What is Spark and Why?

Apache Spark is an open source cluster computing system that aims to make data analytics fast — both fast to run and fast to write. To run programs faster, Spark offers a general execution model that can optimize arbitrary operator graphs, and supports in-memory computing, which lets it query data faster than disk-based engines like Hadoop. In the past, I’ve wrote an intro on how to install Spark on GCE and since then, I wanted to do a follow up on the topic but with more real world example of installing a cluster. Luckily to me, a reader of the blog did the work! So after I got his approval, I wanted to share with you his script.