I agree that Option 2 is considerably more difficult for development when core API changes need to be picked up by the external Spark module. I also think a monthly release would probably still be prohibitive to actually implementing new features that appear in the API, I would hope we have a much faster process or maybe just have snapshot artifacts published nightly?
> On Sep 15, 2021, at 4:46 PM, Wing Yew Poon <wyp...@cloudera.com.INVALID> > wrote: > > IIUC, Option 2 is to move the Spark support for Iceberg into a separate repo > (subproject of Iceberg). Would we have branches such as 0.13-2.4, 0.13-3.0, > 0.13-3.1, and 0.13-3.2? For features that can be supported in all versions or > all Spark 3 versions, then we would need to commit the changes to all > applicable branches. Basically we are trading more work to commit to multiple > branches for simplified build and CI time per branch, which might be an > acceptable trade-off. However, the biggest downside is that changes may need > to be made in core Iceberg as well as in the engine (in this case Spark) > support, and we need to wait for a release of core Iceberg to consume the > changes in the subproject. In this case, maybe we should have a monthly > release of core Iceberg (no matter how many changes go in, as long as it is > non-zero) so that the subproject can consume changes fairly quickly? > > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 2:09 PM Ryan Blue <b...@tabular.io > <mailto:b...@tabular.io>> wrote: > Thanks for bringing this up, Anton. I’m glad that we have the set of > potential solutions well defined. > > Looks like the next step is to decide whether we want to require people to > update Spark versions to pick up newer versions of Iceberg. If we choose to > make people upgrade, then option 1 is clearly the best choice. > > I don’t think that we should make updating Spark a requirement. Many of the > things that we’re working on are orthogonal to Spark versions, like table > maintenance actions, secondary indexes, the 1.0 API, views, ORC delete files, > new storage implementations, etc. Upgrading Spark is time consuming and > untrusted in my experience, so I think we would be setting up an unnecessary > trade-off between spending lots of time to upgrade Spark and picking up new > Iceberg features. > > Another way of thinking about this is that if we went with option 1, then we > could port bug fixes into 0.12.x. But there are many things that wouldn’t fit > this model, like adding a FileIO implementation for ADLS. So some people in > the community would have to maintain branches of newer Iceberg versions with > older versions of Spark outside of the main Iceberg project — that defeats > the purpose of simplifying things with option 1 because we would then have > more people maintaining the same 0.13.x with Spark 3.1 branch. (This reminds > me of the Spark community, where we wanted to release a 2.5 line with DSv2 > backported, but the community decided not to so we built similar 2.4+DSv2 > branches at Netflix, Tencent, Apple, etc.) > > If the community is going to do the work anyway — and I think some of us > would — we should make it possible to share that work. That’s why I don’t > think that we should go with option 1. > > If we don’t go with option 1, then the choice is how to maintain multiple > Spark versions. I think that the way we’re doing it right now is not > something we want to continue. > > Using multiple modules (option 3) is concerning to me because of the changes > in Spark. We currently structure the library to share as much code as > possible. But that means compiling against different Spark versions and > relying on binary compatibility and reflection in some cases. To me, this > seems unmaintainable in the long run because it requires refactoring common > classes and spending a lot of time deduplicating code. It also creates a ton > of modules, at least one common module, then a module per version, then an > extensions module per version, and finally a runtime module per version. > That’s 3 modules per Spark version, plus any new common modules. And each > module needs to be tested, which is making our CI take a really long time. We > also don’t support multiple Scala versions, which is another gap that will > require even more modules and tests. > > I like option 2 because it would allow us to compile against a single version > of Spark (which will be much more reliable). It would give us an opportunity > to support different Scala versions. It avoids the need to refactor to share > code and allows people to focus on a single version of Spark, while also > creating a way for people to maintain and update the older versions with > newer Iceberg releases. I don’t think that this would slow down development. > I think it would actually speed it up because we’d be spending less time > trying to make multiple versions work in the same build. And anyone in favor > of option 1 would basically get option 1: you don’t have to care about > branches for older Spark versions. > > Jack makes a good point about wanting to keep code in a single repository, > but I think that the need to manage more version combinations overrides this > concern. It’s easier to make this decision in python because we’re not trying > to depend on two projects that change relatively quickly. We’re just trying > to build a library. > > Ryan > > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 2:58 AM OpenInx <open...