Direct Access NFS™ – Mount Apache Hadoop via NFS

MapR Direct Access NFS™ makes Apache Hadoop radically easier and less expensive to use. Unlike the write-once system found in other Hadoop distributions, MapR allows files to be modified, overwritten, and enables multiple concurrent reads and writes on any file.

Users can simply browse files, automatically open associated applications with a mouse click, or drag-and-drop files and directories into and out of the cluster. Additionally, standard command-line tools and UNIX applications and utilities (such as Grep, Tar, Sort, or Tail) can be used directly on data in the cluster. With other Hadoop distributions, the user must copy the data out of the cluster in order to use standard tools.

Other distributions claim that NFS FUSE support provides similar functionality. This is simply not the case, FUSE is limited by the underlying HDFS append only constructs and supports reads but not full NFS writes, FUSE requires the installation of client components and is extremely slow. More information about MapR's NFS support vs FUSE can be accessed in the technical brief.