HBase (see http://hbase.apache.org/) is a high-performance NoSQL key/value store on Hadoop. Hive has offered a storage handler mechanism to integrate with HBase by using the HBaseStorageHandler class that creates HBase tables managed by Hive. By integrating Hive with HBase, Hive users can leverage real-time transaction performance of HBase to do real-time big data analysis. Currently, the integration feature is still in progress, especially in the area of offering higher performance and snapshots support. There is another project called Phoenix (see http://phoenix.apache.org/), which provides basic SQL with higher-performance support over HBase.

An example of creating an HBase table in HQL is as follows:

CREATE TABLE hbase_table_sample(
id int,
value1 string,
value2 string,
map_value map<string, string>
)
STORED BY 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.hbase.HBaseStorageHandler'
WITH SERDEPROPERTIES ("hbase.columns.mapping" = ":key,cf1:val,cf2:val,cf3:")
TBLPROPERTIES ("hbase.table.name" = ...