@gmail.com > <mailto:open...@gmail.com>> wrote: > Thanks for bringing this up, Anton. > > Everyone has great pros/cons to support their preferences. Before giving my > preference, let me raise one question: what's the top priority thing for > apache iceberg project at this point in time ? This question will help us to > answer the following question: Should we support more engine versions more > robustly or be a bit more aggressive and concentrate on getting the new > features that users need most in order to keep the project more competitive ? > > If people watch the apache iceberg project and check the issues & PR > frequently, I guess more than 90% people will answer the priority question: > There is no doubt for making the whole v2 story to be production-ready. > The current roadmap discussion also proofs the thing : > https://lists.apache.org/x/thread.html/r84e80216c259c81f824c6971504c321cd8c785774c489d52d4fc123f@%3Cdev.iceberg.apache.org%3E > > <https://lists.apache.org/x/thread.html/r84e80216c259c81f824c6971504c321cd8c785774c489d52d4fc123f@%3Cdev.iceberg.apache.org%3E> > . > > In order to ensure the highest priority at this point in time, I will prefer > option-1 to reduce the cost of engine maintenance, so as to free up resources > to make v2 production-ready. > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 3:00 PM Saisai Shao <sai.sai.s...@gmail.com > <mailto:sai.sai.s...@gmail.com>> wrote: > From Dev's point, it has less burden to always support the latest version of > Spark (for example). But from user's point, especially for us who maintain > Spark internally, it is not easy to upgrade the Spark version for the first > time (since we have many customizations internally), and we're still > promoting to upgrade to 3.1.2. If the community ditches the support of old > version of Spark3, users have to maintain it themselves unavoidably. > > So I'm inclined to make this support in community, not by users themselves, > as for Option 2 or 3, I'm fine with either. And to relieve the burden, we > could support limited versions of Spark (for example 2 versions). > > Just my two cents. > > -Saisai > > > Jack Ye <yezhao...@gmail.com <mailto:yezhao...@gmail.com>> 于2021年9月15日周三 > 下午1:35写道: > Hi Wing Yew, > > I think 2.4 is a different story, we will continue to support Spark 2.4, but > as you can see it will continue to have very limited functionalities > comparing to Spark 3. I believe we discussed about option 3 when we were > doing Spark 3.0 to 3.1 upgrade. Recently we are seeing the same issue for > Flink 1.11, 1.12 and 1.13 as well. I feel we need a consistent strategy > around this, let's take this chance to make a good community guideline for > all future engine versions, especially for Spark, Flink and Hive that are in > the same repository. > > I can totally understand your point of view Wing, in fact, speaking from the > perspective of AWS EMR, we have to support over 40 versions of the software > because there are people who are still using Spark 1.4, believe it or not. > After all, keep backporting changes will become a liability not only on the > user side, but also on the service provider side, so I believe it's not a bad > practice to push for user upgrade, as it will make the life of both parties > easier in the end. New feature is definitely one of the best incentives to > promote an upgrade on user side. > > I think the biggest issue of option 3 is about its scalability, because we > will have an unbounded list of packages to add and compile in the future, and > we probably cannot drop support of that package once created. If we go with > option 1, I think we can still publish a few patch versions for old Iceberg > releases, and committers can control the amount of patch versions to guard > people from abusing the power of patching. I see this as a consistent > strategy also for Flink and Hive. With this strategy, we can truly have a > compatibility matrix for engine versions against Iceberg versions. > > -Jack > > > > On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 10:00 PM Wing Yew Poon <wyp...