HBase is an open-source non-relational

distributed database A distributed database is a database in which data is stored across different physical locations. It may be stored in multiple computers located in the same physical location (e.g. a data centre); or maybe dispersed over a computer network, netwo ...

modeled after Google's Bigtable and written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. It is developed as part of Apache Software Foundation's Apache Hadoop project and runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) or Alluxio, 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 wide-column store and has been widely adopted because of its lineage with Hadoop and HDFS. HBase runs on top of HDFS and is well-suited for fast 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 In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

, however Apache Phoenix project provides a SQL layer for HBase as well as

JDBC Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the Java (programming language), Java programming language which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java ...

driver that can be integrated with various

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sc ...

and

business intelligence Business intelligence (BI) consists of strategies, methodologies, and technologies used by enterprises for data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of BI technologies include Financial reporting, reporting, online an ...

applications. The Apache Trafodion project provides a SQL query engine with

ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...

and

drivers and distributed ACID transaction protection across multiple statements, tables and rows that use HBase as a storage engine. HBase is now serving several data-driven websites but

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

's Messaging Platform migrated from HBase to MyRocks in 2018.Facebook: Why our 'next-gen' comms ditched MySQL
Retrieved: 17 December 2010 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 In database theory, the CAP theorem, also named Brewer's theorem after computer scientist Eric Brewer (scientist), Eric Brewer, states that any distributed data store can provide at most Inconsistent triad, two of the following three guarantees: ; ...

, 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. Since 2010 it is a top-level Apache project.

elected to implement its new messaging platform using HBase in November 2010, but migrated away from HBase in 2018. The 2.4.x series is the current stable release line, it supersedes earlier release lines.

Use cases & production deployments

Enterprises that use HBase

The following is a list of notable enterprises that have used or are using HBase: * 23andMe * Adobe * Airbnb uses HBase as part of its AirStream realtime stream computation framework * Alibaba Group * Amadeus IT Group, as its main long-term storage DB. *

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

, for time series data storage *

used HBase for its messaging platform between 2010 and 2018 * Flipkart uses HBase for its search index and user insights. * Flurry * HubSpot * Imgur uses HBase to power its notifications system *

Kakao Kakao Corporation () is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Jeju City. It was formed through the merger of Daum Communications and the original Kakao Inc. in 2010. The company was renamed Daum Kakao in 2014. In 2015, it was ...

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

* Pinterest * Quicken Loans * Rocket Fuel * Salesforce.com * Sears * Sophos, for some of their back-end systems. *

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

uses HBase as base for Hadoop and machine learning jobs. *

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

* Tuenti uses HBase for its messaging platform. * Xiaomi *

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

References

Bibliography

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External links