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Community Blog What's New with Mars - Alibaba's Distributed Scientific Computing Engine

What's New with Mars - Alibaba's Distributed Scientific Computing Engine

Comprehensive information, detailing the latest Mars releases and plans for upcoming releases.

By Ji Sheng

In March 2020, Mars 0.4.0b1, 0.4.0b2, 0.3.2, and 0.3.3 were released. You can click the different links to view the release notes. Two versions were released this month due to a special circumstance. In V0.4.0b2, the urgent problems in V0.4.0b1 were fixed.

Mars Project Release Cycle

Let's look at the Mars project release cycle. Generally, the pre-release and official versions of Mars are released at the same time every month. The pre-release version contains more radical functions or changes, which may be unstable, while the stable functions or enhancements are synchronized to the official version.

Click the GitHub project's milestones to view the latest pre-release and official versions.

Click the GitHub project to view the categorized issues and Pull Requests (PRs).

1

The v0.4 release contains the ongoing issues and PRs, which are archived by version. In other releases, issues and PRs are categorized by module.

Features in the New Version

We spent a lot of time improving the DataFrame API in the new version. Some common APIs in pandas are supported in this version.

Better Aggregation and Group Aggregation

  • #1030 enabled Groupby.aggregate to support multiple aggregation functions.
  • #1054 added support for DataFrame.aggregate and Series.aggregate.
  • #1019 and #1069 added support for cumulative computing such as cummax.

For example, in pandas, we can perform the following operations on MovieLens data:

In [1]: import pandas as pd                                                     

In [2]: %%time 
   ...: df = pd.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/ratings.csv') 
   ...: df.groupby('movieId').agg({'rating': ['max', 'min', 'mean', 'std']}) 
   ...:  
   ...:                                                                         
CPU times: user 5.41 s, sys: 1.28 s, total: 6.7 s
Wall time: 4.3 s
Out[2]: 
        rating                         
           max  min      mean       std
movieId                                
1          5.0  0.5  3.921240  0.889012
2          5.0  0.5  3.211977  0.951150
3          5.0  0.5  3.151040  1.006642
4          5.0  0.5  2.861393  1.095702
5          5.0  0.5  3.064592  0.982140
...        ...  ...       ...       ...
131254     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN
131256     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN
131258     2.5  2.5  2.500000       NaN
131260     3.0  3.0  3.000000       NaN
131262     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN

[26744 rows x 4 columns]

We can aggregate the data according to movie IDs to obtain the maximum, minimum, and average values and the standard deviation of user reviews.

When Mars is used:

In [1]: import mars.dataframe as md                                             

In [2]: %%time 
   ...: df = md.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/ratings.csv') 
   ...: df.groupby('movieId').agg({'rating': ['max', 'min', 'mean', 'std']}).execute() 
   ...:  
   ...:                                                                         
CPU times: user 5.81 s, sys: 6.9 s, total: 12.7 s
Wall time: 1.54 s
Out[2]: 
        rating                         
           max  min      mean       std
movieId                                
1          5.0  0.5  3.921240  0.889012
2          5.0  0.5  3.211977  0.951150
3          5.0  0.5  3.151040  1.006642
4          5.0  0.5  2.861393  1.095702
5          5.0  0.5  3.064592  0.982140
...        ...  ...       ...       ...
131254     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN
131256     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN
131258     2.5  2.5  2.500000       NaN
131260     3.0  3.0  3.000000       NaN
131262     4.0  4.0  4.000000       NaN

[26744 rows x 4 columns]

The code is almost the same, except that Mars needs to be started by execute().

The size of the ratings.csv file is more than 500 MB. We can accelerate it several times over by running Mars on a notebook. As the data size increases, Mars provides better acceleration performance. If a single server cannot meet the requirements, we can use Mars to accelerate the execution by distributing consistent code on multiple servers.

Sorting

  • #1053 added support for sort_index.
  • #1046 added support for sort_values.

We will use MovieLens data as an example again:

In [1]: import pandas as pd                                                                                               

In [2]: %%time 
   ...: ratings = pd.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/ratings.csv') 
   ...: movies = pd.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/movies.csv') 
   ...: movie_rating = ratings.groupby('movieId', as_index=False).agg({'rating': 'mean'}) 
   ...: result = movie_rating.merge(movies[['movieId', 'title']], on='movieId') 
   ...: result.sort_values(by='rating', ascending=False) 
   ...:  
   ...:                                                                                                                   
CPU times: user 5.17 s, sys: 1.13 s, total: 6.3 s
Wall time: 4.05 s
Out[2]: 
       movieId  rating                                  title
19152    95517     5.0      Barchester Chronicles, The (1982)
21842   105846     5.0                   Only Daughter (2013)
17703    89133     5.0                   Boys (Drenge) (1977)
21656   105187     5.0              Linotype: The Film (2012)
21658   105191     5.0                    Rocaterrania (2009)
...        ...     ...                                    ...
26465   129784     0.5            Xuxa in Crystal Moon (1990)
18534    92479     0.5         Kisses for My President (1964)
26475   129834     0.5  Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon (2014)
24207   115631     0.5             Alone for Christmas (2013)
25043   119909     0.5                  Sharpe's Eagle (1993)

[26744 rows x 3 columns]

and attempt to sort the films in the dataset in descending order by average score.

The code is still the same in Mars.

