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Introduction When running ETL jobs in the cloud using Spark, MapReduce, or Hive, directly writing the output to AWS S3 often yields slow, unstable performance or complicated error handling due to throughput throttling, object storage semantics among many other reasons. write-intensive Some users choose to first write the output to an HDFS cluster and then upload the staging data to AWS S3 using tools like . s3-dist-cp Though optimizing the performance or eliminating corner cases for object storage, the second approach adds both cost and complexity in maintaining a staging HDFS, as well as increases the delay for the data to be available for downstream applications. Alluxio is an open-source data orchestration system widely used to speed up data-intensive workloads in the cloud. Alluxio v2.0 introduced to allow users to complete writes to the Alluxio file system and return quickly with high application performance, while still providing users with peace of mind that data will be persisted to the chosen under storage like S3 in the background. Replicated Async Write What is Replicated Async Write Assume that a Spark job is writing a large data set to AWS S3. To ensure that the output files are quickly written and keep highly available before persisted to S3, pass the write type and a target replication level to Spark (see description in ). ASYNC_THROUGH docs alluxio.user.file.writetype.default=ASYNC_THROUGHalluxio.user.file.replication.durable= < > N and set the output to the Alluxio file system client (with URI scheme: “ ”) alluxio:// scala> myData.saveAsTextFile( ) "alluxio://<MasterHost>:19998/Output" This Spark job will first synchronously write a new file to the Alluxio file system with N copies before returning. In the background, the Alluxio file system will persist a copy of the new data to the Alluxio under storage like S3. By default, the property is set to 1, and writing a file to Alluxio using completes at memory speed if there is a colocated Alluxio worker. alluxio.user.file.replication.durable ASYNC_THROUGH But if any worker crashes or restarts before the data is persisted, the data can be lost. Increasing to some value greater than 1 ensures the data is replicated at N different workers in Alluxio to survive N-1 worker failures before being persisted, at the cost of temporarily storing N times more data in Alluxio. alluxio.user.file.replication.durable Note that, before the file is eventually persisted, in case any of these N workers fail, Alluxio will take care of the failure by re-replicating the under-replicated blocks and ensuring sufficient copies of the file; also free command will not work before the file is persisted. Once the file is persisted to the under storage, the in-Alluxio copies of this file can become evictable if another configuration allows this. Enable Replicated Async Write in Alluxio Configure the Alluxio property to a reasonable number to provide fault tolerance as well as set to on all client applications. alluxio.user.file.replication.durable alluxio.user.file.writetype.default ASYNC_THROUGH Note that these properties are client-side only, meaning they don’t require restarts of any Alluxio processes to use them! For example, put the following lines into to write with three initial copies before data is persisted: conf/alluxio-site.properties alluxio.user.file.writetype.default=ASYNC_THROUGHalluxio.user.file.replication.durable= 3 Alluxio command-line is also supported to use replicated async write. For example, the command can copy data from the local file system to Alluxio using replicated async write: copyFromLocal $ ./bin/alluxio fs -Dalluxio.user.file.writetype.default=ASYNC_THROUGH \  -Dalluxio.user.file.replication.durable= copyFromLocal <localPath> 3 < > alluxioPath Comparison to Other Alluxio Write Types Replicated async write is one write type that aims to balance the requirements in write speed and data persistence, but also at the transient cost of more storage capacity. Alluxio also provides a couple of additional write types realizing different trade-offs in the design space. For an application that writes its data through Alluxio, unless the user is writing with or , the data will not exist in the under storage when writing. THROUGH CACHE_THROUGH The problem is that those types of writes are slower than their and counterparts. When a file is written using or , if the blocks of the file only exist on a single worker and that worker fails or crashes, then the written data will be unrecoverable. MUST_CACHE ASYNC_THROUGH MUST_CACHE ASYNC_THROUGH When Alluxio provides synchronous replicas of data at the time it is written, then it combines the performance of using while still providing fault tolerance. MUST_CACHE Also published here.

