Working with Apache Avro

Avro is created with a vision to provide a language-independent serialization system. Avro allows us to process and share data with an array of languages like C, C++, C#, Java, Python, Perl, PHP, and Ruby.

The schema of Avro in JSON and are encoded in binary format. A datafile of Avro essentially contains metadata where the schema is stored. The scalability is backed into the Avro system, as the datafile supports compression and can be split based on need. The serialized data is in a compact binary format that doesn't require proxy objects or code generation. Instead of using generated proxy libraries and strong typing, Avro relies on the schemas that are sent, along with the serialized data.

Including schemas with the Avro messages allows any application to deserialize the data. All the major primitive data types are supported. Complex data types such as records, enums, arrays, and maps are also supported. It's optional to generate code in Avro; the data can be written...