I am following up here on one part of the original question, regarding the Apache Sqoop project being retired, just for the record (which is to say for the benefit of people who might arrive at this thread via search engine at some point in the near-to-medium term future).   I still stand behind what I previously wrote about the relative strengths/weaknesses of using these two tools to extract data from SQL server and ingesting it to hdfs, but I do want to clarify that while Sqoop was moved to the Apache Attic in June 2021, the software will continue to be supported by Cloudera and shipped as part of CDP Public Cloud and CDP Private Cloud.   See Cloudera's statement of support on this matter here: Apache Sqoop Support on Cloudera Data Platform     ... View more