More on HBase Part 1

To view the metadata of the 'tables' stored in the HBase, use this command in the <$HBASE_INSTALLATION_DIR>/bin/hbase shell

# hbase(main): xx>scan '.META.'

look at how the tables are distributed over the regionservers from the column=info:server

To put value into a column family without label do this:

# hbase(main): xx>put 'table_name', 'row_key', 'column_family_name:', 'value'

To put value into a column family with a label do this:

# hbase(main): xx>put 'table_name', 'row_key', 'column_family_name:label_name', 'value'

To work with HBase, you have to throw away all SQL concepts. It is just not relational, it is distributed and scalable. One can dynamically add label to a column family as and when required. That means the rows in the 'table' are not of equal length.