@cloudera.com.invalid> > wrote: > I understand and sympathize with the desire to use new DSv2 features in Spark > 3.2. I agree that Option 1 is the easiest for developers, but I don't think > it considers the interests of users. I do not think that most users will > upgrade to Spark 3.2 as soon as it is released. It is a "minor version" > upgrade in name from 3.1 (or from 3.0), but I think we all know that it is > not a minor upgrade. There are a lot of changes from 3.0 to 3.1 and from 3.1 > to 3.2. I think there are even a lot of users running Spark 2.4 and not even > on Spark 3 yet. Do we also plan to stop supporting Spark 2.4? > > Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but the folks who have spoken out in favor > of Option 1 all work for the same organization, don't they? And they don't > have a problem with making their users, all internal, simply upgrade to Spark > 3.2, do they? (Or they are already running an internal fork that is close to > 3.2.) > > I work for an organization with customers running different versions of > Spark. It is true that we can backport new features to older versions if we > wanted to. I suppose the people contributing to Iceberg work for some > organization or other that either use Iceberg in-house, or provide software > (possibly in the form of a service) to customers, and either way, the > organizations have the ability to backport features and fixes to internal > versions. Are there any users out there who simply use Apache Iceberg and > depend on the community version? > > There may be features that are broadly useful that do not depend on Spark > 3.2. Is it worth supporting them on Spark 3.0/3.1 (and even 2.4)? > > I am not in favor of Option 2. I do not oppose Option 1, but I would consider > Option 3 too. Anton, you said 5 modules are required; what are the modules > you're thinking of? > > - Wing Yew > > > > > > On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 5:38 PM Yufei Gu <flyrain...@gmail.com > <mailto:flyrain...@gmail.com>> wrote: > Option 1 sounds good to me. Here are my reasons: > > 1. Both 2 and 3 will slow down the development. Considering the limited > resources in the open source community, the upsides of option 2 and 3 are > probably not worthy. > 2. Both 2 and 3 assume the use cases may not exist. It's hard to predict > anything, but even if these use cases are legit, users can still get the new > feature by backporting it to an older version in case of upgrading to a newer > version isn't an option. > > Best, > > Yufei > > `This is not a contribution` > > > On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 4:54 PM Anton Okolnychyi > <aokolnyc...@apple.com.invalid> wrote: > To sum up what we have so far: > > > Option 1 (support just the most recent minor Spark 3 version) > > The easiest option for us devs, forces the user to upgrade to the most recent > minor Spark version to consume any new Iceberg features. > > Option 2 (a separate project under Iceberg) > > Can support as many Spark versions as needed and the codebase is still > separate as we can use separate branches. > Impossible to consume any unreleased changes in core, may slow down the > development. > > Option 3 (separate modules for Spark 3.1/3.2) > > Introduce more modules in the same project. > Can consume unreleased changes but it will required at least 5 modules to > support 2.4, 3.1 and 3.2, making the build and testing complicated. > > > Are there any users for whom upgrading the minor Spark version (e3.1 to 3.2) > to consume new features is a blocker? > We follow Option 1 internally at the moment but I would like to hear what > other people think/need. > > - Anton > > >> On 14 Sep 2021, at 09:44, Russell Spitzer <russell.spit...@gmail.com >> <mailto:russell.spit...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >> I think we should go for option 1. I already am not a big fan of having >> runtime errors for unsupported things based on versions and I don't think >> minor version upgrades are a large issue for users. I'm especially not >> looking forward to supporting interfaces that only exist in Spark 3.2 in a >> multiple Spark version support future. >> >>> On Sep 14, 2021, at 11:32 AM, Anton Okolnychyi >>> <aokolnyc...@apple.com.INVALID <mailto:aokolnyc...@apple.com.INVALID>> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> First of all, is option 2 a viable option? We discussed separating the >>>> python module outside of the project a few weeks ago, and decided to not >>>> do that because it's beneficial for code cross reference and more >>>> intuitive for new developers to see everything in the same repository. I >>>> would expect the same argument to also hold here. >>> >>> That’s exactly the concern I have about Option 2 at this moment. >>> >>>> Overall I would personally prefer us to not support all the minor >>>> versions, but instead support maybe just 2-3 latest versions in a major >>>> version. >>> >>> This is when it gets a bit complicated. If we want to support both Spark >>> 3.1 and Spark 3.2 