Do you know what is AWS Glue? If not, then read this article to learn all about this latest big data computing service that is revolutionizing businesses.
From 2022, data, and more specifically, sorted data is worth its weight in gold. It lets every business know what their target audience habits are, what they are attracted to, and what they abhor.
You can build a multibillion-dollar empire, but with incorrect data, it can all come crumbling down. AWS Glue is the resource that helps businesses identify, streamline, and clean data.
Using this data, they know everything they need to do. Based on this computing mechanism marketing, distribution, need, want, supply and demand are all decided.
However, there are a lot of services currently operating in this medium, so what makes AWS Glue special?
If questions like this are the reason why you are still unsure if AWS is the service for you, then don’t worry because, in this guide, we will provide you with all the answers you will need to make up your mind.
So without any further ado, let us begin with the definition of what an AWS Glue service is.
What is AWS Glue?
AWS Glue service, in a nutshell, helps you with your big data computing. Using this, you can record, sort, clean, and analyze data that provides you with solutions.
Even though AWS Glue is presented as a cheaper alternative to data warehousing competition, there is a lot more to this. AWS Glue possesses a set of tools that lets you do a lot more than just house big data.
- Using this, you can store big data and sort it to the required niche you are looking to target.
- You can transform raw data into invaluable practical data that provides you with answers and solutions that can revolutionize your business.
- It can use big data to identify your consumers’ behaviors, needs, and what they are looking for.
- Gives you the unofficial mind-reading ability through which you can curate your business in a way that makes it their preferred choice.
- AWS Glue does this while being cheaper than its competition.
- Plus, all of this is not AWS Glue’s biggest selling or marketing point since its inception in 2017. The most impressive quality is that all the data is stored without a server.
- You don’t need to invest in mega infrastructure and manage its bills. Amazon does this for you and lets you reap the rewards.
This whole process that they provide for you is known in the industry as AWS Glue ETL (Extract, Transform, Load). If you don’t know what functions they can provide for you, then don’t worry, we have explained them in detail.
Who Should Use AWS Glue?
Now that you know what an AWS Glue is and its advantages – you are set to use it for your gain. Now, let’s take a closer look at whom this is made. Who should use AWS Glue to give their business an edge over its competitors?
Although data in 2022 is valuable to every business yet, we believe the following are the businesses/industries set to gain the most from its expertise.
1. Food Delivery Apps (Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash, Postmates)
Food delivery existed roughly around the same time restaurants were established.
However, it wasn’t until the modern internet and the coming of age of third-party delivery services that they became one of the most significant business components for restaurants.
- Only in the USA, do many third-party food delivery companies now exist.
- We believe they stand to gain the most from AWS Glue because it can help them make wiser decisions on all fronts of their business.
- Among many other things, it can help them decide how many resources to hire in a specific location.
- The types of vehicles to deploy, the promotions to offer, and what time to offer them, among many more things.
- This is because sorted big data allows you to make these decisions by projecting the complete picture.
2. Health Industry Businesses (Peloton)
- Health industry businesses like Peloton are also ideal companies that benefit from AWS Glue services.
- It helps them keep track of where their customers are, their habits when they are using their products, etc.
- When the head company knows these details, they can make a plan to market their business better.
- For example, when Peloton knows who is using their bikes and additional services for a longer time, they can offer them specialized programs marketed as special features.
- In contrast, where they see their products are being less frequently used, they can offer beginners/help sessions to boost their business.
3. Online Banking Business
Traditional banking and its inconveniences like long queues, delayed processing, etc., have made them an unpopular institute among the current audience.
This is where online banking businesses like Chime have replaced them because they offer the same savings account and debit card services but with conveniences.
Unlike a traditional bank, they make their earnings by charging a percentage from their client, which they are happy to pay as long as their work gets done faster.
These online businesses are able to work faster because they are more aware of their target audience’s needs, which AWS Glue provides them.
4. Digital Clothing Businesses
A couple of decades ago, shopping malls were packed, but now online shopping is what consumers prefer.
The biggest reason for this shift is the convenience they can expect in better discounts, easier return and exchange processes, sale notifications, etc.
This is precisely the information the data from AWS Glue provides these businesses. By using this service, they know what their customers want, and they can provide it accordingly.
Making it a win-win situation for all parties as selling online saves businesses a lot more of the overhead cost that a mall or physical shop has.
5. Online Retail Industry
Out of all the entities that can profit from utilizing the services of AWS Glue, the most significant benefit we believe the industry can gain out of them is the online retail industry.
Big data computing provides them with all the answers to manage their business more effectively.
When and where to run promotions, how long to run it, why to run it, where to target which product, which season to target, and many more crucial questions.
These are the types of solutions businesses seek and they are readily available through the AWS service.
