HBase is a key-value store with random CRUD semantics. In its current form, is not designed to be used as a data warehouse, but rather as a low-latency data store for real-time access to small parts of data. If you look to be processing files mainly (whole ranges of them), you may gain more performance with raw MapReduce via Pig/Hive with simple file formats. Consider using HBase only if there is a good need of random access to data as well.
To answer your question though, HBase is a simple, highly scalable data store. It has its own Java APIs for manipulating table data, which languages like Pig and Hive leverage to provide "storage connectors" such that you can use them as a regular SQL table or a data source. There is no hard-connection between the two. To add to Ted's list, Impala from Cloudera (https://github.com/cloudera/impala) supports real-time SQL queries over HBase tables as well, and has improvements lined up for it. There is also Drawn To Scale's Spire (http://drawntoscale.com/why-spire/) thats in the same area as well. On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Ted Yu <yuzhih...@gmail.com> wrote: > Looks like the requirement from your company is that there be SQL interface > to HBase. > You can use Hive on top of HBase but the performance wouldn't be as good as > using (Java) clients directly. Also, that would mean you will be evaluating > two products instead of one. > > Several companies are developing products which provide SQL interface to > HBase. Namely, Phoenix from Salesforce, Panthera from Intel and Wasp from > Taobao. > > This area is quite active at the moment. > > On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 1:58 AM, Manoj Gokhale <mano...@affinity.com> wrote: > >> >> >> Hello, >> >> Sorry about not asking the question correctly. >> >> I am new to HBase is a distributed database and asked to evaluate HBase. >> >> Are Hive / Pig procedural languages for HBase? (with shell as the command >> line utility) >> (Just as oracle has SQL as the query language and PLSQL as its procedural >> language) >> >> Please let me know asap >> >> regds >> Manoj Gokhale >> >> -- >> Thanks and regards, >> Manoj Gokhale >> >> NOTICE: This email and any file transmitted are confidential and/or >> legally privileged and intended only for the person(s) directly addressed. >> If you are not the intended recipient, any use, copying, transmission, >> distribution, or other forms of dissemination is strictly prohibited. If >> you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately >> and permanently delete the email and files, if any. >> >> -- Harsh J