In [1]: import mars.dataframe as md                                                                                       

In [2]: %%time 
   ...: ratings = md.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/ratings.csv') 
   ...: movies = md.read_csv('Downloads/ml-20m/movies.csv') 
   ...: movie_rating = ratings.groupby('movieId', as_index=False).agg({'rating': 'mean'}) 
   ...: result = movie_rating.merge(movies[['movieId', 'title']], on='movieId') 
   ...: result.sort_values(by='rating', ascending=False).execute() 
   ...:  
   ...:                                                                                                                   
CPU times: user 4.97 s, sys: 6.01 s, total: 11 s
Wall time: 1.39 s
Out[2]: 
       movieId  rating                                  title
19152    95517     5.0      Barchester Chronicles, The (1982)
21842   105846     5.0                   Only Daughter (2013)
17703    89133     5.0                   Boys (Drenge) (1977)
21656   105187     5.0              Linotype: The Film (2012)
21658   105191     5.0                    Rocaterrania (2009)
...        ...     ...                                    ...
26465   129784     0.5            Xuxa in Crystal Moon (1990)
18534    92479     0.5         Kisses for My President (1964)
26475   129834     0.5  Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon (2014)
24207   115631     0.5             Alone for Christmas (2013)
25043   119909     0.5                  Sharpe's Eagle (1993)

[26744 rows x 3 columns]

Mars uses Parallel Sorting by Regular Sampling (PSRS.)

Improved Index Support

The earlier versions of Mars supported iloc but the latest version also supports other indexing methods.

  • #1042 added support for loc.
  • #1101 added support for at and iat.
  • #1073 added support for the md.date_range method.

By using loc, we can search for index-based data more conveniently.

In [1]: import mars.dataframe as md 
  
In [3]: import mars.tensor as mt

In [8]: df = md.DataFrame(mt.random.rand(10000, 10), index=md.date_range('2000-1-1', periods=10000))                      

In [9]: df.loc['2020-3-25'].execute()                                                                                     
Out[9]: 
0    0.372354
1    0.139235
2    0.511007
3    0.102200
4    0.908454
5    0.144455
6    0.290627
7    0.248334
8    0.912666
9    0.830526
Name: 2020-03-25 00:00:00, dtype: float64

Custom Functions, Strings, and Time Processing

  • #1038 added support for apply.
  • #1063 added support for md.Series.str and md.Series.dt to process strings and time columns.

We can use apply to calculate the distance from each city (dataset) to Hangzhou (120°12' E and 30°16' N).

In [1]: import numpy as np                                                                                                

In [2]: def haversine(lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2): 
   ...:     dlon = np.radians(lon2 - lon1) 
   ...:     dlat = np.radians(lat2 - lat1) 
   ...:     a = np.sin(dlat / 2) ** 2 + np.cos(np.radians(lat1)) * np.cos(np.radians(lat2)) * np.sin(dlon / 2) ** 2 
   ...:     c = 2 * np.arcsin(np.sqrt(a)) 
   ...:     r =  6371 
   ...:     return c * r 
   ...:                                                                                                                   

In [4]: import mars.dataframe as md                                                                                       

In [5]: df = md.read_csv('Downloads/world-cities-database/worldcitiespop.csv', chunk_bytes='16M', dtype={'Region': object}
   ...: )                                                                                                                 

In [6]: df.execute(fetch=False)                                                                                           

In [8]: df.apply(lambda r: haversine(r['Latitude'], r['Longitude'], 30.25, 120.17), result_type='reduce', axis=1).execute()                                                                                                                 
Out[8]: 
0          9789.135208
1          9788.270528
2          9788.270528
3          9788.270528
4          9789.307210
              ...     
248061    10899.720735
248062    11220.703197
248063    10912.645753
248064    11318.038981
248065    11141.080171
Length: 3173958, dtype: float64

Moving Window Functions

  • #1045 added support for rolling moving windows.

Moving Window Functions are used frequently in the financial field. Rolling means to perform some aggregation calculations at a fixed length (or a fixed time interval). The following provides an example:

In [1]: import pandas_datareader.data as web                                                                                                                      

In [2]: data = web.DataReader("^TWII", "yahoo", "2000-01-01","2020-03-25")                                                                                        

In [3]: import mars.dataframe as md                                                                                                                               

In [4]: df = md.DataFrame(data)                                                                                                                                   

In [5]: df.rolling(10, min_periods=1).mean().execute()                                                                                                            
Out[5]: 
                    High           Low          Open         Close     Volume     Adj Close
Date                                                                                       
2000-01-04   8803.610352   8642.500000   8644.910156   8756.549805        0.0   8756.517578
2000-01-05   8835.645020   8655.259766   8667.754883   8803.209961        0.0   8803.177734
2000-01-06   8898.426758   8714.809896   8745.356445   8842.816732        0.0   8842.784180
2000-01-07   8909.012451   8720.964844   8772.374756   8844.580078        0.0   8844.547607
2000-01-10   8952.413867   8755.129883   8806.285742   8896.183984        0.0   8896.151172
...                  ...           ...           ...           ...        ...           ...
2020-03-19  10423.317090  10083.132910  10370.730078  10180.533887  4149640.0  10180.533887
2020-03-20  10202.623047   9833.786914  10105.280078   9971.761914  4366130.0   9971.761914
2020-03-23   9983.399023   9611.036914   9885.659082   9763.000977  3990040.0   9763.000977
2020-03-24   9821.716016   9436.392969   9703.275098   9591.208984  3927690.0   9591.208984
2020-03-25   9685.129980   9290.444922   9543.636035   9466.308984  4003760.0   9466.308984

[4974 rows x 6 columns]

Plans for Upcoming Versions

The next versions of Mars will be V0.4.0rc1 and V0.3.4. We will continue to concentrate on the coverage and performance of DataFrame API, improving stability, and adding documents.

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