RevoScaleR with sparklyr step-by-step examples

Important

This content is being retired and may not be updated in the future. The support for Machine Learning Server will end on July 1, 2022. For more information, see What's happening to Machine Learning Server?

Machine Learning Server supports the sparklyr package from RStudio. Machine Learning Server packages such as RevoScaleR and sparklyr can be used together within a single Spark session. This walkthrough shows you two approaches for using these technologies together:

Prerequisites

To run the example code, your environment must provide the following criteria:

  • A Hadoop cluster with Spark and valid installation of Machine Learning Server
  • Machine Learning Server configured for Hadoop and Spark
  • Machine Learning Server SampleData loaded into HDFS
  • gcc and g++ installed on the edge node that the example runs on
  • Write permissions to the R Library Directory
  • Read/Write permissions to HDFS directory /user/RevoShare
  • An internet connection or the ability to download and manually install sparklyr

Install the sparklyr package

How you install the sparklyr R package depends on whether or not you are on HDI.

Windows, Linux, or Hadoop users

Since the default MRAN package snapshot for your version of Machine Learning Server is used automatically, you can install sparklyr like you would any other package.

install.packages("sparklyr")

Azure HDInsight (HDI) users

If on HDI, you need to specify the MRAN snapshot date that contains the required package version. For Machine Learning Server use 2017-05-01.

options(repos = "https://mran.microsoft.com/snapshot/2017-05-01")

install.packages("sparklyr")

Load data into HDFS

To load SampleData into HDFS, run these commands from within an edge node with MRS installed:

	hadoop fs -mkdir /share
	hadoop fs -mkdir /share/SampleData
	# Standard RevoScaleR path is: /usr/lib64/microsoft-r/3.3/lib64/R/library/RevoScaleR/
	# this will vary if you installed via Cloudera Parcels, to find the correct path
	# please use command: sudo find / -name SampleData
	hadoop fs -copyFromLocal <Path-To-RevoScaleR>/SampleData/* /share/SampleData
	# To validate everything was copied, compare the outputs of:
	hadoop fs -ls /share/SampleData
	# and:
	ls -la <Path-To-RevoScaleR>/SampleData/

Example 1: sparklyr data with MRS modeling

This example assumes dployr and sparklyr data structures, with model training and predictive analysis using Machine Learning Server.

  1. Create a connection to Spark using rxSparkConnect(), specifying a sparklyr interop; using sparklyr and its interfaces to connect to Spark.
  2. Call rxGetSparklyrConnection() on the compute context to get a sparklyr connection object.
  3. Use dplyr to load mtcars into a Spark DataFrame via the sparklyr connection object.
  4. Partition the data in-Spark into a training and scoring set using dplyr.
  5. After partitioning, register the training set DataFrame in Spark to a Hive table.
  6. Train a model in ScaleR using rxLinMod() on an RxHiveData() object.
  7. With the trained model, run a toy prediction using rxPredict() on the test partition.
  8. After prediction, take the root mean square to determine accuracy.

Note

Data is the Standard R dataset mtcars for this example. For more information, see Motor Trend Car Road Tests.

Sample Code

	# Install sparklyr
	install.packages("sparklyr")
	

	# Load required libraries
	library(RevoScaleR)
	library(sparklyr)
	library(dplyr)
	

	# Connect to Spark using rxSparkConnect, specifying 'interop = "sparklyr"'
	# this will create a sparklyr connection to spark, and allow you to use
	# dplyr for data manipulation. Using rxSparkConnect in this way will use
	# default values and rxOptions for creating a Spark connection, please
	# see "?rxSparkConnect" for how to define parameters specific to your setup
	cc <- rxSparkConnect(reset = TRUE, interop = "sparklyr")
	

	# The returned Spark connection (sc) provides a remote dplyr data source 
	# to the Spark cluster using SparlyR within rxSparkConnect.
	sc <- rxGetSparklyrConnection(cc)
	

	# Next, load mtcars in to Spark using a dplyr pipeline
	mtcars_tbl <- copy_to(sc, mtcars)
	

	# Now, partition the data into Training and Test partitions using dplyr
	partitions <- mtcars_tbl %>%
	  filter(hp >= 100) %>%
	  mutate(cyl8 = cyl == 8) %>%
	  sdf_partition(training = 0.5, test = 0.5, seed = 1099)
	

