Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 4

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 4

So yay!  As mentioned for my next goals in my previous post, I finally got the remaining two boxes built out and added into my home network.  I opted to put the Hadoop cluster on it's own subnet with a dedicated unmanaged switch only for the cluster (primary and nodes).

I added the agent and metrics to all of the nodes and rebooted the servers.

Then I followed the instructions to set up the cluster, naming it "ds730" after the class that I'm currently taking - DS730: Big Data - High Performance Computing.

I also made sure I had DNS setup correctly by modifying /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and fixed my name resolution issues.

Removed firewall rules.

Removed timedatectl by doing: sudo timedatectl set-ntp no

Then installed ntp: sudo apt install ntp

Now I need to look at installing some database drivers, however I think I'm going to call it a night.

 

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 3

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 3

In my previous post I covered Bill of Materials (BOM), hardware assembly, and installing Linux (Ubuntu).  In this post I will cover how I installed Ambari.

Installing Ambari

Rather than build from source, I opted to use the distribution from Cloudera (formerly HortonWorks). Ambari 2.7.5 requires official support from Cloudera, so I went down to 2.7.3 which doesn't require a support agreement with Cloudera.

Install some pre-requisites

sudo apt install python-dev

sudo apt install gcc

Add Cloudera as a distribution

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ambari.list http://public-repo-1.hortonworks.com/ambari/ubuntu18/2.x/updates/2.7.3.0/ambari.list

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com B9733A7A07513CAD

sudo apt-get update

Verify packages show up

apt-cache showpkg ambari-server

apt-cache showpkg ambari-agent

apt-cache showpkg ambari-metrics-assembly

Install and setup the server on primary

sudo apt-get install ambari-server 

Install and setup agent / metrics on all

sudo apt-get install ambari-agent 

sudo apt-get install ambari-metrics-assembly

 

Cloudera also had some instructions that I followed on how to configure the Ambari server once installed.

Next up will be building the remaining boxes of the cluster and installing the agent on those.

Setbacks

So, for some reason some recent updates to Ubuntu decided to cause the resolution of my monitor to go down.

So I tried fixing it doing some updates, and lo and behold, nothing worked.

Then on top of that, my virtual machine that I was using for my DS730 class decided to go belly up and didn't come back after 2 reboots.

Not having a good day.

So, now I'm going to document the installation of my workstation using a blog post so I have some documentation to fall back onto when things go haywire again.  It looks like I'm going to reinstall Ubuntu again.

Then I need to hope that rebooting the virtual machine one last time will work.

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 2

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 2

In my previous post, I went through my overall plan that I will be following, along with goals and topics that I will be covering.  In this post, I will cover the initial building out of the cluster.

[Bill of Materials - BOM]
[Hardware assembly]
[Installing and configuring Linux]

Bill of Materials - BOM

Item	Price	Link
CPU	$139.99	Amazon
Motherboard	$71.99	Amazon
Memory (32 GB)	$109.99	Amazon
Storage (500 GB)	$57.99	Amazon
Power Supply (600W)	$62.99	Amazon
Case	$68.99	Amazon
Total	$511.94	*** Total estimated price as of 10/12/2020 Does not include shipping/taxes

Obviously, you can swap out components as you see your needs fit.  I did not want to make a high end workstation with GPU, opting to use a CPU that had graphics built in.  I did opt to get 32 GB memory and 500 GB storage - I could have gone down to 16 GB for memory and 250 GB for storage, but I feel that memory and storage is something that I always seem to want more of.

Hardware assembly

I found the hardware assembly to be very straight forward.  Everything was compatible and I didn't have to upgrade the BIOS or do anything fancy.  The case worked well with the motherboard.  The only thing I wished for, was another fan power on the motherboard, as it only has one.  But overall, I'm pleased with the ease of assembly - it took less than 3 hours to put together and install Linux.  I now have a working process to build the secondary nodes of the Hadoop cluster.  Time to go back to Amazon and order some more parts! :)

Installing and configuring Linux

I made the decision to use Ubuntu 18.04.05 (Bionic Beaver) LTS.  While there are different flavors of Linux, Ubuntu is the distribution that seems to work well in the world of data science, and one that I've used often over the years and am most comfortable with.

I opted for the server installation ISO, as I don't want the overhead of running a GUI on the boxes and downloaded the ISO from here.

Once I did that, I followed the instructions to make a bootable USB stick.  They have instructions for Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows.

I have Firewalla Gold firewall on my home network, so I am thinking of creating a separate subnet for the Hadoop cluster.  I will most likely pick up a switch and some network cable for these machines to keep it separate from the rest of the home network.

I did install sshd so that I can run the box "headless", that is, without a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and do a remote login into the server.  I configured the server with the name of "hadoop-primary".  Make sure to update the firewall rules as well, e.g. sudo ufw allow ssh.

I held off on doing any upgrades to the server distribution, as I want to make sure that I don't upgrade and conflict with the Hadoop requirements.

I was able to ssh into the box from my Mac desktop.  The next step will be to install Ambari and Hadoop, which I'll cover in my next post.

Hadoop Reading Material

Hadoop Reading Material

I'm starting to really get into my DS730 - Big Data: High Performance Computing class. I wanted to go beyond the instructors material and picked up some additional reading material.

