Apache Arrow Flight SQL: High Performance, Simplicity, and Interoperability for Data Transfers

Network protocols for transferring data generally have one of two problems: they’re slow for large data transfers but have simple APIs (e.g. JDBC) or they’re fast for large data transfers but have complex APIs specific to the system. Apache Arrow Flight addresses the former by providing high performance data transfers and half of the latter by having a standard API independent of systems. However, while the Arrow Flight API is performant and an open standard, it can be more complex to use than simpler APIs like JDBC.

Arrow Flight SQL rounds out the solution, providing both great performance and a simple universal API.

In this talk, we’ll show the performance benefits of Arrow Flight, the client difference between interacting with Arrow Flight and Arrow Flight SQL, and an overview of a JDBC driver built on Arrow Flight SQL, enabling clients to take advantage of this increased performance with zero application changes.