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FAQ |
Frequently asked questions about the Apache Arrow project |
Apache Arrow is a software development platform for building high performance applications that process and transport large data sets. It is designed to both improve the performance of analytical algorithms and the efficiency of moving data from one system (or programming language to another).
A critical component of Apache Arrow is its in-memory columnar format, a standardized, language-agnostic specification for representing structured, table-like datasets in-memory. This data format has a rich data type system (included nested and user-defined data types) designed to support the needs of analytic database systems, data frame libraries, and more.
The project also contains implementations of the Arrow columnar format in many languages, along with utilities for reading and writing it to many common storage formats. These official libraries enable third-party projects to work with Arrow data without having to implement the Arrow columnar format themselves. For those that want to implement a small subset of the format, the Arrow project contains some tools, such as a C data interface, to assist with interoperability with the official Arrow libraries.
The Arrow libraries contain many software components that assist with systems problems related to getting data in and out of remote storage systems and moving Arrow-formatted data over network interfaces. Some of these components can be used even in scenarios where the columnar format is not used at all.
Lastly, alongside software that helps with data access and IO-related issues, there are libraries of algorithms for performing analytical operations or queries against Arrow datasets.
Traditionally, data processing engine developers have created custom data structures to represent datasets in-memory while they are being processed. Given the "custom" nature of these data structures, they must also develop serialization interfaces to convert between these data structures and different file formats, network wire protocols, database clients, and other data transport interface. The net result of this is an incredible amount of waste both in developer time and in CPU cycles spend serializing data from one format to another.
The rationale for Arrow's in-memory columnar data format is to provide an out-of-the-box solution to several interrelated problems:
- A general purpose tabular data representation that is highly efficient to process on modern hardware while also being suitable for a wide spectrum of use cases. We believe that fewer and fewer systems will create their own data structures and simply use Arrow.
- Supports both random access and streaming / scan-based workloads.
- A standardized memory format facilitates reuse of libraries of algorithms. When custom in-memory data formats are used, common algorithms must often be rewritten to target those custom data formats.
- Systems that both use or support Arrow can transfer data between them at little-to-no cost. This results in a radical reduction in the amount of serialization overhead in analytical workloads that can often represent 80-90% of computing costs.
- The language-agnostic design of the Arrow format enables systems written in different programming languages (even running on the JVM) to communicate datasets without serialization overhead. For example, a Java application can call a C or C++ algorithm on data that originated in the JVM.
The Arrow columnar format and protocol is considered stable, and we intend to make only backwards-compatible changes, such as additional data types. It is used by many applications already, and you can trust that compatibility will not be broken. See [the documentation]({{ site.baseurl }}/docs/format/Versioning.html) for details on Arrow format versioning and stability.
We refer you to the [implementation matrix]({{ site.baseurl }}/docs/status.html).
Official IANA Media types (MIME types) have been registered for Apache Arrow IPC protocol data, both stream and file variants:
- https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/vnd.apache.arrow.stream
- https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/vnd.apache.arrow.file
We recommend ".arrow" as the IPC file format file extension:
and ".arrows" for the IPC streaming format file extension:
Arrow libraries for many languages are available through the usual package managers. See the [install]({{ site.baseurl }}/install/) page for specifics.
The [Arrow mailing lists]({{ site.baseurl }}/community/) are the best place to ask questions. Don't be shy--we're here to help.
Hopefully! Please make a detailed bug report--that's a valuable contribution to the project itself. See the [contribution guidelines]({{ site.baseurl }}/docs/developers/contributing.html) for how to make a report.
We use JIRA for our issue tracker. Search for an issue that matches your need. If you find one, feel free to comment on it and describe your use case--that will help whoever picks up the task. If you don't find one, make it.
Ultimately, Arrow is software written by and for the community. If you don't see someone else in the community working on your issue, the best way to get it done is to pitch in yourself. We're more than willing to help you contribute successfully to the project.
