Are you manually managing clusters? How do you determine the number of nodes needed for a particular job? Can you describe your approach for handling data volume and cluster sizing?

Manual cluster management involves provisioning, configuring, and scaling nodes yourself. To decide how many nodes a job needs, start by profiling the job: run it on a small cluster, capture CPU, memory, and I/O usage, and measure job duration. Estimate the data size and compute the per‑node throughput. Use the formula: required nodes = (total data size × average processing time per record) / (desired job window × per‑node throughput). Factor in fault tolerance (replication factor) and headroom for peak loads. If you have a dynamic workload, consider implementing an autoscaler that watches queue depth or job queue length and scales nodes up or down. For data volume, partition the data to balance load across nodes, and use compression to reduce network traffic. Document the sizing logic so it can be reused for future jobs.