	# Register the partitions as DataFrames using sparklyr
	sdf_register(partitions$training, "cars_training")
	sdf_register(partitions$test, "cars_test")

	

	# Create a RxHiveData Object for each
	cars_training_hive <- RxHiveData(table = "cars_training", 
	                        colInfo = list(cyl = list(type = "factor")))
	cars_test_hive <- RxHiveData(table = "cars_test", 
	                    colInfo = list(cyl = list(type = "factor")))

	# Use the Training set to train a model with rxLinMod()
	lmModel <- rxLinMod(mpg ~ wt + cyl, cars_training_hive)
	

	# Take a summary of the trained model (this step is optional)
	summary(lmModel)
	

	# Currently, for rxPredict(), only XDF files are supported as an output
	# The following command will create the directory "/user/RevoShare/MTCarsPredRes" 
	# to hold the composite XDF.
	pred_res_xdf <- RxXdfData("/user/RevoShare/MTCarsPredRes", fileSystem = RxHdfsFileSystem())
	

	# Run rxPredict, specifying the outData as our RxXdfData() object, write
	# the model variables into the results object so we can analyze out accuracy
	# after the prediction completes
	pred_res_xdf <- rxPredict(lmModel, data = cars_test_hive, outData = pred_res_xdf, 
	             overwrite = TRUE, writeModelVars = TRUE)
	

	# Now, import the results from HDFS into a DataFrame so we can see our error
	pred_res_df <- rxImport(pred_res_xdf)
	

	# Calculate the Root Mean Squared error of our prediction
	sqrt(mean((pred_res_df$mpg - pred_res_df$mpg_Pred)^2, na.rm = TRUE))
	

	# When you are finished, close the connection to Spark
	rxSparkDisconnect(cc)

Sample Output, Comments Removed

	> library(RevoScaleR)
	> library(sparklyr)
	> library(dplyr)
	>
	> cc <- rxSparkConnect(reset = TRUE, interop = "sparklyr")
	No Spark applications can be reused. It may take 1 to 2 minutes to launch a new Spark application.
	>
	> sc <- rxGetSparklyrConnection(cc)
	>
	> mtcars_tbl <- copy_to(sc, mtcars)
	>
	> partitions <- mtcars_tbl %>%
	+   filter(hp >= 100) %>%
	+   mutate(cyl8 = cyl == 8) %>%
	+   sdf_partition(training = 0.5, test = 0.5, seed = 1099)
	>
	> sdf_register(partitions$training, "cars_training")
	Source:   query [8 x 12]
	Database: spark connection master=yarn-client app=sparklyr-scaleR-spark-won2r0FHOA-azureuser-37220-CB63BD4AD48648F79996CA7B24E1493D local=FALSE
	

	    mpg   cyl  disp    hp  drat    wt  qsec    vs    am  gear  carb  cyl8
	  <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <lgl>
	1  10.4     8 460.0   215  3.00 5.424 17.82     0     0     3     4  TRUE
	2  14.3     8 360.0   245  3.21 3.570 15.84     0     0     3     4  TRUE
	3  15.0     8 301.0   335  3.54 3.570 14.60     0     1     5     8  TRUE
	4  15.8     8 351.0   264  4.22 3.170 14.50     0     1     5     4  TRUE
	5  16.4     8 275.8   180  3.07 4.070 17.40     0     0     3     3  TRUE
	6  18.7     8 360.0   175  3.15 3.440 17.02     0     0     3     2  TRUE
	7  21.0     6 160.0   110  3.90 2.875 17.02     0     1     4     4 FALSE
	8  21.4     4 121.0   109  4.11 2.780 18.60     1     1     4     2 FALSE
	> sdf_register(partitions$test, "cars_test")
	Source:   query [15 x 12]
	Database: spark connection master=yarn-client app=sparklyr-scaleR-spark-won2r0FHOA-azureuser-37220-CB63BD4AD48648F79996CA7B24E1493D local=FALSE
	

