def sql_context(self, application_name):
        """Create a spark context given the parameters configured in this class.

        The caller is responsible for calling ``.close`` on the resulting spark context

        Parameters
        ----------
        application_name : string

        Returns
        -------
        sc : SparkContext
        """
        sc = self.spark_context(application_name)
        import pyspark
        sqlContext = pyspark.SQLContext(sc)
        return (sc, sqlContext)