HBase

HBase SQL Connector #

Scan Source: Bounded Lookup Source: Sync Mode Sink: Batch Sink: Streaming Upsert Mode

The HBase connector allows for reading from and writing to an HBase cluster. This document describes how to setup the HBase Connector to run SQL queries against HBase.

HBase always works in upsert mode for exchange changelog messages with the external system using a primary key defined on the DDL. The primary key must be defined on the HBase rowkey field (rowkey field must be declared). If the PRIMARY KEY clause is not declared, the HBase connector will take rowkey as the primary key by default.

Dependencies #

In order to use the HBase connector the following dependencies are required for both projects using a build automation tool (such as Maven or SBT) and SQL Client with SQL JAR bundles.

HBase version Maven dependency SQL Client JAR
1.4.x Download
2.2.x Download

The HBase connector is not part of the binary distribution. See how to link with it for cluster execution here.

How to use HBase table #

All the column families in HBase table must be declared as ROW type, the field name maps to the column family name, and the nested field names map to the column qualifier names. There is no need to declare all the families and qualifiers in the schema, users can declare what’s used in the query. Except the ROW type fields, the single atomic type field (e.g. STRING, BIGINT) will be recognized as HBase rowkey. The rowkey field can be arbitrary name, but should be quoted using backticks if it is a reserved keyword.

-- register the HBase table 'mytable' in Flink SQL
CREATE TABLE hTable (
 rowkey INT,
 family1 ROW<q1 INT>,
 family2 ROW<q2 STRING, q3 BIGINT>,
 family3 ROW<q4 DOUBLE, q5 BOOLEAN, q6 STRING>,
 PRIMARY KEY (rowkey) NOT ENFORCED
) WITH (
 'connector' = 'hbase-1.4',
 'table-name' = 'mytable',
 'zookeeper.quorum' = 'localhost:2181'
);

-- use ROW(...) construction function construct column families and write data into the HBase table.
-- assuming the schema of "T" is [rowkey, f1q1, f2q2, f2q3, f3q4, f3q5, f3q6]
INSERT INTO hTable
SELECT rowkey, ROW(f1q1), ROW(f2q2, f2q3), ROW(f3q4, f3q5, f3q6) FROM T;

-- scan data from the HBase table
SELECT rowkey, family1, family3.q4, family3.q6 FROM hTable;

-- temporal join the HBase table as a dimension table
SELECT * FROM myTopic
LEFT JOIN hTable FOR SYSTEM_TIME AS OF myTopic.proctime
ON myTopic.key = hTable.rowkey;

Connector Options #

Option Required Forwarded Default Type Description
connector
required no (none) String Specify what connector to use, valid values are:
  • hbase-1.4: connect to HBase 1.4.x cluster
  • hbase-2.2: connect to HBase 2.2.x cluster
table-name
required yes (none) String The name of HBase table to connect. By default, the table is in 'default' namespace. To assign the table a specified namespace you need to use 'namespace:table'.
zookeeper.quorum
required yes (none) String The HBase Zookeeper quorum.
zookeeper.znode.parent
optional yes /hbase String The root dir in Zookeeper for HBase cluster.
null-string-literal
optional yes null String Representation for null values for string fields. HBase source and sink encodes/decodes empty bytes as null values for all types except string type.
sink.buffer-flush.max-size
optional yes 2mb MemorySize Writing option, maximum size in memory of buffered rows for each writing request. This can improve performance for writing data to HBase database, but may increase the latency. Can be set to '0' to disable it.
sink.buffer-flush.max-rows
optional yes 1000 Integer Writing option, maximum number of rows to buffer for each writing request. This can improve performance for writing data to HBase database, but may increase the latency. Can be set to '0' to disable it.
sink.buffer-flush.interval
optional yes 1s Duration Writing option, the interval to flush any buffered rows. This can improve performance for writing data to HBase database, but may increase the latency. Can be set to '0' to disable it. Note, both 'sink.buffer-flush.max-size' and 'sink.buffer-flush.max-rows' can be set to '0' with the flush interval set allowing for complete async processing of buffered actions.
sink.parallelism
optional no (none) Integer Defines the parallelism of the HBase sink operator. By default, the parallelism is determined by the framework using the same parallelism of the upstream chained operator.
lookup.async
optional no false Boolean Whether async lookup are enabled. If true, the lookup will be async. Note, async only supports hbase-2.2 connector.
lookup.cache
optional yes NONE

