Yeah, sorry... I meant that if you were dynamically creating a counter foo in the Mapper task, then each mapper would be creating their own counter foo. As the job runs, these counters will eventually be sent up to the JT. The job tracker would keep a separate counter for each task.
At the end, the final count is aggregated from the list of counters for foo. I don't know how you can get a task to ask information from the Job Tracker on how things are going in other tasks. That is what I meant that you couldn't get information about the other counters or even the status of the other tasks running in the same job. I didn't see anything in the APIs that allowed for that type of flow... Of course having said that... someone pops up with a way to do just that. ;-) Does that clarify things? -Mike On Oct 19, 2012, at 11:56 AM, Lin Ma <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Mike, > > Sorry I am a bit lost... As you are thinking faster than me. :-P > > From your this statement "It would make sense that the JT maintains a unique > counter for each task until the tasks complete." -- it seems each task cannot > see counters from each other, since JT maintains a unique counter for each > tasks; > > From your this comment "I meant that if a Task created and updated a counter, > a different Task has access to that counter. " -- it seems different tasks > could share/access the same counter. > > Appreciate if you could help to clarify a bit. > > regards, > Lin > > On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 12:42 AM, Michael Segel <[email protected]> > wrote: > > On Oct 19, 2012, at 11:27 AM, Lin Ma <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Mike, >> >> Thanks for the detailed reply. Two quick questions/comments, >> >> 1. For "task", you mean a specific mapper instance, or a specific reducer >> instance? > > Either. > >> 2. "However, I do not believe that a separate Task could connect with the JT >> and see if the counter exists or if it could get a value or even an accurate >> value since the updates are asynchronous." -- do you mean if a mapper is >> updating custom counter ABC, and another mapper is updating the same >> customer counter ABC, their counter values are updated independently by >> different mappers, and will not published (aggregated) externally until job >> completed successfully? >> > I meant that if a Task created and updated a counter, a different Task has > access to that counter. > > To give you an example, if I want to count the number of quality errors and > then fail after X number of errors, I can't use Global counters to do this. > >> regards, >> Lin >> >> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Michael Segel <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> As I understand it... each Task has its own counters and are independently >> updated. As they report back to the JT, they update the counter(s)' status. >> The JT then will aggregate them. >> >> In terms of performance, Counters take up some memory in the JT so while its >> OK to use them, if you abuse them, you can run in to issues. >> As to limits... I guess that will depend on the amount of memory on the JT >> machine, the size of the cluster (Number of TT) and the number of counters. >> >> In terms of global accessibility... Maybe. >> >> The reason I say maybe is that I'm not sure by what you mean by globally >> accessible. >> If a task creates and implements a dynamic counter... I know that it will >> eventually be reflected in the JT. However, I do not believe that a separate >> Task could connect with the JT and see if the counter exists or if it could >> get a value or even an accurate value since the updates are asynchronous. >> Not to mention that I don't believe that the counters are aggregated until >> the job ends. It would make sense that the JT maintains a unique counter for >> each task until the tasks complete. (If a task fails, it would have to >> delete the counters so that when the task is restarted the correct count is >> maintained. ) Note, I haven't looked at the source code so I am probably >> wrong. >> >> HTH >> Mike >> On Oct 19, 2012, at 5:50 AM, Lin Ma <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hi guys, >>> >>> I have some quick questions regarding to Hadoop counter, >>> >>> Hadoop counter (customer defined) is global accessible (for both read and >>> write) for all Mappers and Reducers in a job? >>> What is the performance and best practices of using Hadoop counters? I am >>> not sure if using Hadoop counters too heavy, there will be performance >>> downgrade to the whole job? >>> regards, >>> Lin >> >> > >