Please send an email to private@arrow.apache.org. See the [security]({{ site.baseurl }}/security/) page for more.
Parquet is not a "runtime in-memory format"; in general, file formats almost always have to be deserialized into some in-memory data structure for processing. We intend for Arrow to be that in-memory data structure.
Parquet is a storage format designed for maximum space efficiency, using advanced compression and encoding techniques. It is ideal when wanting to minimize disk usage while storing gigabytes of data, or perhaps more. This efficiency comes at the cost of relatively expensive reading into memory, as Parquet data cannot be directly operated on but must be decoded in large chunks.
Conversely, Arrow is an in-memory format meant for direct and efficient use for computational purposes. Arrow data is not compressed (or only lightly so, when using dictionary encoding) but laid out in natural format for the CPU, so that data can be accessed at arbitrary places at full speed.
Therefore, Arrow and Parquet complement each other and are commonly used together in applications. Storing your data on disk using Parquet and reading it into memory in the Arrow format will allow you to make the most of your computing hardware.
Apache Arrow defines an inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism to transfer a collection of Arrow columnar arrays (called a "record batch"). It can be used synchronously between processes using the Arrow "stream format", or asynchronously by first persisting data on storage using the Arrow "file format".
The Arrow IPC mechanism is based on the Arrow in-memory format, such that there is no translation necessary between the on-disk representation and the in-memory representation. Therefore, performing analytics on an Arrow IPC file can use memory-mapping, avoiding any deserialization cost and extra copies.
Some things to keep in mind when comparing the Arrow IPC file format and the Parquet format:
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Parquet is designed for long-term storage and archival purposes, meaning if you write a file today, you can expect that any system that says they can "read Parquet" will be able to read the file in 5 years or 10 years. While the Arrow on-disk format is stable and will be readable by future versions of the libraries, it does not prioritize the requirements of long-term archival storage.
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Reading Parquet files generally requires efficient yet relatively complex decoding, while reading Arrow IPC files does not involve any decoding because the on-disk representation is the same as the in-memory representation.
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Parquet files are often much smaller than Arrow IPC files because of the columnar data compression strategies that Parquet uses. If your disk storage or network is slow, Parquet may be a better choice even for short-term storage or caching.
The Feather v1 format was a simplified custom container for writing a subset of the Arrow format to disk prior to the development of the Arrow IPC file format. "Feather version 2" is now exactly the Arrow IPC file format and we have retained the "Feather" name and APIs for backwards compatibility.
Google's protocol buffers library (Protobuf) is not a "runtime in-memory format." Similar to Parquet, Protobuf's representation is not suitable for processing. Data must be deserialized into an in-memory representation like Arrow for processing.
For example, unsigned integers in Protobuf are encoded as varint where each integer could have a different number of bytes and the last three bits contain the wire type of the field. You could not use a CPU to add numbers in this format.
Protobuf has libraries to do this deserialization but they do not aim for a common in-memory format. A message that has been deserialized by protoc generated C# code is not going to have the same representation as one that has been deserialized by protoc generated Java code. You would need to marshal the data from one language to the other.
Arrow avoids this but it comes at the cost of increased space. Protobuf can be a better choice for serializing certain kinds of data on the wire (like individual records or sparse data with many optional fields). Just like Parquet this means that Arrow and Protobuf complement each other well. For example, Arrow Flight uses gRPC and Protobuf to serialize its commands, while data is serialized using the binary Arrow IPC protocol.
Flatbuffers is a low-level building block for binary data serialization. It is not adapted to the representation of large, structured, homogenous data, and does not sit at the right abstraction layer for data analysis tasks.
Arrow is a data layer aimed directly at the needs of data analysis, providing a comprehensive collection of data types required to analytics, built-in support for "null" values (representing missing data), and an expanding toolbox of I/O and computing facilities.
The Arrow file format does use Flatbuffers under the hood to serialize schemas and other metadata needed to implement the Arrow binary IPC protocol, but the Arrow data format uses its own representation for optimal access and computation.