	     mpg   cyl  disp    hp  drat    wt  qsec    vs    am  gear  carb  cyl8
	   <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <lgl>
	1   10.4     8 472.0   205  2.93 5.250 17.98     0     0     3     4  TRUE
	2   13.3     8 350.0   245  3.73 3.840 15.41     0     0     3     4  TRUE
	3   14.7     8 440.0   230  3.23 5.345 17.42     0     0     3     4  TRUE
	4   15.2     8 275.8   180  3.07 3.780 18.00     0     0     3     3  TRUE
	5   15.2     8 304.0   150  3.15 3.435 17.30     0     0     3     2  TRUE
	6   15.5     8 318.0   150  2.76 3.520 16.87     0     0     3     2  TRUE
	7   17.3     8 275.8   180  3.07 3.730 17.60     0     0     3     3  TRUE
	8   17.8     6 167.6   123  3.92 3.440 18.90     1     0     4     4 FALSE
	9   18.1     6 225.0   105  2.76 3.460 20.22     1     0     3     1 FALSE
	10  19.2     6 167.6   123  3.92 3.440 18.30     1     0     4     4 FALSE
	11  19.2     8 400.0   175  3.08 3.845 17.05     0     0     3     2  TRUE
	12  19.7     6 145.0   175  3.62 2.770 15.50     0     1     5     6 FALSE
	13  21.0     6 160.0   110  3.90 2.620 16.46     0     1     4     4 FALSE
	14  21.4     6 258.0   110  3.08 3.215 19.44     1     0     3     1 FALSE
	15  30.4     4  95.1   113  3.77 1.513 16.90     1     1     5     2 FALSE
	>
	> cars_training_hive <- RxHiveData(table = "cars_training",
	+                         colInfo = list(cyl = list(type = "factor")))
	> cars_test_hive <- RxHiveData(table = "cars_test",
	+                     colInfo = list(cyl = list(type = "factor")))
	>
	> lmModel <- rxLinMod(mpg ~ wt + cyl, cars_training_hive)
	>
	> summary(lmModel)
	Call:
	rxLinMod(formula = mpg ~ wt + cyl, data = cars_training_hive)
	

	Linear Regression Results for: mpg ~ wt + cyl
	Data: cars_training_hive (RxSparkData Data Source)
	Dependent variable(s): mpg
	Total independent variables: 5 (Including number dropped: 1)
	Number of valid observations: 8
	Number of missing observations: 0
	

	Coefficients: (1 not defined because of singularities)
	            Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
	(Intercept)  28.8015     3.4673   8.307  0.00115 **
	wt           -2.6624     1.0436  -2.551  0.06323 .
	cyl=8.0      -3.3873     2.3472  -1.443  0.22246
	cyl=6.0      -0.1471     2.6869  -0.055  0.95897
	cyl=4.0      Dropped    Dropped Dropped  Dropped
	---
	Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
	

	Residual standard error: 1.899 on 4 degrees of freedom
	Multiple R-squared: 0.8462
	Adjusted R-squared: 0.7309
	F-statistic: 7.338 on 3 and 4 DF,  p-value: 0.04199
	Condition number: 9.7585
	>
	> pred_res_xdf <- RxXdfData("/user/RevoShare/MTCarsPredRes", fileSystem = RxHdfsFileSystem())
	>
	> pred_res_xdf <- rxPredict(lmModel, data = cars_test_hive, outData = pred_res_xdf,
	+              overwrite = TRUE, writeModelVars = TRUE)
	>
	> pred_res_df <- rxImport(pred_res_xdf)
	>
	> sqrt(mean((pred_res_df$mpg - pred_res_df$mpg_Pred)^2, na.rm = TRUE))
	[1] 2.295512
	>
	> rxSparkDisconnect(cc)
	We have shut down the current Spark application and switched to local compute context.
	>

Example 2: MRS data with sparklyr and dplyR modeling

This example uses the airline data set. It includes multiple Machine Learning Server approaches for loading data, such as RxTextData for CSV files, and RxOrcData or RxParquetData for those formats. You can try different approaches by commenting out inactive paths. Given this data, the examples show you how to partition and train a model with sparklyr.

  1. Create a connection to Spark using rxSparkConnect(), specifying a sparklyr interop; using sparklyr and its interfaces to connect to Spark.
  2. Call rxGetSparklyrConnection() on the compute context to get a sparklyr connection object.
  3. Use Machine Learning Server to load data from many sources.
  4. Partition the data in-Spark into a training and scoring set using dplyr.
  5. After partitioning, register the training set DataFrame in Spark to a Hive table.
  6. Train a model using sparklyr to call Spark ML algorithms.
  7. Take a summary of the trained model to see estimates and errors.

