This chapter introduced some of the key tools used for data science. In particular, it demonstrated how to download and install the virtual machine for the Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop (CDH), Spark, R, RStudio, and Python. Although the user can download the source code of Hadoop and install it on, say, a Unix system, it is usually fraught with issues and requires a fair amount of debugging. Using a VM instead allows the user to begin using and learning Hadoop with minimal effort as it is a complete preconfigured environment.

Additionally, R and Python are the two most commonly used languages for machine learning and in general, analytics. They are available for all popular operating systems. Although they can be installed in the VM, the user is encouraged to try and install them on their local machines (laptop/workstation) if feasible as it will have relatively higher performance.

In the next chapter, we will dive deeper into the details of Hadoop and its core components and concepts.