Parquet was developed to provide the benefits of efficient, compressed columnar data representation to all projects within the Hadoop ecosystem. Designed with a focus on accommodating complex nested data structures, Parquet employs the record shredding and assembly technique outlined in the Dremel paper, which we consider to be a more effective strategy than merely flattening nested namespaces. This format supports highly efficient compression and encoding methods, and various projects have shown the significant performance improvements that arise from utilizing appropriate compression and encoding strategies for their datasets. Furthermore, Parquet enables the specification of compression schemes at the column level, ensuring its adaptability for future developments in encoding technologies. It is crafted to be accessible for any user, as the Hadoop ecosystem comprises a diverse range of data processing frameworks, and we aim to remain neutral in our support for these different initiatives. Ultimately, our goal is to empower users with a flexible and robust tool that enhances their data management capabilities across various applications.