Enum

Possible values: NONE, PARTIAL
The cache strategy for the lookup table. Currently supports NONE (no caching) and PARTIAL (caching entries on lookup operation in external database).
lookup.partial-cache.max-rows
optional yes (none) Long The max number of rows of lookup cache, over this value, the oldest rows will be expired. "lookup.cache" must be set to "PARTIAL" to use this option.
lookup.partial-cache.expire-after-write
optional yes (none) Duration The max time to live for each rows in lookup cache after writing into the cache "lookup.cache" must be set to "PARTIAL" to use this option.
lookup.partial-cache.expire-after-access
optional yes (none) Duration The max time to live for each rows in lookup cache after accessing the entry in the cache. "lookup.cache" must be set to "PARTIAL" to use this option.
lookup.partial-cache.cache-missing-key
optional yes true Boolean Whether to store an empty value into the cache if the lookup key doesn't match any rows in the table. "lookup.cache" must be set to "PARTIAL" to use this option.
lookup.max-retries
optional yes 3 Integer The max retry times if lookup database failed.
properties.*
optional no (none) String This can set and pass arbitrary HBase configurations. Suffix names must match the configuration key defined in HBase Configuration documentation. Flink will remove the "properties." key prefix and pass the transformed key and values to the underlying HBaseClient. For example, you can add a kerberos authentication parameter 'properties.hbase.security.authentication' = 'kerberos'.

Deprecated Options #

These deprecated options has been replaced by new options listed above and will be removed eventually. Please consider using new options first.

Option Required Forwarded Default Type Description
lookup.cache.max-rows
optional yes (none) Integer Please set "lookup.cache" = "PARTIAL" and use "lookup.partial-cache.max-rows" instead.
lookup.cache.ttl
optional yes (none) Duration Please set "lookup.cache" = "PARTIAL" and use "lookup.partial-cache.expire-after-write" instead.

Data Type Mapping #

HBase stores all data as byte arrays. The data needs to be serialized and deserialized during read and write operation

When serializing and de-serializing, Flink HBase connector uses utility class org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.Bytes provided by HBase (Hadoop) to convert Flink Data Types to and from byte arrays.

Flink HBase connector encodes null values to empty bytes, and decode empty bytes to null values for all data types except string type. For string type, the null literal is determined by null-string-literal option.

The data type mappings are as follows:

Flink SQL type HBase conversion
CHAR / VARCHAR / STRING
byte[] toBytes(String s)
String toString(byte[] b)
BOOLEAN
byte[] toBytes(boolean b)
boolean toBoolean(byte[] b)
BINARY / VARBINARY Returns byte[] as is.
DECIMAL
byte[] toBytes(BigDecimal v)
BigDecimal toBigDecimal(byte[] b)
TINYINT
new byte[] { val }
bytes[0] // returns first and only byte from bytes
SMALLINT
byte[] toBytes(short val)
short toShort(byte[] bytes)
INT
byte[] toBytes(int val)
int toInt(byte[] bytes)
BIGINT
byte[] toBytes(long val)
long toLong(byte[] bytes)
FLOAT
byte[] toBytes(float val)
float toFloat(byte[] bytes)
DOUBLE
byte[] toBytes(double val)
double toDouble(byte[] bytes)
DATE Stores the number of days since epoch as int value.
TIME Stores the number of milliseconds of the day as int value.
TIMESTAMP Stores the milliseconds since epoch as long value.
ARRAY Not supported
MAP / MULTISET Not supported
ROW Not supported

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