ColumnManagerAPI for HBase™ is an extended METADATA REPOSITORY SYSTEM for HBase with options for:
- COLUMN AUDITING -- captures Column metadata (qualifier, max-length, column-occurrences count, and cell-occurrences count) as Tables are updated (or via a discovery facility for previously-existing Tables).
- COLUMN ALIASING -- a 4-byte (positive integer) column-alias is stored in each cell in place of the (often much longer) full-length column-qualifier. This works invisibly to the application developer, who continues only working with the standard hbase-client API, reading and writing full-length column-qualifiers.
- COLUMN-DEFINITION FACILITIES -- optionally enforces administratively-managed Column definitions (stipulating valid name, length, and/or value) as Tables are updated, optionally bringing HBase's "on-the-fly" column-qualifier creation under centralized control.
- SCHEMA EXPORT/IMPORT -- provides schema (metadata) export and import facilities for HBase Namespace, Table, and all table-component structures.
- SCHEMA CHANGE MONITORING -- tracks and provides an audit trail for structural modifications made to Namespaces, Tables, and Column Families.
A basic COMMAND-LINE INTERFACE is also provided for direct invocation of a number of the above-listed functions without any need for Java coding.