with a single module, it means we have to compile against >>> 3.1. The problem is that we rely on DSv2 that is being actively developed. >>> 3.2 and 3.1 have substantial differences. On top of that, we have our >>> extensions that are extremely low-level and may break not only between >>> minor versions but also between patch releases. >>> >>>> f there are some features requiring a newer version, it makes sense to >>>> move that newer version in master. >>> >>> Internally, we don’t deliver new features to older Spark versions as it >>> requires a lot of effort to port things. Personally, I don’t think it is >>> too bad to require users to upgrade if they want new features. At the same >>> time, there are valid concerns with this approach too that we mentioned >>> during the sync. For example, certain new features would also work fine >>> with older Spark versions. I generally agree with that and that not >>> supporting recent versions is not ideal. However, I want to find a balance >>> between the complexity on our side and ease of use for the users. Ideally, >>> supporting a few recent versions would be sufficient but our Spark >>> integration is too low-level to do that with a single module. >>> >>> >>>> On 13 Sep 2021, at 20:53, Jack Ye <yezhao...@gmail.com >>>> <mailto:yezhao...@gmail.com>> wrote: >>>> >>>> First of all, is option 2 a viable option? We discussed separating the >>>> python module outside of the project a few weeks ago, and decided to not >>>> do that because it's beneficial for code cross reference and more >>>> intuitive for new developers to see everything in the same repository. I >>>> would expect the same argument to also hold here. >>>> >>>> Overall I would personally prefer us to not support all the minor >>>> versions, but instead support maybe just 2-3 latest versions in a major >>>> version. This avoids the problem that some users are unwilling to move to >>>> a newer version and keep patching old Spark version branches. If there are >>>> some features requiring a newer version, it makes sense to move that newer >>>> version in master. >>>> >>>> In addition, because currently Spark is considered the most >>>> feature-complete reference implementation compared to all other engines, I >>>> think we should not add artificial barriers that would slow down its >>>> development speed. >>>> >>>> So my thinking is closer to option 1. >>>> >>>> Best, >>>> Jack Ye >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 7:39 PM Anton Okolnychyi >>>> <aokolnyc...@apple.com.invalid <mailto:aokolnyc...@apple.com.invalid>> >>>> wrote: >>>> Hey folks, >>>> >>>> I want to discuss our Spark version support strategy. >>>> >>>> So far, we have tried to support both 3.0 and 3.1. It is great to support >>>> older versions but because we compile against 3.0, we cannot use any Spark >>>> features that are offered in newer versions. >>>> Spark 3.2 is just around the corner and it brings a lot of important >>>> features such dynamic filtering for v2 tables, required distribution and >>>> ordering for writes, etc. These features are too important to ignore them. >>>> >>>> Apart from that, I have an end-to-end prototype for merge-on-read with >>>> Spark that actually leverages some of the 3.2 features. I’ll be >>>> implementing all new Spark DSv2 APIs for us internally and would love to >>>> share that with the rest of the community. >>>> >>>> I see two options to move forward: >>>> >>>> Option 1 >>>> >>>> Migrate to Spark 3.2 in master, maintain 0.12 for a while by releasing >>>> minor versions with bug fixes. >>>> >>>> Pros: almost no changes to the build configuration, no extra work on our >>>> side as just a single Spark version is actively maintained. >>>> Cons: some new features that we will be adding to master could also work >>>> with older Spark versions but all 0.12 releases will only contain bug >>>> fixes. Therefore, users will be forced to migrate to Spark 3.2 to consume >>>> any new Spark or format features. >>>> >>>> Option 2 >>>> >>>> Move our Spark integration into a separate project and introduce branches >>>> for 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2. >>>> >>>> Pros: decouples the format version from Spark, we can support as many >>>> Spark versions as needed. >>>> Cons: more work initially to set everything up, more work to release, will >>>> need a new release of the core format to consume any changes in the Spark >>>> integration. >>>> >>>> Overall, I think option 2 seems better for the user but my main worry is >>>> that we will have to release the format more frequently (which is a good >>>> thing but requires more work and time) and the overall Spark development >>>> may be slower. >>>> >>>> I’d love to hear what everybody thinks about this matter. >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> Anton >>> >> > > > > -- > Ryan Blue > Tabular