Loading data

Comma-separated values (CSV) are the most widely used format for tabular data in machine learning applications. As the name suggests, it stores data arranged in the form of rows, separated by commas or tabs.

This section covers information about loading data specifically for machine learning and deep learning applications. Although we can consider these concepts covered in the previous chapters and sections, we will reinforce concepts around how we can read tabular data directly into Azure Databricks and which are the best practices to do this.

Reading data from DBFS

When training machine learning algorithms in a distributed computing environment such as Azure Databricks, the need to have shared storage becomes important, especially when working with distributed deep learning applications. Azure Databricks File System (DBFS) allows efficient access to data for any cluster using Spark and local file application programming interfaces (APIs):

In Azure Databricks...