Accelerating Write-Intensive Data Workloads on AWS S3

Unlocking the Power of Advanced Data Types in Big Data

Thinking about a getting a cybersecurity degree but aren’t really sure? You’re not the only one. There’s a lot of debate on whether a cybersecurity degree has any value. But as a sign of things to come, the Office of National Cyber Director recently announced a willingness for federal agencies to move away from education-based hiring and towards skills-based hiring. So now the question everyone is asking…are cybersecurity degrees really worth it? Read on as I walk through a few things to consider before you decide whether a degree is worth your time and money. Do Employers Require a Degree in Cybersecurity? Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward answer to this question. According to a 2023 ISACA report, only 52% of organizations require a university degree for hiring in entry-level cyber roles. Part of the reason for this lack of clarity is the challenge employers face when determining how 'well-prepared' college graduates are. The ISACA survey revealed that 28% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that recent cyber graduates were well-prepared for the challenges in their organizations, whereas 24% disagreed or strongly disagreed. This indicates that employers are divided on the effectiveness of a cybersecurity degree. However, this doesn’t mean that obtaining a degree in cybersecurity lacks value; there are still several benefits to consider. Keep in mind this thought process doesn’t apply to leadership positions. Most executive roles, such as those of a CISO, typically require a degree in cybersecurity or a related field. Additionally, some companies may even prefer candidates with a master’s degree. Benefits of a Cybersecurity Degree There’s no doubt that a cybersecurity degree is an excellent launching pad for a successful career in the cyber industry. While it’s absolutely possible to land an entry-level job without a cyber degree, it’ll likely be more challenging for you. Compared to an equally capable candidate without a degree, a degreed candidate is more likely to gain access to a wider range of positions, secure an interview, be hired, receive opportunities for promotion, and earn a higher salary. However, I believe the most significant benefit of obtaining a cybersecurity degree lies in the experiential learning it offers, particularly through internships. Internships provide an opportunity to develop necessary skills in a real-world environment while allowing companies to invest time and effort into your training, thus improving your chances of employment after the internship. Calculating Your Degree’s Return on Investment (ROI) It’s important to recognize that your return on investment (ROI) depends entirely on your career goals. If you’re ‘okay’ with an entry-level position, low upfront costs, and slow growth with potential limits on promotion opportunities, you might be fine without a degree. And I completely understand that going to college isn’t cheap. The average cost of an undergraduate degree on campus is $36,436. To calculate a more accurate ROI, consider also the four years of lost wages during your studies because you’re likely working part-time instead of full-time. Assuming a wage of $15 per hour, you’re giving up $15,600 per year, or $62,400 over four years. This, plus the cost of your undergrad degree, brings your total educational cost to $98,836. Now, using the median annual salary of an information security analyst, which is $120,360, the average ROI comes to 21.8% per year, derived from ($120,360 - $98,836) / $98,836. After working for ten years, this translates to an ROI of 1,100% without a single promotion and an ROI of 2,300% after 20 years—a massive return for your four years of education! Keep in mind that other factors, such as taxes, inflation, and salary increases, will also impact your actual ROI, but this gives you a basic idea of the benefits. How to Start Cybersecurity Without a Degree? Cybersecurity professionals currently occupy 82% of US jobs. Additionally, employment growth is expected to rise in the next decade. This means that, degree or not, the industry urgently needs quality candidates. If you aren’t interested in a 4-year degree, here are a few alternatives to consider: Associate’s Degree: Gain a competitive edge with a two-year cybersecurity associate’s degree, which provides a flexible, albeit less comprehensive, foundation in cyber knowledge compared to a full four-year bachelor’s degree.
Bootcamps: Cybersecurity boot camps condense essential knowledge into a 6-to-28-week intensive course but also cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000.
