Amazon EMR Serverless adds interactive workloads via Spark Connect
Amazon EMR Serverless now supports interactive sessions using Spark Connect, allowing developers to run Spark applications from local environments like SageMaker, Jupyter, and VS Code. This enhances productivity by enabling ad hoc exploration, iterative debugging, and incremental development by decoupling the client from the Spark driver. The feature is available on EMR release 7.13 in all EMR Serverless regions.
- →Interactive Spark sessions with Spark Connect on EMR Serverless
- →Improved debugging and development workflows
- →Enhanced observability for interactive sessions
- →Availability and getting started
Features (1) ›
- Interactive Spark sessions with Spark Connect on EMR Serverless
EMR Serverless now supports interactive sessions via Spark Connect, enabling development and execution of Spark applications from environments like Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio, Jupyter, and VS Code. This feature allows for blending local Python code with remote Spark operations within a persistent Spark context.
Enhancements (2) ›
- Improved debugging and development workflows
The client-server architecture of Spark Connect decouples the application client from the Spark driver, supporting workflows such as ad hoc data exploration, step-by-step debugging, and incremental PySpark job development before production deployment.
- Enhanced observability for interactive sessions
Users can monitor active and completed sessions in the EMR console, access real-time session monitoring via the Spark UI, and track history through the Spark History Server. Granular cost and usage visibility for individual sessions is also provided.
Notes (1) ›
- Availability and getting started
Spark Connect on EMR Serverless is available with EMR release 7.13 in all AWS Regions where EMR Serverless is offered. The SageMaker Unified Studio experience is available in supported regions. Documentation is available for EMR Serverless Interactive Sessions and Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/05/amazon-emr-serverless-spark-connect