Authors:
Rafi Kurlansik, Solutions Architect, Databricks
Mary Grace Moesta, Customer Success Engineer, Databricks
R is widely used by data teams in every sector of the economy. It enjoys a vibrant ecosystem of open source packages including two APIs for working with Apache Spark. This opens up the tantalizing prospect of scaling R programs to hundreds of machines executing in parallel.
As Databricks grows in popularity and usage across market segments - especially Enterprise - R users face a somewhat steep learning curve for both Spark and working in the cloud generally. This user guide is designed to facilitate a smooth transition to productivity for R developers using Databricks. Each section has examples in R or discusses a particular feature as it relates to R.
The flow of a section will progress from basic concepts through to advanced tips and functionality. As such, this guide can be used as a reference and will complement the official Databricks documentation. Please reach out to us with questions or suggestions for improvement. We hope it enables you to unlock the full potential of R on Databricks!
Note: A few pages remain unfinished, but we hope to complete the guide in Q1 2021.