Data Flow In MapReduce

MapReduce is used to compute huge amounts of data. To handle the upcoming data in a parallel and distributed form, the data has to flow from various phases.

Phases of MapReduce data flow

Input reader: The input reader reads the upcoming data and splits it into the data blocks of the appropriate size (128 MB). Each data block is associated with a Map function. Once input reads the data, it generates the corresponding key-value pairs. The input files reside in HDFS.

Map function: The map function processes the upcoming key-value pairs and generates the corresponding output key-value pairs. The map input and output type may be different from each other.

Partition function: The partition function assigns the output of each Map function to the appropriate reducer. The available key and value provide this function. It returns the index of reducers.

Shuffling and Sorting: The data is shuffled between/within nodes so that it moves out from the map and gets ready to process for the reduce function. Sometimes, the shuffling of data can take much computation time. The sorting operation is performed on input data for the Reduce function. Here, the data is compared using a comparison function and arranged in a sorted form.

Reduce function: The Reduce function is assigned to each unique key. These keys are already arranged in sorted order. The values associated with the keys can iterate the Reduce and generate the corresponding output.

Output writer: Once the data flows from all the above phases, Output writer executes. The role of Output writer is to write the Reduce output to the stable storage.

---

Happy Exploring!