Solo Work: Consider working as an open-source project contributor or engaging in solo projects if internships aren’t appealing to you. Building a robust portfolio is crucial to demonstrating your expertise and securing an entry-level cybersecurity job. Final Thoughts This article explored whether a cybersecurity degree is required by employers, the benefits of having one, and whether it’s worth the personal investment. And though a degree can open many doors and potentially lead to higher salaries, it's not the only way into the industry. With the cyber industry's rapid growth and the shift toward skills -based hiring, alternatives like associate’s degrees, boot camps, and self-directed projects also offer valuable entry points. Ultimately, the debate continues: Is a traditional degree necessary, or should we value practical skills more? What's your take? Do you think degrees are essential, or is it time to reprioritize and determine what is essential? Share your thoughts below. Thinking about a getting a cybersecurity degree but aren’t really sure? You’re not the only one. There’s a lot of debate on whether a cybersecurity degree has any value. But as a sign of things to come, the Office of National Cyber Director recently announced a willingness for federal agencies to move away from education-based hiring and towards skills-based hiring . skills-based hiring So now the question everyone is asking… are cybersecurity degrees really worth it? are cybersecurity degrees really worth it? are cybersecurity degrees really worth it? Read on as I walk through a few things to consider before you decide whether a degree is worth your time and money. Do Employers Require a Degree in Cybersecurity? Do Employers Require a Degree in Cybersecurity? Unfortunately, there’s no straightforward answer to this question. According to a 2023 ISACA report , only 52% of organizations require a university degree for hiring in entry-level cyber roles. Part of the reason for this lack of clarity is the challenge employers face when determining how 'well-prepared' college graduates are. 2023 ISACA report The ISACA survey revealed that 28% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that recent cyber graduates were well-prepared for the challenges in their organizations, whereas 24% disagreed or strongly disagreed. This indicates that employers are divided on the effectiveness of a cybersecurity degree. However, this doesn’t mean that obtaining a degree in cybersecurity lacks value; there are still several benefits to consider. Keep in mind this thought process doesn’t apply to leadership positions. Most executive roles, such as those of a CISO, typically require a degree in cybersecurity or a related field. Additionally, some companies may even prefer candidates with a master’s degree. Benefits of a Cybersecurity Degree Cybersecurity Degree There’s no doubt that a cybersecurity degree is an excellent launching pad for a successful career in the cyber industry. While it’s absolutely possible to land an entry-level job without a cyber degree, it’ll likely be more challenging for you. Compared to an equally capable candidate without a degree, a degreed candidate is more likely to gain access to a wider range of positions, secure an interview, be hired, receive opportunities for promotion, and earn a higher salary. However, I believe the most significant benefit of obtaining a cybersecurity degree lies in the experiential learning it offers, particularly through internships. Internships provide an opportunity to develop necessary skills in a real-world environment while allowing companies to invest time and effort into your training, thus improving your chances of employment after the internship. Calculating Your Degree’s Return on Investment (ROI) Calculating Your Degree’s Return on Investment (ROI) It’s important to recognize that your return on investment (ROI) depends entirely on your career goals. If you’re ‘okay’ with an entry-level position, low upfront costs, and slow growth with potential limits on promotion opportunities, you might be fine without a degree. And I completely understand that going to college isn’t cheap. The average cost of an undergraduate degree on campus is $36,436. To calculate a more accurate ROI, consider also the four years of lost wages during your studies because you’re likely working part-time instead of full-time. Assuming a wage of $15 per hour, you’re giving up $15,600 per year, or $62,400 over four years. This, plus the cost of your undergrad degree, brings your total educational cost to $98,836. average cost of an undergraduate degree Now, using the median annual salary of an information security analyst , which is $120,360, the average ROI comes to 21.8% per year, derived from ($120,360 - $98,836) / $98,836. median annual salary of an information security analyst After working for ten years, this translates to an ROI of 1,100% without a single promotion and an ROI of 2,300% after 20 years—a massive return for your four years of education! Keep in mind that other factors, such as taxes, inflation, and salary increases, will also impact your actual ROI, but this gives you a basic idea of the benefits. How to Start Cybersecurity Without a Degree? How to Start Cybersecurity Without a Degree? Cybersecurity professionals currently occupy 82% of US jobs . Additionally, employment growth is expected to rise in the next decade. This means that, degree or not, the industry urgently needs quality candidates. Cybersecurity professionals currently occupy 82% of US jobs employment growth If you aren’t interested in a 4-year degree, here are a few alternatives