Benefits of AWS Glue
There are a lot of benefits that AWS Glue can serve your business, but the most prominent reasons you should opt for their services are the following.
- Stores Your Data on a Safe & Secure Wireless Server
- Affordable Option Compared to Competition
- Analyzes & Integrates Your Data with Multiple Departments Seamlessly
- Assist in Performing Complex Tasks for Your Business
- Helps in Machine Learning Exponentially
Limitation of AWS Glue
Now that you know the benefits of this service let’s talk about their limitation, although we believe there aren’t many. However, the following can be classified as their major ones.
- Not Compatible with Other Platforms (only works with other AWS services)
- Limited Comprehension of Coding Language (Only understand Scala and Python)
- Not Friendly To Beginners (Experts Coders Required)
- Slow Startup Speed (Job can make north of 10 minutes to mobilize)
- Lack of Testing Practice (Being forced to work on real data, can cause mistakes)
AWS glue pricing?
Glue is a serverless platform provided by AWS. So, creating the infrastructure is free.
We are charged based on the data processed and or crawled. Billing depends on ETL jobs, data catalog requests or storage, data crawled, and jobs that brew data.
AWS glue vs lambda
Both the above tools support data processing. So, let us now see how they are different or the same.
| Glue | Lambda |
| It supports only Python and Scala | It supports many languages like Node.js, javascript, go, python and Java as well. |
| Glue jobs can be scheduled or triggered manually, even from lambda or a different glue job. | Lambda whereas is an event based depending on triggers from Kinesis, API and many more. It also supports scheduling options. |
| Glue is mainly used for bulk data loading and native ETL loads. | Lambda is just one job that can pass on data to other services like SQS and SNS and trigger other AWS services as well. |
| Glue jobs can be scheduled or triggered manually, even from lambda or a different glue job. | Lambda is just one job that can pass on data to other services like SQS and SNS and trigger other AWS service as well. |
AWS glue vs athena
| Glue | Athena |
| Glue is a service mostly used for Cataloging and viewing data, crawling the data in an S3 bucket, and processing large amounts of data. | Athena where as is a tool for quering data stored in S3 using the glue catalog. It cant do it on its own |
| Basically an ETL tool for extracting, transforming and loading of data | Tool for data analysis and can be connected to Qucksight for for data visualization |
What is AWS Glue Architecture?
Below is the architecture of Glue.
How AWS Glue Crawler works?
Glue crawler crawls or reads the data stored in the S3 bucket and presents them in tabular format for better understanding.
It can read data in various formats like Avro, Parquet, and CSV and catalogs the data in a human-understandable format.
AWS Glue Data catalog
This is the tool associated with Glue that reads the data in an S3 bucket using a crawler and catalogues them in other words indexes the data.
We can also say it’s the metadata about the data stored in S3 or any other place.
What is AWS glue databrew
Now we read the data from various sources like S3 and RDS so Databrew is the tool that can give meaning to that data.
This tool helps in data visualization and helps in analyzing the data making life easier for Engineers and creating Machine Learning models.
AWS glue elastic views
Tool to be used for creating SQL queries on the data fetched from different sources. we have the option of creating Materialized views. It has the option of also making copies of data and storing them in target.
Why AWS Glue is the best for big data?
Ever since the establishment of digital purchasing, people have started to show patterns of their buying behavior, which were recorded by services that noticed them and started warehousing this data.
In the ’90s, when the internet was in its infancy, this data was processed and cleaned manually, which used to take months to reach a conclusion.
Based on that, businesses use to adapt their practices to maximize results. However, with revolutionary services like AWS Glue, now all of this is possible in minutes.
This is why AWS Glue is the perfect service to handle big data. It not only stores them on a serverless system but with its various tools can perform tasks that can make your life very convenient.
This is why we believe they are a worthy plus smart investment for you.
FAQS:
Q: AWS glue documentation
we tried our best to give you most of the information we can for further details refer to the AWS Documentation.
Q: aWS glue pyspark?
Yes, we can use Pyspark for writing the transformations of the ETL tool. In turn, it gives us speed and makes the data processing faster.
Final Thoughts
The digital revolution has provided conveniences that were once thought impossible. They were able to do this because of big data computing.
Therefore in AWS Glue tutorial, we have defined what AWS Glue is, its benefits, and even its limitations.
Go through it thoroughly, and then let us know in the comments section if they are the best for you or if you think another service is better. We are looking forward to hearing your response.
Happy Clouding!!
I am an Amazon Web Services Professional, having more than 11 years of experience in AWS and other technologies. Extensively working in various AWS tools like S3, Lambda, API, Kinesis, Load Balancers, EKS, ECS, and many more. Working as a Solution Architect and Technology Lead for Architecting and implementing the same for different clients. He provides expert solutions around the world and especially in countries like the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Check out the complete profile on About us.
