Apache Ambari

What is Apache Ambari ?

Apache Ambari is a web-based tool for provisioning, managing, and monitoring Apache Hadoop clusters. Ambari provides a dashboard for viewing cluster health such as heatmaps and ability to view MapReduce, Pig and Hive applications visually along with features to diagnose their performance characteristics in a user-friendly manner. It has a very simple and interactive UI to install various tools and perform various management, configuring and monitoring tasks. 
Apache Ambari, as part of the Hortonworks Data Platform, allows enterprises to plan, install and securely configure Hadoop making it easier to provide ongoing cluster maintenance and management, no matter the size of the cluster.

Ambari's Extensibility Features 

- Ambari Stacks
- Ambari Blueprints
- Ambari Views 

What Ambari Does?

Ambari makes Hadoop management simpler by providing a consistent, secure platform for operational control. Ambari provides an intuitive Web UI as well as a robust REST API, which is particularly useful for automating cluster operations. With Ambari, Hadoop operators get the following core benefits:

• Simplified Installation, Configuration and Management. Easily and efficiently create, manage and monitor clusters at scale. Takes the guesswork out of configuration with Smart Configs and Cluster Recommendations.  Enables repeatable, automated cluster creation with Ambari Blueprints.
• Centralized Security Setup. Reduce the complexity to administer and configure cluster security across the entire platform. Helps automate the setup and configuration of advanced cluster security capabilities such as Kerberos and Apache Ranger.
• Full Visibility into Cluster Health. Ensure your cluster is healthy and available with a holistic approach to monitoring. Configures predefined alerts — based on operational best practices — for cluster monitoring. Captures and visualizes critical operational metrics — using Grafana — for analysis and troubleshooting. Integrated with Hortonworks SmartSense for proactive issue prevention and resolution.
• Highly Extensible and Customizable. Fit Hadoop seamlessly into your enterprise environment. Highly extensible with Ambari Stacks for bringing custom services under management, and with Ambari Views for customizing the Ambari Web UI.

Ambari have two components

1. Ambari server – This is the master process which communicates with Ambari agents installed on each node participating in the cluster. This has postgres database instance which is used to maintain all cluster related metadata.
2. Ambari Agent – These are acting agents for Ambari on each node. Each agent periodically sends his own health status along with different metrics, installed services status and many more things. According master decides on next action and conveys back to the agent to act.

Ambari System Architecture

Ambari Server Architecture