github.com/pachyderm/pachyderm@v1.13.4/doc/docs/1.9.x/concepts/pipeline-concepts/datum/index.rst (about) 1 .. _datum: 2 3 Datum 4 ===== 5 6 A datum is the smallest indivisible unit of computation within a job. 7 A job can have one, many, or no datums. Each datum is processed 8 independently with a single execution of the user codei, and 9 then the results of all the datums are merged together to 10 create the final output commit. 11 12 The number of datums for a job is defined by the `glob pattern 13 <glob-pattern.html>`__ which you specify for each input. Think of 14 datums as if you were telling Pachyderm how to divide your 15 input data to efficiently distribute computation and 16 only process the *new* data. You can configure a whole 17 input repository to be one datum, each top-level filesystem object 18 to be a separate datum, specific paths can be datums, 19 and so on. Datums affect how Pachyderm distributes processing workloads 20 and are instrumental in optimizing your configuration for best performance. 21 22 Pachyderm takes each datum and processes it in isolation on one of 23 the pipeline worker nodes. You can define datums, workers, and other 24 performance parameters through the 25 corresponding fields in the `pipeline specification <../../../reference/pipeline-spec.html>`__. 26 27 To understand how datums affect data processing in Pachyderm, you need to 28 understand the following subconcepts: 29 30 .. toctree:: 31 :maxdepth: 1 32 33 glob-pattern.md 34 relationship-between-datums.md 35 cross-union.md