Product SiteDocumentation Site

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1. What is WebMapReduce?
1.2. Architecture
1.3. About

1.1. What is WebMapReduce?

WebMapReduce is a simple web-based user interface for creating and submitting Hadoop Map-Reduce jobs in practically any language. It is ideally suited for use in the introductory computer science classroom, requiring very little programming experience to write massively parallel programs.
Some of its features include:
  • Simplified Map-Reduce model: WebMapReduce offers the features of Map-Reduce that are crucial to the core concept, without details that add to the learning curve.
  • Extensible language support: Mappers and reducers can be written in practically any language. All that is needed to support a new language is a simple wrapper library, possibly with an API for users to easily perform common tasks such as string processing.
  • Adaptable APIs: In addition, preincluded languages can be customized to alter their APIs—for example, in order to support libraries already introduced in a class, or to suit a particular teaching style or programming paradigm. Purely functional, imperative, or object-oriented strategies are all fair game.
  • Customizable authentication: It is possible to authenticate users against an LDAP server or through PAM, which itself provides many options, including traditional Unix authentication, database-based authentication, and many others.