HBase (Hadoop DataBase) is a distributed, column oriented database. HBase uses HDFS for the underlying storage. It supports both batch style computations using MapReduce and point queries (random reads).
The main components of HBase are as described below:
HBase Master is responsible for negotiating load balancing across all Region Servers and maintain the state of the cluster. It is not part of the actual data storage or retrieval path.
RegionServer is deployed on each machine and hosts data and processes I/O requests.
