Hadoop Essentials

HBase Hive integration

Analysts usually prefer a Hive environment due to the comfort of SQL-like syntax. HBase is well integrated with Hive, using the StorageHandler that Hive interfaces with. The create table syntax in Hive will look like the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE hbase_table_1(key int, value string) 
STORED BY 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.hbase.HBaseStorageHandler'
WITH SERDEPROPERTIES ("hbase.columns.mapping" = ":key,ColumnFamily:Column1, columnFalimy:column2")
TBLPROPERTIES ("hbase.table.name" = "xyz");

Let us understand the syntax and the keywords used for the table:

• EXTERNAL: This is used if the table in HBase exists already, or if the table in HBase is new and you want Hive to manage only the metadata and not the actual data.
• STORED BY ...