Sample Code

	# # # # # 
	# It is assumed at this point that you have installed sparklyr
	# Proceed to load the required libraries
	library(RevoScaleR)
	library(sparklyr)
	library(dplyr)
	

	# Connect to Spark using rxSparkConnect
	cc <- rxSparkConnect(reset = TRUE, interop = "sparklyr")
	

	# The returned Spark connection (sc) provides a remote dplyr data source 
	# to the Spark cluster using SparlyR within rxSparkConnect.
	sc <- rxGetSparklyrConnection(cc)
	

	# Bind RxHdfsFileSystem to a variable, this will reduce code clutter
	hdfsFS <- RxHdfsFileSystem()
	

	# # # #
	# There are many data sources which we can use in MRS, in the this section
	# we will go through 4 different file based data sources and how to import 
	# data for use in Spark. If you wish to use any of these data sources, simply
	# comment out line number 40
	#
	# One data source is XDF files stored in HDFS. Here we create an Data Object from
	# a composite XDF from HDFS, this can then be held in memory as a DataFrame, or 
	# loaded into a Hive Table.
	AirlineDemoSmall <- RxXdfData(file="/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallComposite", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	# Another option is CSV files stored in HDFS. To create a CSV Data Object from HDFS 
	# we would use RxTextData(). This can also be used for othere plain text type formats
	AirlineDemoSmall <- RxTextData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmall.csv", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	# A third option is Parquet data using RxParquetData()
	AirlineDemoSmall <- RxParquetData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallParquet", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	# Lastly, ORC  Data using RxOrcData()
	AirlineDemoSmall <- RxOrcData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallOrc", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	# # # #
	

	# Continuing with our example, first, prepare your data for loading, for this, 
	# I'll proceed with XDF data, but any of the previously specified data sources 
	# are valid.
	AirlineDemoSmall <- RxXdfData(file="/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallComposite", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	

	# Regardless of which data source used, to work with it using dplyr, we need to 
	# write it to a Hive table, so, Next, create a Hive Data Object using RxHiveData()
	AirlineDemoSmallHive <- RxHiveData(table="AirlineDemoSmall")
	

	# Use rxDataStep to load the data into the table
	# this depends on data
	rxDataStep(inData = AirlineDemoSmall, outFile = AirlineDemoSmallHive,
	         overwrite = TRUE) # takes about 90 seconds on 1 node cluster
	

	###
	#
	# If you wanted the data as a data frame in Spark, you would use
	# rxDataStep() like so:
	#
	# AirlineDemoSmalldf <- rxDataStep(inData = AirlineDemoSmall, 
	#            overwrite = TRUE) 
	#
	# But data must be in a Hive Table for use with dplyr as an In-Spark 
	# object
	###
	

	# To see that the table was created list all Hive tables
	src_tbls(sc)
	

	# Next, define a dplyr data source referencing the Hive table
	# This caches the data in Spark
	tbl_cache(sc, "airlinedemosmall")
	flights_tbl <- tbl(sc, "airlinedemosmall")
	

	# Print out a few rows of the table
	flights_tbl
	

	# Filter the data to remove missing observations
	model_data <- flights_tbl %>%
	  filter(!is.na(ArrDelay)) %>%
	  select(ArrDelay, CRSDepTime, DayOfWeek)
	

	# Now, partition data into training and test sets using dplyr
	model_partition <- model_data %>% 
	  sdf_partition(train = 0.8, test = 0.2, seed = 6666)
	

	# Fit a linear model using Spark's ml_linear_regression to attempt
	# to predict CRSDepTime by Day of Week and Delay
	ml1 <- model_partition$train %>%
	  ml_linear_regression(CRSDepTime ~ DayOfWeek + ArrDelay)
	

	# Run a summary on the model to see the estimated CRSDepTime per Day of Week
	summary(ml1)
	

	# When you are finished, close the connection to Spark
	rxSparkDisconnect(cc)

Sample Output, Comments Removed

	> library(RevoScaleR)
	> library(sparklyr)
	> library(dplyr)
	

	Attaching package: ‘dplyr’
	

