Comparison of local versus EMR Hadoop

After our first experience of both a local Hadoop cluster and its equivalent in EMR, this is a good point at which we can consider the differences of the two approaches.

As may be apparent, the key differences are not really about capability; if all we want is an environment to run MapReduce jobs, either approach is completely suited. Instead, the distinguishing characteristics revolve around a topic we touched on in Chapter 1, What It's All About, that being whether you prefer a cost model that involves upfront infrastructure costs and ongoing maintenance effort over one with a pay-as-you-go model with a lower maintenance burden along with rapid and conceptually infinite scalability. Other than the cost decisions, there are a few things to keep in mind: