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What is broadcasting in Spark, and why is it used? Can you give an example of its use?

Spark/Big Datamedium0.7 min readPremium
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Asked at 2 companies
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AltimetrikInfosys
Key Concepts Tested
joinsparksql
Expert AnswerPremium
136 wordsInterview-ready
Broadcasting sends a small table replica to every executor so joins execute locally without shuffle. **Why it matters**: A shuffle join moves both sides across the network; broadcast join moves only the small side once from driver to executors. **Scalability trade-off**: The small table must fit in executor memory; exceeding this causes OOM. As cluster size grows, more copies exist (N executors × table size), so large broadcasts waste memory....
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