Introduction to Big Data with Spark and Hadoop (Coursera)

Offered by IBM,
Introduction to Big Data with Spark and Hadoop (Coursera)

Bernard Marr defines Big Data as the digital trace that we are generating in this digital era. In this course, you will learn about the characteristics of Big Data and its application in Big Data Analytics. You will gain an understanding about the features, benefits, limitations, and applications of some of the Big Data processing tools. You’ll explore how Hadoop and Hive help leverage the benefits of Big Data while overcoming some of the challenges it poses.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Hadoop is an open-source framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using simple programming models. Hive, a data warehouse software, provides an SQL-like interface to efficiently query and manipulate large data sets residing in various databases and file systems that integrate with Hadoop.
Apache Spark is an open-source processing engine that provides users new ways to store and make use of big data. It is an open-source processing engine built around speed, ease of use, and analytics. In this course, you will discover how to leverage Spark to deliver reliable insights. The course provides an overview of the platform, going into the different components that make up Apache Spark.
In this course, you will also learn about Resilient Distributed Datasets, or RDDs, that enable parallel processing across the nodes of a Spark cluster.

This course is part of multiple programs
This course can be applied to multiple Specializations or Professional Certificates programs. Completing this course will count towards your learning in any of the following programs:

What You Will Learn

  • Deep insight into the impact of Big Data including use cases, tools, and processing methods.
  • Knowledge of the Apache Hadoop architecture, ecosystem, and practices, and the use of applications including HDFS, HBase, Spark, and MapReduce.
  • Know-how to apply Spark programming basics, including parallel programming basics for DataFrames, data sets, and Spark SQL.
  • Proficiency with Spark’s RDDs, data sets, use of Catalyst and Tungsten to optimize SparkSQL, and Spark’s development and runtime environment options.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
What is Big Data?
Begin your acquisition of Big Data knowledge with the most up-to-date definition of Big Data. You’ll explore the impact of Big Data on everyday personal tasks and business transactions with Big Data Use Cases. Learn how Big Data uses Parallel Processing, Scaling, and Data Parallelism. Learn about commonly used Big Data tools. Then, go beyond the hype and explore additional Big Data viewpoints.

WEEK 2
Introduction to the Hadoop Ecosystem
In this module, you'll gain a fundamental understanding of the Apache Hadoop architecture, ecosystem, practices, and commonly used applications including Distributed File System (HDFS), MapReduce, HIVE and HBase. Gain practical skills in this module's lab when you launch a single node Hadoop cluster using Docker and run MapReduce jobs.

WEEK 3
Apache Spark
Build your skills when you turn your attention to the popular Apache Spark platform. Explore attribute and benefits of Apache Spark and distributed computing. You'll gain key insights about functional programming and Lambda functions. Explore Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDDs), Parallel Programming, resilience in Apache Spark and relate RDDs and Parallel Programming with Apache Spark. Dive into additional Apache Spark components and learn how Apache Spark scales with Big Data. Working with Big Data signals the need for working with queries, including structured queries using SQL. Learn about the functions, parts and benefits of Spark SQL and DataFrame queries, and discover how DataFrames work with SparkSQL.

WEEK 4
DataFrames and SparkSQL
Learn about Resilient Distributed Datasets (RDDs), their uses in Apache Spark, and RDD transformations and actions. You'll compare the use of datasets with Spark's latest data abstraction, DataFrames. You'll learn to identify and apply basic DataFrame operations. Explore Apache Spark SQL optimization. Learn how Spark SQL and memory optimization benefit from using Catalyst and Tungsten. Learn how to create a table view and apply data aggregation techniques. Fortify your skills guided via the hands-on lab.

WEEK 5
Development and Runtime Environment Options
Explore how Spark processes the requests that your application submits. Learn how you can track work using the Spark Application UI. Because Spark application work happens on the cluster, you need be able to identify Apache Cluster Managers, their components, benefits, and know how to connect with each cluster manager and how and when you might want to set up a local, standalone Spark instance. Next, learn about Apache Spark application submission, including use of Spark’s unified interface, ‘spark-submit’ and learn about options and dependencies. Developers now have the option of AIOps. Discover how to use Spark within AIOps and with Apache Spark application submission, including use of Spark’s unified interface, ‘spark-submit’, describe and apply options for submitting applications, identify external application dependency management techniques and list Spark Shell benefits. View and see recommended practices for Spark's static and dynamic configuration options. Round out your development knowledge with insights about Spark on Kubernetes. This module features hands-on Spark labs using IBM Cloud and Kubernetes.