to consider: Associate’s Degree: Gain a competitive edge with a two-year cybersecurity associate’s degree, which provides a flexible, albeit less comprehensive, foundation in cyber knowledge compared to a full four-year bachelor’s degree. Bootcamps: Cybersecurity boot camps condense essential knowledge into a 6-to-28-week intensive course but also cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Solo Work: Consider working as an open-source project contributor or engaging in solo projects if internships aren’t appealing to you. Building a robust portfolio is crucial to demonstrating your expertise and securing an entry-level cybersecurity job. Associate’s Degree : Gain a competitive edge with a two-year cybersecurity associate’s degree, which provides a flexible, albeit less comprehensive, foundation in cyber knowledge compared to a full four-year bachelor’s degree. Associate’s Degree Bootcamps : Cybersecurity boot camps condense essential knowledge into a 6-to-28-week intensive course but also cost anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Bootcamps Solo Work : Consider working as an open-source project contributor or engaging in solo projects if internships aren’t appealing to you. Building a robust portfolio is crucial to demonstrating your expertise and securing an entry-level cybersecurity job. Solo Work robust portfolio Final Thoughts This article explored whether a cybersecurity degree is required by employers, the benefits of having one, and whether it’s worth the personal investment. And though a degree can open many doors and potentially lead to higher salaries, it's not the only way into the industry. With the cyber industry's rapid growth and the shift toward skills -based hiring, alternatives like associate’s degrees, boot camps, and self-directed projects also offer valuable entry points. Ultimately, the debate continues: Is a traditional degree necessary, or should we value practical skills more? What's your take? Do you think degrees are essential, or is it time to reprioritize and determine what is essential? Share your thoughts below.

Cybersecurity Degrees, Are They Really Worth It?

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Bitcoin On-Chain skalieren mit Omnity

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A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable. This famous quote from, Leslie Lamport, an A.M. Turing Award Laureate, summarizes the challenges in building and maintaining a distributed system. But why is there a need for such complicated systems? With the advent of the internet and smarter devices, the amount of data that needs to be processed has exploded. Simple day-to-day activities like ordering an Uber, watching a show on Netflix, a simple Google search, online shopping, or interacting with social media, all trivial actions that we take for granted are powered by hundreds of distribution services. All these services are built on the backbone of some  foundational papers in distributed systems. While this list is definitely not comprehensive, here are some of my favorite papers that have had a massive impact on the world of distributed systems. CAP Theorem While not a traditional paper, Eric Brewer first introduced it as a conjecture in a keynote address at the 2000 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC). The paper was later formalized and proved by Nancy Lynch and Seth Gilbert in the paper Brewer’s Conjecture and the Feasibility of Consistent, Available, Partition-Tolerant Web Services Eric Brewer's CAP theorem is a fundamental concept in distributed systems theory, stating that it is impossible for a distributed data store to simultaneously provide more than two out of three guarantees: consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. All other papers mentioned here apply the above principle and make the necessary tradeoffs in their system. CAP theorem always leads to a lot of discussions based on readers’ understanding of the paper. Martin Kleppmann's " " provides a better framework to discuss the tradeoffs. A Critique of the CAP Theorem Paxos Made Simple In this seminal from 2001, Leslie Lamport presents the Paxos algorithm for achieving consensus in a distributed system in an easy and accessible way.  Paxos-based consensus protocols form the backbone of many distributed databases, storage systems, messaging platforms, and coordination services used by many technology companies. It heavily influenced other technologies like Google's Chubby, Google's Spanner, Apache ZooKeeper, Apache BookKeeper, etc. paper The Google File System introduces a scalable distributed file system for large distributed data-intensive applications on commodity hardware, which is the foundation for many distributed file systems that followed. GFS served as a major inspiration for HDFS, the distributed file system used by the Apache Hadoop framework and eventually Amazon S3 (event though s3 is fundamentally different). The Google File System (GFS) paper MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters This introduces the MapReduce programming model, which demonstrates a scalable approach to processing large-scale datasets using distributed computing infrastructure. MapReduce played a pivotal role in the "big data" revolution, enabling organizations to harness the power of distributed computing to analyze and derive insights from massive datasets. You can see how combining GFS and MapReduce allowed Google to process Petabytes of data to organize data of the "internet." paper The MapReduce paper (along with GFS) inspired the development of an entire ecosystem of tools