AVRO - SERIALIZATION

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What is Serialization?
Serialization is the process of translating data structures or objects state into binary or textual form
to transport the data over network or to store on some persisten storage. Once the data is
transported over network or retrieved from the persistent storage, it needs to be deserialized
again. Serialization is termed as marshalling and deserialization is termed as unmarshalling.

Serialization in Java
Java provides a mechanism, called object serialization where an object can be represented as a
sequence of bytes that includes the object's data as well as information about the object's type
and the types of data stored in the object.

After a serialized object is written into a file, it can be read from the file and deserialized. That is,
the type information and bytes that represent the object and its data can be used to recreate the
object in memory.

ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream classes are used to serialize and deserialize an

object respectively in Java.

Serialization in Hadoop
Generally in distributed systems like Hadoop, the concept of serialization is used for Interprocess
Communication and Persistent Storage.

Interprocess Communication
To establish the interprocess communication between the nodes connected in a network,
RPC technique was used.

RPC used internal serialization to convert the message into binary format before sending it to
the remote node via network. At the other end the remote system deserializes the binary
stream into the original message.

The RPC serialization format is required to be as follows −

Compact − To make the best use of network bandwidth, which is the most scarce
resource in a data center.

Fast − Since the communication between the nodes is crucial in distributed systems,
the serialization and deserialization process should be quick, producing less overhead.

Extensible − Protocols change over time to meet new requirements, so it should be

straightforward to evolve the protocol in a controlled manner for clients and servers.

Interoperable − The message format should support the nodes that are written in
different languages.

Persistent Storage
Persistent Storage is a digital storage facility that does not lose its data with the loss of power
supply. For example - Magnetic disks and Hard Disk Drives.

Writable Interface
This is the interface in Hadoop which provides methods for serialization and deserialization. The
following table describes the methods −

S.No. Methods and Description

 1
void readFieldsDataInputin

This method is used to deserialize the fields of the given object.

2
void writeDataOutputout

This method is used to serialize the fields of the given object.

WritableComparable Interface
It is the combination of Writable and Comparable interfaces. This interface inherits Writable
interface of Hadoop as well as Comparable interface of Java. Therefore it provides methods for
data serialization, deserialization, and comparison.

S.No. Methods and Description

1
int compareToclassobj

This method compares current object with the given object obj.

In addition to these classes, Hadoop supports a number of wrapper classes that implement
WritableComparable interface. Each class wraps a Java primitive type. The class hierarchy of
Hadoop serialization is given below −

These classes are useful to serialize various types of data in Hadoop. For instance, let us consider
the IntWritable class. Let us see how this class is used to serialize and deserialize the data in
Hadoop.

IntWritable Class
This class implements Writable, Comparable, and WritableComparable interfaces. It wraps an
integer data type in it. This class provides methods used to serialize and deserialize integer type of
data.

Constructors

S.No. Summary

1 IntWritable

2 IntWritableintvalue

Methods

S.No. Summary

1
int get

Using this method you can get the integer value present in the current object.

2
void readFieldsDataInputin

This method is used to deserialize the data in the given DataInput object.

3
void setintvalue

This method is used to set the value of the current IntWritable object.

4
void writeDataOutputout

This method is used to serialize the data in the current object to the given DataOutput
object.

Serializing the Data in Hadoop

The procedure to serialize the integer type of data is discussed below.

Instantiate IntWritable class by wrapping an integer value in it.

Instantiate ByteArrayOutputStream class.

Instantiate DataOutputStream class and pass the object of ByteArrayOutputStream

class to it.

Serialize the integer value in IntWritable object using write method. This method needs an
object of DataOutputStream class.

The serialized data will be stored in the byte array object which is passed as parameter to the
DataOutputStream class at the time of instantiation. Convert the data in the object to byte
array.

Example
The following example shows how to serialize data of integer type in Hadoop −

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.DataOutputStream;

import java.io.IOException;

import org.apache.hadoop.io.IntWritable;

public class Serialization {

public byte[] serialize() throws IOException{

//Instantiating the IntWritable object

IntWritable intwritable = new IntWritable(12);

//Instantiating ByteArrayOutputStream object

ByteArrayOutputStream byteoutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

//Instantiating DataOutputStream object

DataOutputStream dataOutputStream = new
DataOutputStream(byteoutputStream);

//Serializing the data

intwritable.write(dataOutputStream);

//storing the serialized object in bytearray

byte[] byteArray = byteoutputStream.toByteArray();

//Closing the OutputStream

dataOutputStream.close();
return(byteArray);
}

public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException{

Serialization serialization= new Serialization();
serialization.serialize();
System.out.println();
}
}

Deserializing the Data in Hadoop

The procedure to deserialize the integer type of data is discussed below −

Instantiate IntWritable class by wrapping an integer value in it.

Instantiate ByteArrayOutputStream class.

Instantiate DataOutputStream class and pass the object of ByteArrayOutputStream

class to it.

Deserialize the data in the object of DataInputStream using readFields method of

IntWritable class.

The deserialized data will be stored in the object of IntWritable class. You can retrieve this
data using get method of this class.

Example
The following example shows how to deserialize the data of integer type in Hadoop −

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.DataInputStream;

import org.apache.hadoop.io.IntWritable;

public class Deserialization {

public void deserialize(byte[]byteArray) throws Exception{

//Instantiating the IntWritable class

 IntWritable intwritable =new IntWritable();

//Instantiating ByteArrayInputStream object

ByteArrayInputStream InputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(byteArray);

//Instantiating DataInputStream object

DataInputStream datainputstream=new DataInputStream(InputStream);

//deserializing the data in DataInputStream

intwritable.readFields(datainputstream);

//printing the serialized data

System.out.println((intwritable).get());
}

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {

Deserialization dese = new Deserialization();
dese.deserialize(new Serialization().serialize());
}
}

Advantage of Hadoop over Java Serialization

Hadoop’s Writable-based serialization is capable of reducing the object-creation overhead by
reusing the Writable objects, which is not possible with the Java’s native serialization framework.

Disadvantages of Hadoop Serialization

To serialize Hadoop data, there are two ways −

You can use the Writable classes, provided by Hadoop’s native library.

You can also use Sequence Files which store the data in binary format.

The main drawback of these two mechanisms is that Writables and SequenceFiles have only a
Java API and they cannot be written or read in any other language.

Therefore any of the files created in Hadoop with above two mechanisms cannot be read by any
other third language, which makes Hadoop as a limited box. To address this drawback, Doug
Cutting created Avro, which is a language independent data structure.
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