Explain the meaning, architecture, and components of HBase

MultiTech
6 min readAug 14, 2020

Hbase is an open-source non-relational database management system written in Java and runs on the top of the HDFS. It’s a data model that scales horizontally and similar to the Big Table design of Google. Moreover, it is built to provide random access to the huge amount of Big data.
The HBase is column-oriented database where the table is a rows collection, and the row is a column family group, and the column family is columns collection and key-pair values. Features of Hbase.more info visit:big data and hadoop online training

The following are the best features of Apache Hbase.
Scalability
In both linear and model based forms, it is highly scalable. In addition to this, we can say it is horizontally scalable.
Consistency
We can use this feature within Hbase for high-speed requirements as it offers
consistent read-write features.
Atomic Read and Write
During single read/write process, all other processes are restricted from
performing any read/write operations. Thus, it offers atomic or high speed read & write, on a row level.
Distributed storage
This feature of this DBMS supports allocated storage system like HDFS.
Data Replication
This also supports data replication/duplication across the clusters.

Sharding
In order to minimize Input/Output time and overhead, HBase offers automatic and manual division of regions into smaller sub-regions, as soon as it reaches a limited size.
HDFS Integration
It also runs on HDFS integration along with upon the top of the HDFS system.
High Availability
Moreover, it offers LAN & WAN networks that support failures and recovery.
Generally, it includes a master server, at the core that handles monitoring the
region servers along with all metadata for the cluster.
Support & sharing loads over failure
HDFS internally distributes and automatically recovers. Moreover, it runs on top of HDFS, hence this is automatically recovered. Also using RegionServer
duplication, this failure is facilitated.
Client API
By using Java API, it provides program access to the various users.
Architecture of HBase
There are three major components of H base architecture. They are HMaster,
Region Server, and Zookeeper. Let us elaborate on these components;
HMaster
The deployment of Master Server within this is HMaster. Within this process, the regions are allocated to the regional server as well as DDL operations. It monitors all Regional Server instances that exist within the cluster. In a scattered ecosystem, the Master server runs numerous threads in the background.

HMaster

The deployment of Master Server within this is HMaster. Within this process, the regions are allocated to the regional server as well as DDL operations. It monitors all Regional Server instances that exist within the cluster. In a scattered ecosystem, the Master server runs numerous threads in the background. HMaster includes different features such as controlling load balancing, failure, etc.
The following important roles HMaster performs within HBase.
 It plays a base role like performance and managing nodes within the
cluster.
 The HMaster provides admin jobs and allocates services to different region
servers.
 Moreover, the HMaster specifies different regions to region servers.
 This includes features such as controlling load balancing and failover to
tackle the load over nodes that exist within the cluster.
 HMaster takes the responsibility of the operations like a client wants to
alter the schema and to change any Metadata operations.
Some of the methods presented by HMaster Interface are majorly Metadata
based methods.
 Table (createTable, deleteTable, enable, disable)
 ColumnFamily (add Column, alter Column)
 Region (move, assign)
Furthermore, the HMaster gets contact with various HRegion Servers and works on the following functions.
 Hosting and managing various regions
 Dividing regions automatically
 Controlling various read-write requests
 Establishing communication with the client directly
Region Server
Many base tables are categorized horizontally by row key range into different
Regions. Moreover, these regions are the basic building elements of HBase cluster that includes the distribution of tables that are comprised of various Column families. Generally, the Region Server runs on HDFS Data Node held within the Hadoop cluster. Various divisions of Region Server are responsible for different things, such as handling, maintaining, executing as well as reading and writing its operations in that place of regions. By default, the existing size of a region is 256 MB.
Zookeeper
The Zookeeper is like a coordinator within this tool that provides services like
maintaining configuration information, naming, server failure notification, etc. Moreover, clients communicate with different region servers through zookeeper.
The Zookeeper is an open-source project, and it also provides different types of important services. The various services provided by Zookeeper are as follows;
 Manages all configuration information/data
 Provides allocated synchronization
 Client Communication initiation with different region servers
 Provides momentary nodes for which constitute various region servers
 Master servers usability of momentary nodes for recognizing available
servers within the cluster
 To track server failure and network separations.
There are other components of Hbase architecture are HBase Regions, HBase
Regions Servers:
HRegions
These are the basic building elements of HBase cluster that includes the allocation of tables and are inclusive of Column families. Moreover, they consist of different stores for each column family. Further, it also includes two main components, such as Memstore and Hfile.

HBase Regions Servers:

Whenever the Region Server gets read-write requests from the client, it allocates the request to a concerned region, where the actual column family exists.
However, the client can communicate with HRegion servers directly. Because
there is no need to take HMaster permission for the client regarding contacting HRegion servers. Moreover, the client requires the help of HMaster whenever operations related to metadata and schema modifications required.
Hbase advantages
The below points are some of the major advantages/benefits of HBase:
 Hbase is great for analytics in relation to Hadoop MapReduce.
 It can deal with huge volumes of data
 Moreover, Hbase supports enhancement in coordination with the Hadoop
file system (HDFS) even on the commodity system.
 Deals with failure tolerance
 License-free/ open-source
 It is very flexible in designing Schema or includes no fixed schema
 It can be unified with Hive for SQL-like queries (HQL), which is better for
DBAs those are well known with SQL queries
 Includes feature of Auto-sharding
 Auto failure recovery
 Provides a very simple client interface
 Moreover, it includes the row-level atomicity where the PUT operation will
either write or fail within the system.
How does Hbase make it easy to use?
The reason behind its ease of use is the storage mechanism. Basically, it is a
segment based database. In addition to this, the tables in it are distributed by
column. Moreover, under the table construction distinguishes the section
families, which are the key-esteem sets. Nonetheless, it is believable that a table includes numerous section families and here every segment family may include any number of segments. In addition to this, here on the plate, results within section consider put away adjoining. Furthermore, each cell estimation of the table includes a timestamp here.
Under HBase, the table suggests the collection of columns. The Line suggests the assembly of section families. Furthermore, the section family suggests the
meeting of segments. The section also suggests to the gathering of key-esteem
sets.
Summing up
Thus, in this article, we reach to the conclusion. The Hbase is a kind of column-based allocated NoSQL database available under the Apache foundation. Moreover, it gives far better performance for getting fewer records rather than Hadoop or Hive. It's also very easy to search for any given input value due it supports indexing, transactions, and updating features. For more learning, go with big data online course.

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