# Overview

The Hadoop MapReduce Documentation provides the information you need to get started writing MapReduce applications. Begin with the MapReduce Tutorial which shows you how to write MapReduce applications using Java. To write MapReduce applications in languages other than Java see Hadoop Streaming, a utility that allows you to create and run jobs with any executable as the mapper or reducer.

MapReduce works in tandem with a cluster environment and a distributed file system. For information about Hadoop clusters (single or multi node) see the Hadoop Common Documentation. For information about the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) see the HDFS Documentation.

If you have more questions, you can ask on the Hadoop MapReduce Mailing Lists or browse the Mailing List Archives.