Alluxio is commonly used with Presto and Hive to accelerate queries. Understanding how Presto+Hive+Alluxio work together and the flow from SQL query to low-level file system operations is key to tuning performance. This post will dive into the relationship between Presto, Hive, and Alluxio. We will walk you through how a SQL query executes in Presto and Hive and where Alluxio fits in.  

1. An Overview of the SQL Lifecycle

Before discussing how to integrate with Presto and Alluxio, we need to know about the SQL lifecycle since Alluxio acts on one of the stages in the SQL lifecycle.