Hoping this will help me be successful in the weeks to come.

GTC 2020: Jetson Nano

I attended GTC 2020 online and they had a set of sessions that talked about the Jetson Nano.  I realized I had let my projects go to the wayside and I wanted to get back in the fold. I picked up a Jetson Nano kit from Sparkfun as I wanted to go through V2 of the course.  (I completed V1 of the course already earlier.)

I managed to get some cool swag from GTC 2020 - mug, t-shirt and some Lego blocks.

Sparkfun was prompt in getting the order into my hands and I was able to unbox it earlier this evening.

NVIDIA has a great getting started with the Jetson Nano page, so I followed that to get the system up and running.

I'm going to document my experience going through the V2 course in my next post.

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 1

Home built Hadoop analytics cluster: Part 1

[Background]

[Project Summary]

[Building the cluster]

Background

I am pursuing the UW Master of Science in Data Science degree from UW-Wisconsin - University of Wisconsin System / UW Extended Campus.  My home school is at UW La Crosse.  For the Fall 2020 semester, I am taking DS730 - Big Data: High-Performance Computing.

I have been learning how to implement algorithms that allow for the distributed processing of large data sets across computing clusters; creating parallel algorithms that can process large data sets; and using tools and software such as Hadoop, Pig, Hive, and Python to compare large data-processing tasks using cloud-computing services e.g. AWS.

One of the things that struck me so far in this course is how everything was "setup" for me in this course.  While I understand the intent of the course is to focus on the programming skills to handle big data within data science, part of me wants to focus on how the application gets set up in the first place.  To me, part of the learning exercise is to put together the actual infrastructure / software in addition to the programming.  This way, when issues occur in the infrastructure / software, I can have some foundational skills to do some basic troubleshooting.

In class, we were given a Docker container and deployed it to a t3.xlarge instance (single-node) Hadoop cluster.  What I'd like to do is to expand beyond that and build out an actual 3-4 node cluster.  I will dedicate the servers that I build to Hadoop, rather than build and deploy a container.  One thing that I like that the instructors of my class did well was to show how Ambari could be used to manage the Hadoop cluster.  As a result, I will be leveraging Ambari in my home-built Hadoop solution to help administer and deploy the cluster.

Project Summary

So what are goals of doing this?  The objectives of doing this project is to:

• Build a Hadoop cluster from the "ground up"
• Learn Hadoop Administration
• Learn how to use Python for Map Reduce problems
• Practice writing Pig commands
• Start poking around with larger data sets outside of my DS730 class

Overall it is my intent to have blog posts that cover the following:

• Building out the cluster
• Installation of the software stack
• Client installation that covers connectivity to the cluster
• Explore R and Python options for using the cluster
• Data import and cleansing
• Plotting and analytics projects making use of data from the cluster

Building the cluster

I went through the exercise of building a single node cluster, as outlined in Data Analytics with Hadoop: An Introduction for Data Scientists on my local Linux system.  My initial thoughts were to build a 4 node cluster, to model a realistic cluster layout.  However due to budgetary constraints, it looks like I will start with 2, maybe 3 nodes.  I set a target price of $400 per node is a system with 4 cores, 32 GB of memory and 250 GB SSD storage.  

In doing some building online, I realized that a $400 target was too low.  My memory, CPU and storage came from Newegg.com for $286.92.  My case, power supply and motherboard came from Amazon for $216.23.  Total out the door price with shipping was $503.15.

In my next post, I will list out the BOM, cover the actual building of the hardware and setting up Linux.

NVIDIA GTC

Over the next few days I am planning on attending the GTC (GPU Technology Conference) being hosted by NVIDIA.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/gtc/

Looking forward to some useful sessions to help with the Jetson line.

One of the skills I'd like to acquire is to train an model and then optimize it for the Jetson device.

More to come!

Self Driving Car: Learning Steps

Linux Version

lsb_release -a

I determined I'm running Ubuntu 18.04.

Docker

I took the time to download Docker for Ubuntu and followed the instructions here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/

ROS Download / Setup

Based on the fact that I'm running Ubuntu 18.04, I will be using the Melodic version of ROS

http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation

Managed to get it working under python 2.7.  I really want to make sure however that I'm going to be compatible in the future, so I want to get this working under python 3.x but that will come later.

 

GPU Fun

 I've been meaning to install my Titan RTX for a while now...

Finally got around to it!

brianchilders@education:~$ nvidia-smi --query-gpu=name --format=csv,noheader
TITAN RTX
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Will be putting the card through some TensorFlow exercises in the near future.

Self Driving Car: Revisiting again...

 Well it's been a busy life with COVID-19 and learning how to adjust to a new way of life.  I am starting to get back onto the self-driving car project and revisiting it.

I have about 3-4 different hardware solutions for self-driving cars - all in various states of assembly.  I think I just need to pick one platform and stick with it.

So to that effect I think I'm going to start re-reading about the ROS Robotics platform.

AWS CDK

So I found myself on Sunday night thinking that I need to brush up on some AWS skills.  I attended a workshop at AWS re:invent 2019 put on by Paul Vincent from AWS about CDK.  I decided to read up on "Getting Started with the AWS CDK" and set up a VPC to do some other cool networking tasks.