	The following objects are masked from ‘package:stats’:
	

	    filter, lag
	

	The following objects are masked from ‘package:base’:
	

	    intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
	

	> 
	> cc <- rxSparkConnect(reset = TRUE, interop = "sparklyr")
	No Spark applications can be reused. It may take 1 to 2 minutes to launch a new Spark application.
	> 
	> sc <- rxGetSparklyrConnection(cc)
	> 
	> hdfsFS <- RxHdfsFileSystem()
	>
	> AirlineDemoSmall <- RxXdfData(file="/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallComposite", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	> 
	> AirlineDemoSmall <- RxTextData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmall.csv", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	> 
	> AirlineDemoSmall <- RxParquetData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallParquet", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	> 
	> AirlineDemoSmall <- RxOrcData("/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallOrc", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	>
	> AirlineDemoSmall <- RxXdfData(file="/share/SampleData/AirlineDemoSmallComposite", fileSystem = hdfsFS)
	>
	> AirlineDemoSmallHive <- RxHiveData(table="AirlineDemoSmall")
	> 
	> rxDataStep(inData = AirlineDemoSmall, outFile = AirlineDemoSmallHive,
	+          overwrite = TRUE) # takes about 90 seconds on 1 node cluster
	

	>
	> src_tbls(sc)
	[1] "airlinedemosmall" "mtcarspredres"
	>
	> tbl_cache(sc, "airlinedemosmall")
	> flights_tbl <- tbl(sc, "airlinedemosmall")
	> 
	> flights_tbl
	Source:   query [6e+05 x 3]
	Database: spark connection master=yarn-client app=sparklyr-scaleR-spark-won2r0FHOA-azureuser-39513-2B056E9B34EA4304A8088EB4EE2281D1 local=FALSE
	

	   ArrDelay CRSDepTime DayOfWeek
	      <int>      <dbl>     <chr>
	1        -4   6.666667    Friday
	2        43   8.000000    Friday
	3       -10   6.666667    Sunday
	4       -13   8.000000    Sunday
	5         3   6.666667    Monday
	6        -9   8.000000    Monday
	7       -34  10.249999    Sunday
	8       -15  10.249999    Monday
	9        82  10.249999   Tuesday
	10       13  10.249999 Wednesday
	# ... with 6e+05 more rows
	> 
	> model_data <- flights_tbl %>%
	+   filter(!is.na(ArrDelay)) %>%
	+   select(ArrDelay, CRSDepTime, DayOfWeek)
	> 
	> model_partition <- model_data %>%
	+   sdf_partition(train = 0.8, test = 0.2, seed = 6666)
	> 
	> ml1 <- model_partition$train %>%
	+   ml_linear_regression(CRSDepTime ~ DayOfWeek + ArrDelay)
	* No rows dropped by 'na.omit' call
	> 
	> summary(ml1)
	Call: ml_linear_regression(., CRSDepTime ~ DayOfWeek + ArrDelay)
	

	Deviance Residuals: (approximate):
	     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max
	-18.5909  -3.9953  -0.1025   3.8427  11.4574
	

	Coefficients:
	                       Estimate  Std. Error  t value Pr(>|t|)
	(Intercept)         13.29014268  0.01861252 714.0432  < 2e-16 ***
	DayOfWeek_Monday    -0.01653608  0.02504743  -0.6602  0.50913
	DayOfWeek_Saturday  -0.27756084  0.02580578 -10.7558  < 2e-16 ***
	DayOfWeek_Sunday     0.38942350  0.02514204  15.4889  < 2e-16 ***
	DayOfWeek_Thursday   0.06014716  0.02616861   2.2984  0.02154 *
	DayOfWeek_Tuesday   -0.00214295  0.02663735  -0.0804  0.93588
	DayOfWeek_Wednesday  0.04691710  0.02638572   1.7781  0.07538 .
	ArrDelay             0.01315263  0.00016836  78.1235  < 2e-16 ***
	---
	Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
	

	R-Squared: 0.01439
	Root Mean Squared Error: 4.67
	> 
	> rxSparkDisconnect(cc)
	We have shut down the current Spark application and switched to local compute context.
	>

Conclusion

The ability to use both Machine Learning Server and sparklyr from within one Spark session allow Machine Learning Server users to quickly and seamlessly utilize features provided by sparklyr within their solutions.

Next step

For more background, see Get started with Machine Learning Server and RevoScaleR on Spark.

See also

What's new in Machine Learning Server
Tips on computing with big data
How-to guides in Machine Learning Server