New features and improvements in the upcoming Apache HBase 0.98 release.

1. Apache HBase 0.98
Andrew Purtell
Committer, Apache HBase, Apache Software Foundation
Big Data US Research And Development, Intel

2. Who am I?
• Committer on the Apache HBase project
• Member of the Big Data Research And Development
Group at Intel
• Release manager for Apache HBase 0.98

3. What’s In Apache HBase 0.98?
• 212 resolved JIRAs
• New features
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Reverse scans (HBASE-4811)
EXEC access checks for Endpoints (HBASE-6104)
Transparent server side encryption (HBASE-7544)
Per-cell ACLs (HBASE-7662)
Visibility labels (HBASE-7663)
Stripe compactions (HBASE-7667)
MapReduce over snapshots (HBASE-8369)
REST streaming scans (HBASE-9343)
• Performance improvements
– Improved WAL write threading model (HBASE-8755)
• API cleanups and many bug fixes

4. Branch Release Criteria
• Wire compatibility with HBase 0.96
– Mixed client↔server and server↔server operation with 0.96
possible as long as no 0.98 specific features enabled
• Compatible with earlier on-disk data formats
• Direct upgrade possible from 0.94 → 0.98 using the
same offline data migration procedure necessary for
0.94 → 0.96
• No significant performance regression from 0.96 using
defaults
• Binary API compatibility with versions < 0.98 not
guaranteed, code that directly references HBase JARs
may need to be recompiled

5. Reverse Scans (HBASE-4811)
• Introduces a new internal scanner type that seeks to
the end of a range and then steps backwards
• No longer necessary to maintain tables of keys in
reverse sort order for scanning
• Exposed at the client with a new Scan method
Scan#setReversed(boolean reversed)
• A few % slower than forward scanning in CPU bound
tests (server side, filters)

6. Endpoint EXEC Grants (HBASE-6104)
• HBase ACLs can grant a familiar set of privileges to
users (and groups):
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(R)ead
(W)rite
E(X)excute
(C)reate
(A)dmin
• AccessController versions prior to 0.98 ignored X
• Now access to coprocessor Endpoint invocations can
be controlled on a global, per-table, or per-CF basis
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Enable the AccessController
Set hbase.security.exec.permission.checks to “true”
Grant or revoke permissions as appropriate
Deploy the coprocessor application

7. Cell Tags
• All values written to HBase are stored into cells
– Cell is used interchangeably with “key-value” or “KeyValue” for
legacy reasons
• Cells can now also carry an arbitrary number of tags
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Metadata, considered distinct from the key and the value
Optional dictionary compression for tags in HFiles and WALs
Only available server side
Coprocessors can manage their own user defined tags

8. HFile Version 3
• HFile version 2 plus
– The ability to persist cell tags
– Support for optional file block encryption
• Enabled via a site file change
– hfile.format.version -> 3
• Once enabled, all data is transparently migrated over
time as new files are written by flushes and
compactions
• Required for:
– Transparent Encryption (HBASE-7544)
– Per-cell ACLs (HBASE-7662)
– Visibility labels (HBASE-7663)
• Considered experimental, but proven stable under load

9. Transparent Encryption (HBASE-7544)
• Introduces a new generic cryptographic codec and key
management framework into hbase-common
• Provides transparent encryption of HBase on disk data
– Optional per-file HFile block encryption (requires HFile v3)
– Optional secure WAL reader and writer
• Provides simple key management
– Flexible and non-intrusive key rotation
– Two-tier key architecture for consistency with best practices
– Key provider supports secure local key storage or any network
or hardware key storage with Java KeyStore support
• Shell support

10. Transparent Encryption (HBASE-7544)

11. Per-Cell ACLs (HBASE-7662)
• Extends the AccessController with support for
persisting and checking ACL data in cell tags
• Uses existing API facilities to transmit per cell ACLs
• Backward
compatible
with existing installs and
code
• We treat ACLs on a cell
as scoped only to the
cell for straightforward
policy evolution
• All mutations must have
covering permission in a
dominating grant

12. Visibility Labels (HBASE-7663)
• Introduces a new VisibilityController coprocessor
• Introduces per-cell visibility expressions, client API
extensions for setting visibility and authorizations, and new
shell commands for label management
• The maximal set of labels for a user is defined with the new
shell command ‘setauths’ or equivalent admin API
• Users specify visibility expressions on cells
• Users submit authorizations on Gets and Scans
• The effective label set for the request is built in the RPC
context from authorizations; those not in the maximal set
are dropped
– How this is done is pluggable, e.g. integration with enterprise
identity management solutions
• Scan results are filtered with (label) set membership tests

13. Visibility Labels (HBASE-7663)
• Visibility expressions
– Labels:
arbitrary
strings
(converted into ordinals with an
internal dictionary)
– Expressions: Labels joined in
boolean expressions
– Operators: &, |, !
– Parenthesis for precedence
secret
secret | topsecret
( secret | topsecret ) & !probationary

14. Improved WAL Write Throughput (HBASE-8755)
• Introduces a new threading model for WAL writes that
reduces lock contention
• Provides better write throughput when under load
– A ~15% improvement in write ops/sec at high write
concurrency
• Lays groundwork for multiple WALs
– Will provide further write throughput increase
– Also important for limiting the impact of encrypting WAL
entries

15. Stripe Compactions (HBASE-7667)
• Stripe compactions split the data inside the region by
row key and create sub-ranges of data
• The sub-ranges are compacted independently
• Depending on ingest and access patterns, using stripe
compactions can reduce read latency variability and
reduce compaction data volume (write amplification)
• Two use cases in particular may benefit
1. Approximately uniform keys and large regions
2. Non-uniform data with sequential row keys (e.g. log data)
• Can be complex to configure and tune, consult the
documentation for detail

16. MapReduce Over Snapshots (HBASE-8369)
• Introduces MapReduce utilities supporting MR jobs
over snapshots of table data
• Similar to TableInputFormat but instead of running over
an online table using the HBase API it runs directly
over HFiles on disk collected from a table snapshot.
• For performance-dominant use cases where the
HBase API cannot provide sufficient throughput
– Can increase throughput of bulk scanning ~5x by streaming
HDFS reads directly to the client
• Caveat: Not recommended from a security perspective
– Built in access control is completely bypassed
– It is a risk to open direct access to HFile data in HDFS

17. REST Streaming Scans (HBASE-9343)
• The REST gateway provides stateful scanners to be
consistent with the HBase API but this is not REST-ful
– Scanner state is not shared across multiple gateways
– Scanner state will be lost if the gateway fails
• Introduces a new scanning mode to the REST API for
stateless scanning
• The client manages paging and limits
• Instead of forcing a batching up of results as they
come back from the RegionServers into multiple HTTP
transactions, the stateless scanner can stream all
results back to the client over one HTTP connection

18. End
Questions?