Review - Streaming data into Apache Beam with Kafka

Google Cloud Dataproc videos

Dataproc

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apache Beam and Google Cloud Dataproc)
Big Data
47 47%
53% 53
Data Dashboard
26 26%
74% 74
Data Warehousing
44 44%
56% 56
Big Data Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Beam should be more popular than Google Cloud Dataproc. It has been mentiond 14 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Apache Beam mentions (14)

  • Ask HN: Does (or why does) anyone use MapReduce anymore?
    The "streaming systems" book answers your question and more: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/streaming-systems/9781491983867/. It gives you a history of how batch processing started with MapReduce, and how attempts at scaling by moving towards streaming systems gave us all the subsequent frameworks (Spark, Beam, etc.). As for the framework called MapReduce, it isn't used much, but its descendant... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How do Streaming Aggregation Pipelines work?
    Apache Beam is one of many tools that you can use. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Real Time Data Infra Stack
    Apache Beam: Streaming framework which can be run on several runner such as Apache Flink and GCP Dataflow. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Google Cloud Reference
    Apache Beam: Batch/streaming data processing 🔗Link. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Composer out of resources - "INFO Task exited with return code Negsignal.SIGKILL"
    What you are looking for is Dataflow. It can be a bit tricky to wrap your head around at first, but I highly suggest leaning into this technology for most of your data engineering needs. It's based on the open source Apache Beam framework that originated at Google. We use an internal version of this system at Google for virtually all of our pipeline tasks, from a few GB, to Exabyte scale systems -- it can do it all. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Google Cloud Dataproc mentions (3)

  • Connecting IPython notebook to spark master running in different machines
    I have also a spark cluster created with google cloud dataproc. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Why we don’t use Spark
    Specifically, we heavily rely on managed services from our cloud provider, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), for hosting our data in managed databases like BigTable and Spanner. For data transformations, we initially heavily relied on DataProc - a managed service from Google to manage a Spark cluster. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Data processing issue
    With that, the best way to maximize processing and minimize time is to use Dataflow or Dataproc depending on your needs. These systems are highly parallel and clustered, which allows for much larger processing pipelines that execute quickly. Source: about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apache Beam and Google Cloud Dataproc, you can also consider the following products

Google Cloud Dataflow - Google Cloud Dataflow is a fully-managed cloud service and programming model for batch and streaming big data processing.

Amazon EMR - Amazon Elastic MapReduce is a web service that makes it easy to quickly process vast amounts of data.

Google BigQuery - A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.

Qubole - Qubole delivers a self-service platform for big aata analytics built on Amazon, Microsoft and Google Clouds.

HortonWorks Data Platform - The Hortonworks Data Platform is a 100% open source distribution of Apache Hadoop that is truly...

Snowflake - Snowflake is the only data platform built for the cloud for all your data & all your users. Learn more about our purpose-built SQL cloud data warehouse.