Now, let's see how the read-and-write operation takes place in HBase diagrammatically:
Let's discuss and understand how the read-and-write operation takes place in and from HBase tables. In HBase, the client does not write data to HFile directly; it is first written to WAL and then to HBase MemStore, which is shared by an HStore in the main memory and then flushed to HFile later. Refer to the following figure:
Write-Ahead Logs facilitate the data reliability and reside on HDFS; each RegionServer hosts a single WAL. In the case of a RegionServer crash where MemStore is not flushed, WAL is used to restore the data to a new RegionServer. So, only once data is written successfully to WAL and MemStore, the write operation is said to be successful.