The Time Machine in Columnar NoSQL Databases: The Case of Apache HBase

Abstract

Not Only SQL (NoSQL) is a critical technology that is scalable and provides flexible schemas, thereby complementing existing relational database technologies. Although NoSQL is flourishing, present solutions lack the features required by enterprises for critical missions. In this paper, we explore solutions to the data recovery issue in NoSQL. Data recovery for any database table entails restoring the table to a prior state or replaying (insert/update) operations over the table given a time period in the past. Recovery of NoSQL database tables enables applications such as failure recovery, analysis for historical data, debugging, and auditing. Particularly, our study focuses on columnar NoSQL databases. We propose and evaluate two solutions to address the data recovery problem in columnar NoSQL and implement our solutions based on Apache HBase, a popular NoSQL database in the Hadoop ecosystem widely adopted across industries. Our implementations are extensively benchmarked with an industrial NoSQL benchmark under real environments.