Apache HBase - Hbase Tutorial

HBase is an open source, non-relational, distributed database modeled after Google's BigTable and is written in Java. It is developed as part of Apache Software Foundation's Apache Hadoop project and runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System), providing BigTable-like capabilities for Hadoop. That is, it provides a fault-tolerant way of storing large quantities of sparse data (small amounts of information caught within a large collection of empty or unimportant data, such as finding the 50 largest items in a group of 2 billion records, or finding the non-zero items representing less than 0.1% of a huge collection).

HBase features compression, in-memory operation, and Bloom filters on a per-column basis as outlined in the original BigTable paper. Tables in HBase can serve as the input and output for MapReduce jobs run in Hadoop, and may be accessed through the Java API but also through REST, Avro or Thrift gateway APIs. HBase is a column-oriented key-value data store and has been idolized widely because of its lineage with Hadoop and HDFS. HBase runs on top of HDFS and is well-suited for faster read and write operations on large datasets with high throughput and low input/output latency.

HBase is not a direct replacement for a classic SQL database, however Apache Phoenix project provides an SQL layer for HBase as well as JDBC driver that can be integrated with various analytics and business intelligence applications. The Apache Trafodion project provides a SQL query engine with ODBC and JDBC drivers and distributed ACID transaction protection across multiple statements, tables and rows that uses HBase as a storage engine.

HBase is now serving several data-driven websites, including Facebook's Messaging Platform. Unlike relational and traditional databases, HBase does not support SQL scripting; instead the equivalent is written in Java, employing similarity with a MapReduce application.

In the parlance of Eric Brewer’s CAP Theorem, HBase is a CP type system.

History

Apache HBase began as a project by the company Powerset out of a need to process massive amounts of data for the purposes of natural language search. It is now a top-level Apache project.

Facebook elected to implement its new messaging platform using HBase in November 2010.

The 1.2.x series is the current stable release line.

Use cases & production deployments

Enterprises that use HBase

The following is a list of notable enterprises that have used or are using HBase:

• Adobe
• Airbnb uses HBase as part of its AirStream realtime stream computation framework
• Amadeus IT Group, as its main long-term storage DB.
• Kakao
• Facebook uses HBase for its messaging platform.
• Flurry
• Imgur uses HBase to power its notifications system
• LinkedIn
• Netflix
• Rocket Fuel
• Sophos, for some of their back-end systems.
• Spotify uses HBase as base for Hadoop and machine learning jobs.
• Tuenti uses HBase for its messaging platform.
• Sears
• Yahoo!
• Richrelevance