1. HBase Cross-site BigTable
Security Features
in Apache HBase –
An Operator’s
Guide
Cross-Site Big Table using HBase
Anoop Sam John, Du Jingcheng, Ramkrishna S. Vasudevan
Big Data US Research And Development, Intel

2. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Motivation

3. Motivation
• Growing demands for storing the data across geographically
distributed data centers.
– Data and data pattern is similar across data centers.
– But the data is private to each of the data center.
• Improve the data availability and disaster recovery.
• An easy way to access these distributed data.
• Manage the hierarchy relationship between data centers. (Grouping of
data centers)

4. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Use Case

5. Intelligent Transportation System
• Monitors traffic movements, traffic patterns etc. in every city.
• Data in every data center is private and holds traffic pattern of that city
• Hierarchy of departments - National Transportation Department/State
Transportation Department/City Transportation Department
• National/State Transportation Department – Virtual node
• Helps to aggregate results/statistics over all the data centers.
• Easy access and single point of view of all the data centers.

6. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Agenda

7. Agenda
• Goals of CSBT[1]
• Architecture of CSBT
– Highly Available Global Zookeeper Quorum
– Cross-Site Metadata in Global Zookeeper
– Cluster Locator
– Hierarchy
• Admin Operations on CSBT
• Read/Write operations on CrossSiteHTable
• Data Replication and FailOver
• Future Improvements
[1] – CSBT refers to Cross-Site Big Table

8. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Goals

9. Goals
• A global view for tables across different data centers.
• Define and manage the hierarchy relationship between data centers
and data.
• High availability
• Locality – In terms of geography
– Each data center holds its own data.

10. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Architecture

11. Architecture
CSBTCSBT

12. Architecture
• An across data center dedicated, distributed zookeeper quorum –
Global Zookeeper
• Table partitioning
– Each data center holds a specific partition of the table
– Every partition of the Cross-site HTable is an HTable itself, bearing a
table name “<tableName>_<clustername>”
– The partitioning rule is set by user at table creation time using
Cluster Locators.
• Supports all admin and table operations as supported on the HTable.
Apache ZooKeeper is a centralized service for maintaining configuration information, naming, providing distributed synchronization, and providing group services (Source :
http://zookeeper.apache.org/)

13. Architecture
• Data center relationship
– Allows each data center to configure its peer data center (for
replication and failover in read)
• Peers for a cluster could be nodes in another cluster also.
• Master-Master, Master-slave replication etc.
– Uses Asynchronous Replication of Apache HBase
• Asynchronously writes the WAL entries to the configured peers
– Could define hierarchy for the data centers

14. Highly Available Global Zookeeper Quorum
• Dedicated Zookeeper cluster.
• Split the Zookeeper quorum across data centers.
• Recommended not to use the zookeeper cluster used by the individualHBase setups.
• Leverage the Zookeeper Observer
– Do not impact the Zookeeper write performance
– Configure in such a way that ‘reads’ are served locally
– Configure the Zookeeper quorum as
<local observers>,<leader/followers>,<observers in other DCs>
Observers are non-voting members of an ensemble which only hear the results of votes
Observers may be used to talk to an Apache ZooKeeper server from another data center
Clients of the Observer will see fast reads, as all reads are served locally, and writes result in minimal network traffic as the number of messages required in the absence of
the vote protocol is smaller (Source : http://zookeeper.apache.org/)

15. Cross-Site Metadata in Global Zookeeper
CrossSite
clusters
tables
address
hierarchy
state
splitkeys
desc
proposed_desc
peerscluster1
cluster2
cluster3
table1
table2
table3
locator

16. Cluster Locator
• Sets data partition logic/rule.
• Helps to locate a specific cluster based on the row key.
• Users are allowed to create their own cluster locators
– PrefixClusterLocator – <clustername>,<row>
where “,” is the delimiter
– SuffixClusterLocator – <row>,<xxx>,<yyy>,<clustername>
where “,” is the delimiter and cluster name is always the string that
appears after the occurrence of the last delimiter.
• Note that its up to the user to specify the cluster name in the row key while
doing ‘puts’ based on the cluster locator configured while table creation.

17. Hierarchy

18. Hierarchy
• Could define the parent-child relationship for clusters
• The node in the hierarchy could be either a physical cluster, or a virtual
one. A virtual node may represent a logical grouping of a set of
physical clusters
• The hierarchy is used while ‘scan’ing
– If a parent node is specified, all its descendants are also counted

19. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Admin operations on Cross-site BigTable

20. Admin Operations
• Operation performed using CrossSiteHBaseAdmin
• Extends HBaseAdmin.

21. Create Peers
• Specifying peers creates the
peers under the ‘peers’ node
• Address of each peer is written
as data in the peer znodes
peers cluster2
cluster3
cluster4
cluster1

22. Create Table
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Peer1
Table:
T1_a01
(backup)
CSBTAdmin Global ZK
Cluster a01->Peer1
Cluster a02->Peer2
Peer2
Table:
T1_a02
(backup)
1. Create the table znode in
ZK
4. Writes the table related data in
table’s znode and updates the state
in zk
2. Create tables in clusters
3. Create table in peers if any

