Spark via Iceberg¶

To access Nessie on Iceberg from a spark cluster make sure the spark.jars spark option is set to include a jar of the iceberg spark runtime, or the spark.jars.packages spark option is set to include a Maven coordinate of the iceberg spark runtime.

The iceberg-spark-runtime fat jars are distributed by the Apache Iceberg project and contains all Apache Iceberg libraries required for operation, including the built-in Nessie Catalog.

The nessie-spark-extensions jars are distributed by the Nessie project and contain SQL extensions that allow you to manage your tables with nessie’s git-like syntax.

In pyspark, usage would look like…

SparkSession.builder
    .config('spark.jars.packages',
            'org.apache.iceberg:iceberg-spark-runtime-3.3_2.12:1.0.0')
    ... rest of spark config
    .getOrCreate()

…or if using the nessie extensions…

SparkSession.builder
    .config('spark.jars.packages',
            'org.apache.iceberg:iceberg-spark-runtime-3.3_2.12:1.0.0,org.projectnessie.nessie-integrations:nessie-spark-extensions-3.3_2.12:0.53.1')
    ... rest of spark config
    .getOrCreate()

The docs for the Java API in Iceberg explain how to use a Catalog. The only change is that a Nessie catalog should be instantiated

Catalog catalog = new NessieCatalog(spark.sparkContext().hadoopConfiguration())

catalog = jvm.NessieCatalog(sc._jsc.hadoopConfiguration())

Configuration¶

The Nessie Catalog needs the following parameters set in the Spark/Hadoop config.

These are set as follows in code (or through other methods as described here)

In these examples, spark.jars.packages is configured for Spark 3.3.x. Consult the table above to find the version of that correspond to your Spark deployment.

// Full url of the Nessie API endpoint to nessie
String url = "http://localhost:19120/api/v1";
// Where to store nessie tables
String fullPathToWarehouse = ...;
// The ref or context that nessie will operate on
// (if different from default branch).
// Can be the name of a Nessie branch or tag name.
String ref = "main";
// Nessie authentication type (BASIC, NONE or AWS)
String authType = "NONE";

    //for a local spark instance
    conf.set("spark.jars.packages", "org.apache.iceberg:iceberg-spark-runtime-3.3_2.12:1.0.0,org.projectnessie.nessie-integrations:nessie-spark-extensions-3.3_2.12:0.53.1")
        .set("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions,org.projectnessie.spark.extensions.NessieSparkSessionExtensions")
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.uri", url)
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.ref", ref)
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.authentication.type", authType)
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.catalog-impl", "org.apache.iceberg.nessie.NessieCatalog")
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.warehouse", fullPathToWarehouse)
        .set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog");
    spark = SparkSession.builder()
                        .master("local[2]")
                        .config(conf)
                        .getOrCreate();

# Full url of the Nessie API endpoint to nessie
url = "http://localhost:19120/api/v1"
# Where to store nessie tables
full_path_to_warehouse = ...
# The ref or context that nessie will operate on (if different from default branch).
# Can be the name of a Nessie branch or tag name.
ref = "main"
# Nessie authentication type (BASIC, NONE or AWS)
auth_type = "NONE"

    # here we are assuming NONE authorisation
    spark = SparkSession.builder \
            .config("spark.jars.packages","org.apache.iceberg:iceberg-spark-runtime-3.3_2.12:1.0.0,org.projectnessie.nessie-integrations:nessie-spark-extensions-3.3_2.12:0.53.1") \
            .config("spark.sql.extensions", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.extensions.IcebergSparkSessionExtensions,org.projectnessie.spark.extensions.NessieSparkSessionExtensions") \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.uri", url) \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.ref", ref) \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.authentication.type", auth_type) \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.catalog-impl", "org.apache.iceberg.nessie.NessieCatalog") \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.warehouse", full_path_to_warehouse) \
            .config("spark.sql.catalog.nessie", "org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog") \
            .getOrCreate()

All configuration for the Nessie catalog exists below this spark.sql.catalog.nessie configuration namespace. The catalog name is not important, it is important that the required options are all given below the catalog name.

