When creating a Spark dataframe from a parquet file, what type of operation are you performing?

When creating a Spark dataframe from a parquet file, the operation is best characterized as data ingesting. This is because you are bringing data into your Spark application from an external source, in this case, a parquet file. During this process, Spark reads the structured, columnar data stored in that file format and converts it into a dataframe that you can then manipulate and analyze using Spark’s capabilities.

Data ingesting is crucial in data workflows as it serves as the starting point for further operations such as transformation, cleaning, or analysis. While the subsequent actions following the ingestion could involve transformation or cleaning, the initial act of reading from the parquet file and loading it into memory as a dataframe aligns specifically with data ingesting. This distinction is important for understanding how data pipelines function, emphasizing that receiving or loading data into your processing environment is a foundational step.