and libraries built around Apache Hadoop such as Apache Hive (data warehouse infrastructure built on Hadoop), Apache Pig (high-level data flow language for Hadoop), Apache Spark (in-memory data processing engine), Apache HBase (distributed NoSQL database), and many others. Bigtable: A Distributed Storage System for Structured Data The represents a distributed storage system for managing structured data at Google. Once MapReduce and GFS allowed Google to process data at scale in a cost-effective manner, the next step was to enable access to the data in a reliable and highly available manner. BigTable was able to provide a flexible, high-performance solution for applications like web indexing, Google Earth, and Google Finance. Bigtable paper Just like MapReduce revolutionized the "big data" era, BigTable paper was the moving force for the "NoSQL" era. Many of the design principles and architectural concepts introduced in the Bigtable paper, were used in technologies like "Apache HBase", "Cassandra", "MongoD", etc. While some of these applications might use different data models (e.g., MongoDB),  they share common principles such as horizontal scalability, fault tolerance, and automatic sharding. Dynamo: Amazon's Highly Available Key-Value Store presents the design and implementation of a highly available key-value store developed by Amazon. Dynamo addressed the need for real-time access to highly dynamic data, such as items in your shopping cart. The paper introduced the concept of "eventual consistency" as a core principle of distributed systems design, allowing for relaxed consistency guarantees to achieve high availability and performance (hi CAP theorem!). Dynamo paper From the paper itself, “Compared to Bigtable, Dynamo targets applications that require only key/value access with primary focus on high availability where updates are not rejected even in the wake of network partitions or server failures.” Similar to BigTable, the Dynamo paper highly influenced subsequent technologies like Riak, Voldemort, Cassandra, and even event streaming technologies like Apache Kafka. Cassandra—A Decentralized Structured Storage System Facebook's rapid growth necessitated a database solution capable of handling massive amounts of data and supporting a large number of concurrent users. While BigTable and Dynamo were quite influential in their own right, Cassandra was the first technology that went a step ahead of others. By releasing it as an open-source contribution under the Apache License along with publishing the , Facebook was instrumental in enabling access to such technology to the entire industry. paper Cassandra differentiated itself from the previous two by providing a tunable consistency model, allowing users to choose between strong consistency (like BigTable) and eventual consistency (like Dynamo) based on their application requirements. ZooKeeper: Wait-free coordination for Internet-scale systems This introduces Apache ZooKeeper and presents its design principles and algorithms for providing highly reliable and scalable coordination services in distributed systems. Before the introduction of ZooKeeper, software developers often had to implement their own ad-hoc solutions for distributed coordination and consensus in distributed systems. paper ZooKeeper proposed a centralized service for distributed coordination, offering primitives such as distributed locks, leader election, and configuration management This allowed to simplify the development of distributed applications by offloading complex coordination logic to ZooKeeper. One of the most common use cases of using Zookeeper is for service discovery. Apache Kafka: a Distributed Messaging System for Log Processing This introduces Apache Kafka, a distributed messaging system designed for high-throughput, fault-tolerant processing of event streams. Kafka's publication as a research paper and its open-source release as an Apache project established it as a standard messaging system for highly scalable and fault-tolerant real-time data processing and event-driven architectures. paper Kafka introduced a highly scalable and fault-tolerant messaging system designed for handling large volumes of data streams in real time. Kafka was quite influential in enabling the development of Lambda architecture, which combines batch processing and stream processing to handle large volumes of data with low latency and high throughput. Resilient Distributed Datasets: A Fault-Tolerant Abstraction for In-Memory Cluster Computing This introduces Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDDs), the core abstraction in Apache Spark, which enables fault-tolerant, in-memory data processing across distributed clusters. Spark's in-memory execution engine  provides significantly faster performance compared to MapReduce (which has a disk-based execution model), especially for iterative algorithms, machine learning, and interactive analytics. paper These papers cover a broad range of topics in distributed systems, including storage systems, consensus algorithms, fault tolerance, and scalability. Reading them will provide a solid foundation in the principles and practices of building and managing distributed systems. If you're starting your journey in distributed systems and want to learn more, or you're already an expert and simply want to refresh your fundamentals, there is no better way to learn than reading some of these foundational papers on distributed systems.

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স্থাপত্য উন্মোচন: ডিস্ট্রিবিউটেড সিস্টেম বোঝার মূল কাগজপত্র!

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