* Loading data from a variety of structured sources
* Querying data using SQL statements, both inside a Spark program and from external tools that connect to Spark SQL through standard database connectors (JDBC/ODBC), e.g., using Business Intelligence tools like Tableau
* Providing rich integration between SQL and the regular Python/Java/Scala code, including the ability to join RDDs and SQL tables, expose custom functions in SQL, and more.