The following properties are required in Spark when creating the Nessie Catalog (replace <catalog_name> with the name of your catalog):

• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name>.uri : The location of the Nessie server.
• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name>.ref : The default Nessie branch that the iceberg catalog will use.
• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name>.authentication.type : The authentication type to be used, set to NONE by default. Please refer to the authentication docs for more info.
• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name>.catalog-impl : This must be org.apache.iceberg.nessie.NessieCatalog in order to tell Spark to use Nessie catalog implementation.
• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name>.warehouse : The location where to store Iceberg tables managed by Nessie catalog.
• spark.sql.catalog.<catalog_name> : This must be org.apache.iceberg.spark.SparkCatalog. This is a Spark option to set the catalog <catalog_name> to be managed by Nessie’s Catalog implementation.

Writing¶

Spark support is constantly evolving and the differences in Spark3 vs Spark2.4 are considerable. See the iceberg docs for an up-to-date support table.

Spark2¶

Spark2.4 supports reads, appends, overwrites in Iceberg. Nessie tables in iceberg can be written via the Nessie Iceberg Catalog instantiated above. Iceberg in Spark2.4 has no ability to create tables so before a table can be appended to or overwritten the table must be first created via an Iceberg Catalog. This is straightforward in Java but requires addressing jvm objects directly in Python (until the python library for iceberg is released).

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// first instantiate the catalog
NessieCatalog catalog = new NessieCatalog();
catalog.setConf(sc.hadoopConfiguration());
// other catalog properties can be added based on the requirement. For example, "io-impl","authentication.type", etc.
catalog.initialize("nessie", ImmutableMap.of(
    "ref", ref,
    "uri", url,
    "warehouse", pathToWarehouse));

// Creating table by first creating a table name with namespace
TableIdentifier region_name = TableIdentifier.parse("testing.region");

// next create the schema
Schema region_schema = Schema([
  Types.NestedField.optional(1, "R_REGIONKEY", Types.LongType.get()),
  Types.NestedField.optional(2, "R_NAME", Types.StringType.get()),
  Types.NestedField.optional(3, "R_COMMENT", Types.StringType.get()),
]);

// and the partition
PartitionSpec region_spec = PartitionSpec.unpartitioned();

// finally create the table
catalog.createTable(region_name, region_schema, region_spec);

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sc = spark.sparkContext
jvm = sc._gateway.jvm

# import jvm libraries for iceberg catalogs and schemas
java_import(jvm, "org.projectnessie.iceberg.NessieCatalog")
java_import(jvm, "org.apache.iceberg.catalog.TableIdentifier")
java_import(jvm, "org.apache.iceberg.Schema")
java_import(jvm, "org.apache.iceberg.types.Types")
java_import(jvm, "org.apache.iceberg.PartitionSpec")

# first instantiate the catalog
catalog = jvm.NessieCatalog()
catalog.setConf(sc._jsc.hadoopConfiguration())
# other catalog properties can be added based on the requirement. For example, "io-impl","authentication.type", etc.
catalog.initialize("nessie", {"ref": ref,
    "uri": url,
    "warehouse": pathToWarehouse})

# Creating table by first creating a table name with namespace
region_name = jvm.TableIdentifier.parse("testing.region")

# next create the schema
region_schema = jvm.Schema([
  jvm.Types.NestedField.optional(
    1, "R_REGIONKEY", jvm.Types.LongType.get()
  ),
  jvm.Types.NestedField.optional(
    2, "R_NAME", jvm.Types.StringType.get()
  ),
  jvm.Types.NestedField.optional(
    3, "R_COMMENT", jvm.Types.StringType.get()
  ),
])

# and the partition
region_spec = jvm.PartitionSpec.unpartitioned()

# finally create the table
region_table = catalog.createTable(region_name, region_schema, region_spec)

When looking at the Python code above, lines 1-11 are importing jvm objects into pyspark. Lines 12-25 create the table name, schema and partition spec. These actions will be familiar to seasoned iceberg users and are wholly iceberg operations. Line 29 is where our initial iceberg metadata is finally written to disk and a commit takes place on Nessie.