WEEK 6
Monitoring & Tuning
Platforms and applications require monitoring and tuning to manage issues that inevitably happen. In this module you'll learn about connecting the Apache Spark user interface web server and using the same UI web server to manage application processes. Identify common Apache Spark application issues. Learn about debugging issues using the application UI and locating related log files. Discover and gain real-world knowledge about how Spark manages memory and processor resources via videos and in the available hands-on lab.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Introduction to Data Engineering (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

Introduction to Data Engineering (Coursera)

This course introduces you to the core concepts, processes, and tools you need to know in order to get a foundational knowledge of data engineering. You will gain an understanding of the modern data ecosystem and the role Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and Data Analysts play in this ecosystem. The Data Engineering Ecosystem includes several different components. It includes disparate data types, formats, and sources of data.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Introduction to PySpark (Coursera) Coursera
Edureka

Introduction to PySpark (Coursera)

Welcome to Introduction to PySpark, a short course strategically crafted to empower you with the skills needed to assess the concepts of Big Data Management and efficiently perform data analysis using PySpark. Throughout this short course, you will acquire the expertise to perform data processing with PySpark, enabling you to efficiently handle large-scale datasets, conduct advanced analytics, and derive valuable insights from diverse data sources.

Oct 12th 2026
1 Week
Data Manipulation at Scale: Systems and Algorithms (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Data Manipulation at Scale: Systems and Algorithms (Coursera)

Data analysis has replaced data acquisition as the bottleneck to evidence-based decision making --- we are drowning in it. Extracting knowledge from large, heterogeneous, and noisy datasets requires not only powerful computing resources, but the programming abstractions to use them effectively. The abstractions that emerged in the last decade blend ideas from parallel databases, distributed systems, and programming languages to create a new class of scalable data analytics platforms that form the foundation for data science at realistic scales.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Relational Database Support for Data Warehouses (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado System

Relational Database Support for Data Warehouses (Coursera)

Relational Database Support for Data Warehouses is the third course in the Data Warehousing for Business Intelligence specialization. In this course, you'll use analytical elements of SQL for answering business intelligence questions. You'll learn features of relational database management systems for managing summary data commonly used in business intelligence reporting. Because of the importance and difficulty of managing implementations of data warehouses, we'll also delve into storage architectures, scalable parallel processing, data governance, and big data impacts. In the assignments in this course, you can use either Oracle or PostgreSQL.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Managing Big Data in Clusters and Cloud Storage (Coursera) Coursera
Cloudera

Managing Big Data in Clusters and Cloud Storage (Coursera)

In this course, you'll learn how to manage big datasets, how to load them into clusters and cloud storage, and how to apply structure to the data so that you can run queries on it using distributed SQL engines like Apache Hive and Apache Impala. You’ll learn how to choose the right data types, storage systems, and file formats based on which tools you’ll use and what performance you need.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark (Scala 2 version) (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark (Scala 2 version) (Coursera)

Manipulating big data distributed over a cluster using functional concepts is rampant in industry, and is arguably one of the first widespread industrial uses of functional ideas. This is evidenced by the popularity of MapReduce and Hadoop, and most recently Apache Spark, a fast, in-memory distributed collections framework written in Scala. In this course, we'll see how the data parallel paradigm can be extended to the distributed case, using Spark throughout.

Oct 12th 2026
4 Weeks
Real-Time Big Data Access using HBase: Boosting Performance (Coursera) Coursera
LearnQuest

Real-Time Big Data Access using HBase: Boosting Performance (Coursera)

In the world of big data, the significant growth in both the sheer volume and variety of data has presented significant challenges. Apache HBase has emerged as a robust and scalable solution. HBase is a powerful, distributed, and scalable NoSQL database designed to handle large amounts of data while maintaining high performance.

Oct 12th 2026
3 Weeks
Scalable Machine Learning on Big Data using Apache Spark (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

Scalable Machine Learning on Big Data using Apache Spark (Coursera)

This course will empower you with the skills to scale data science and machine learning (ML) tasks on Big Data sets using Apache Spark. Most real world machine learning work involves very large data sets that go beyond the CPU, memory and storage limitations of a single computer. Apache Spark is an open source framework that leverages cluster computing and distributed storage to process extremely large data sets in an efficient and cost effective manner. Therefore an applied knowledge of working with Apache Spark is a great asset and potential differentiator for a Machine Learning engineer.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Functional Programming in Scala Capstone (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Functional Programming in Scala Capstone (Coursera)

In the final capstone project you will apply the skills you learned by building a large data-intensive application using real-world data. You will implement a complete application processing several gigabytes of data. This application will show interactive visualizations of the evolution of temperatures over time all over the world.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Graph Analytics for Big Data (Coursera) Coursera
University of California, San Diego

Graph Analytics for Big Data (Coursera)

Want to understand your data network structure and how it changes under different conditions? Curious to know how to identify closely interacting clusters within a graph? Have you heard of the fast-growing area of graph analytics and want to learn more? This course gives you a broad overview of the field of graph analytics so you can learn new ways to model, store, retrieve and analyze graph-structured data.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Distributed Programming in Java (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

Distributed Programming in Java (Coursera)

This course teaches learners (industry professionals and students) the fundamental concepts of Distributed Programming in the context of Java 8. Distributed programming enables developers to use multiple nodes in a data center to increase throughput and/or reduce latency of selected applications. By the end of this course, you will learn how to use popular distributed programming frameworks for Java programs, including Hadoop, Spark, Sockets, Remote Method Invocation (RMI), Multicast Sockets, Kafka, Message Passing Interface (MPI), as well as different approaches to combine distribution with multithreading.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks