Is it possible to create Phoenix table backed by existing HBase table?

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1) Is it possible to create a Phoenix table backed by existing HBase table?
Based on this info here
http://phoenix.apache.org/language/#create_table it should be possible but what options exactly one needs to pass in, I am not sure. I see no examples there.

"HBase table and column configuration options may be passed through as key/value pairs to configure the HBase table as desired. Note that when using the IF NOT EXISTS clause, if a table already exists, then no change will be made to it."

2) Also, is it possible that in the process of table creation, I control myself the mapping of phoenix column names to HBase column names?

3) I know that a Phoenix view (backed by an HBase table) has certain problems/limitations to maintain its indexes if the writing process writes directly to the underlying HBase table and not to the Phoenix view.

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PHOENIX-1499 https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PHOENIX-1619

So... will that be a problem also if we create a Phoenix table backed by an HBase table (and write to the HBase table behind Phoenix's back)? I mean, if the answer to 1) is positive, will I have the same problem with a Phoenix table as with a Phoenix view (provided that my writes don't go through Phoenix)?

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javasqlhadoophbasephoenix

1 Answers

1
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Directly taking a hit at the answer here.

a) Specific properties can be passed to column families or table in general. These are the various options that have been defined using options. Options can be referenced here : http://phoenix.apache.org/language/#options. You can create a view that references an existing hbase table. I prefer views because , i can drop and recreate them without issues unlike tables whose drop will cause the underlying HBase table to vanish as well

b) This is not possible AFAIK. There are no mapping options between existing hbase tables and corresponding phoenix views (i.e fN in phoenix refers to firstName in HBase)

c) That is correct. Atleast in 4.x versions of Phoenix , this is true.

i) If you create a Phoenix table (the HBase table will get created automatically) and write to HBase directly , you will have to take care of using Phoenix types for writing so that they will be properly read from HBase (https://github.com/apache/phoenix/blob/master/phoenix-core/src/main/java/org/apache/phoenix/schema/types). Also note you will have to take care if you have SALT_BUCKETS and the phoenix salt if you have defined tables from phoenix like that