Now that we have created an Iceberg table in nessie we can write to it. The iceberg DataSourceV2 allows for either overwrite or append mode in a standard spark.write.

regionDf = spark.read().load("data/region.parquet");
regionDf.write().format("iceberg").mode("overwrite")
    .save("nessie.testing.region");

region_df = spark.read.load("data/region.parquet")
region_df.write.format("iceberg").mode("overwrite") \
    .save("nessie.testing.region")

Here we simply read a file from the default filesystem and write it to an existing nessie iceberg table. This will trigger a commit on current context’s branch.

For the examples above we have performed commits on the branch specified when we set our spark configuration. Had we not specified the context in our spark configuration all operations would have defaulted to the default branch defined by the server. This is a strong pattern for a spark job which is for example writing data as part of a wider ETL job. It will only ever need one context or branch to write to. If however you are running an interactive session and would like to write to a specific branch you would have to create a new Spark Conf.

sparkDev = spark.newSession();
sparkDev.conf.set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.ref", "dev");
regionDf = sparkDev.read().load("data/region.parquet");
regionDf.write().format("iceberg").mode("overwrite")
    .save("nessie.testing.region");

spark_dev = spark.newSession()
spark_dev.conf.set("spark.sql.catalog.nessie.ref", "dev")
region_df = spark_dev.read.load("data/region.parquet")
region_df.write.format("iceberg").mode("overwrite") \
    .save("nessie.testing.region")

Note the extra option clause in the write command. This will ensure the commit happens on the dev branch rather than the default branch.

Spark3¶

The write path for Spark3 is slightly different and easier to work with. These changes haven’t made it to pyspark yet so writing dataframes looks much the same there, including having to create the table. Spark3 table creation/insertion is as follows:

regionDf = spark.read().load('data/region.parquet');
//create
regionDf.writeTo("nessie.testing.region").create();
//append
regionDf.writeTo("nessie.testing.region").append();
//overwrite partition
regionDf.writeTo("nessie.testing.region").overwritePartitions();

# same code as the spark2 section above to create the testing.region table
region_df = spark.read.load("data/region.parquet")
region_df.write.format("iceberg").mode("overwrite") \
    .save("nessie.testing.region")

CREATE TABLE nessie.testing.city (
    C_CITYKEY BIGINT, C_NAME STRING, N_NATIONKEY BIGINT, C_COMMENT STRING
) USING iceberg PARTITIONED BY (N_NATIONKEY)
-- AS SELECT .. can be added to the sql statement to perform a CTAS

INSERT INTO nessie.testing.city VALUES (1, 'a', 1, 'comment')

The full list of operations can be found here. Everything that Iceberg supports the Nessie Iceberg Catalog also supports.

Reading¶

Reading is more straightforward between spark 2 and spark 3. We will look at both versions together in this section. To read a Nessie table in iceberg simply:

// Spark2:
regionDf = spark.read().format("iceberg")
    .load("nessie.testing.region");

// Spark3:
regionDf = spark.table("nessie.testing.region");

# same code as above to create the testing.region table
region_df = spark.read.format("iceberg").load("nessie.testing.region")

-- Spark3 only
SELECT * FROM nessie.testing.city

-- Spark3 only, read from the `etl` branch
SELECT * FROM nessie.testing.`city@etl`

The examples above all use the default branch defined on initialisation. There are several ways to reference specific branches or hashes from within a read statement. We will take a look at a few now from pyspark3, the rules are the same across all environments though. The general pattern is <table>@<branch>. Table must be present and either branch and/or hash are optional. We will throw an error if branch or hash don’t exist. Branch or hash references in the table name will override passed options and the settings in the Spark/Hadoop configs.

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# read from branch dev
spark.read().format("iceberg").load("testing.region@dev")
# read specifically from hash
spark.read().format("iceberg").load("testing.region@<hash>")

spark.sql("SELECT * FROM nessie.testing.`region@dev`")
spark.sql("SELECT * FROM nessie.testing.`region@<hash>`")

Notice in the SQL statements the table@branch must be escaped separately from namespace or catalog arguments.

Future versions may add the ability to specify a timestamp to query the data at a specific point in time (time-travel). In the meantime the history can be viewed on the command line or via the python client and a specific hash based on commit time can be extracted for use in the spark catalog. It is recommended to use the time-travel features of Nessie over the Iceberg features as Nessie history is consistent across the entire database.