23. Disable Table
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Peer1
Table:
T1_a01
(backup)
CSBTAdmin Global ZK
Cluster a01->Peer1
Cluster a02->Peer2
Peer2
Table:
T1_a02
(backup)
1. Update the state to
DISABLING
3. Update the state to
DISABLED
2. Disable tables in clusters
• Do NOT disable the tables in the peers - As it is asynchronous replication, disabling peer may stop
the entire replication. There may be some unfinished WALs from getting replicated

24. Enable Table
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Peer1
Table:
T1_a01
(backup)
CSBTAdmin Global ZK
Cluster a01->Peer1
Cluster a02->Peer2
Peer2
Table:
T1_a02
(backup)
1. Update the state to
ENABLING
4. Update the state to
ENABLED
2. Enable tables in clusters
3. Handle TableNotDisabledException
as Peers already ENABLED

25. Alter Schema
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Peer1
Table:
T1_a01
(backup)
CSBTAdmin Global ZK
Cluster a01->Peer1
Cluster a02->Peer2
Peer2
Table:
T1_a02
(backup)
1. Write the new HTD to PROPOSED_DESC
znode
3. Update the table’s HTD znode
4. Update table state to DISABLED
5. Delete the PROPOSED_DESC
znode
3. Alter schema in clusters
4. Add/Modify column in peers by
DISABLING. ENABLE after completion. If
table not present create the table with the
new HTD.
2. Update the state to MODIFYING/ADDING xxx
state

26. Delete Table
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Peer1
Table:
T1_a01
(backup)
CSBTAdmin Global ZK
Cluster a01->Peer1
Cluster a02->Peer2
Peer2
Table:
T1_a02
(backup)
1. Update the state to
DELETING
4. Remove the table from the zk
2. Delete tables in clusters
3. Disable and Delete the tables from the
peer

27. Failure handling
• Failures are handled for the create/enable/disable/delete table by
using ZK states. Any failure the entire operation has to be retried.
• A tool that helps to deduce and auto-correct inconsistencies in the
CSBT cluster in terms of table state.

28. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Read/Write operations on CrossSiteHTable

29. Operations using CrossSiteHTable
• Operations like put/get/scan/delete performed using CrossSiteHTable
• Extends HTable

30. Get/Put/Delete
• Get/Put/Delete “a01, row1” from table T1
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
CSBTHTable
Global ZK
1. retrieve cluster locator for
table “T1”(cached)
2. map “a01,row1” to cluster “a01”
3. find address for cluster
“a01” (cached)
4. do get/put/delete(“a01,row1”)
on table “T1_a01” from cluster
“a01”

31. Scan with Start/Stop row
• New scan APIs added where cluster names could be passed while creating scans
• Scan from table T1 [ start – “row1”, end – “row6” ] , clusters-[cluster a01, cluster a02]
Cluster a01
Table:
T1_a01
CSBTHTable
Global ZK
1. retrieve cluster info for
table “T1”(cached)
2. find address for cluster
“a01” and “a02” (cached)
3. scan from(“a01,row1”) to
(“a01,row6) on table “T1_a01”
from cluster “a01”
4. scan from(“a02,row1”) to
(“a02,row6) on table “T1_a02”
from cluster “a02”
Cluster a02
Table:
T1_a02
Cluster a03
Table:
T1_a03

32. Scan with Hierarchy
Scan from table T1 [ start – “row1”, end – “row6” ] , clusters-
[California]
California – virtual node
SFO, LA, San Diego – physical nodes

33. Scan
• Uses a merge sort iterator to merge the results from different clusters
Client
Merge(sort) Iterator
Cluster A Cluster B Cluster Zall clusters …

34. Operations on CSBT
• The admin operations have shell and thrift support.
• Also supports MapReduce for operations on CrossSiteBigTable.

35. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Data Replication and FailOver

36. Data Center Relationship
• Allows data centers to add peers
• Apache HBase replication
– Asynchronous data replication
– Customized replication sink for CSBT
• Read-only failover
– Automatically redirects the read to the peer center
• Existing data not getting replicated for dynamic peer addition.

37. Data Replication
Cluster “a01”
Table:
T1_a01
Table:
T1_a02’
(backup)
Cluster “a02”
Table:
T1_a03’
(backup)
Table:
T1_a02
Cluster “a03”
Table:
T1_a01’
(backup)
Table:
T1_a03
CSBTHTable
replicate
replicate
replicate
put
put
put

38. Read-only Failover
Cluster “a01”
Table:
T1_a01
Table:
T1_a02’
(backup)
Cluster “a02”
Table:
T1_a03’
(backup)
Table:
T1_a02
Cluster “a03”
Table:
T1_a01’
(backup)
Table:
T1_a03
CSBTHTable
failover to
backup DC
get/scan

39. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Future improvements

40. Future improvements
• Security – CSBT security and how user/group authentications interact
• MR improvement
• Full fledged CSBT HBCK.
Currently the MR tasks runs in one cluster and all the result computation happens in one cluster.
We could improve this by dispatching the task to each cluster and then collect the results from them.

41. Partitioning Rule
• A rule to parse row keys, help to map records to
different clusters. ClusterLocator provides this facility
which is recorded in the central ZK
– PrefixClusterLocator
– SuffixClusterLocator
– …
• An example of PrefixClusterLocator
– If a row key is “clusterA,rowKey1”, then this record belongs
to clusterA
Q & A