Difference between PIG local and mapreduce mode
apache-pig, hadoop, hdfs, mapreduce
Solution
Local mode will build a simulated mapreduce job running off of a local file on disk. In theory equivalent to MapReduce, but it's not a "real" mr job. You shouldn't be able to tell the difference from a user perspective.
Local mode is great for development.
Problem
What is the actual difference between running PIG scripts locally and on mapreduce? I understand mapreduce mode is when you run it on a cluster that has hdfs installed. Does this mean local mode does not need HDFS and so even mapreduce jobs don't get triggered? What is the difference and when do you the other?