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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-12728?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=14260920#comment-14260920
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Andrew Purtell commented on HBASE-12728:
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FWIW, I recently rewrote the YCSB client for HBase because it was setting auto
flush to off and using large write buffers to collect puts. Unfortunately
although producing 'excellent' write latency measurements this lead to multiple
threads flushing deep buffers more or less at the same time, resulting in long
periods of write unavailability. I'm sure that was an unintended consequence. I
believe that YCSB client code was written by HBase devs. An earlier era in any
case, but my point is devs very familiar with the API can get into trouble
never mind newcomers. Removing buffering from Table and moving it into
BufferedTable with suitable advice in javadoc there sounds like a good idea to
me.
> buffered writes substantially less useful after removal of HTablePool
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: HBASE-12728
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-12728
> Project: HBase
> Issue Type: Bug
> Components: hbase
> Affects Versions: 0.98.0
> Reporter: Aaron Beppu
>
> In previous versions of HBase, when use of HTablePool was encouraged, HTable
> instances were long-lived in that pool, and for that reason, if autoFlush was
> set to false, the table instance could accumulate a full buffer of writes
> before a flush was triggered. Writes from the client to the cluster could
> then be substantially larger and less frequent than without buffering.
> However, when HTablePool was deprecated, the primary justification seems to
> have been that creating HTable instances is cheap, so long as the connection
> and executor service being passed to it are pre-provided. A use pattern was
> encouraged where users should create a new HTable instance for every
> operation, using an existing connection and executor service, and then close
> the table. In this pattern, buffered writes are substantially less useful;
> writes are as small and as frequent as they would have been with
> autoflush=true, except the synchronous write is moved from the operation
> itself to the table close call which immediately follows.
> More concretely :
> ```
> // Given these two helpers ...
> private HTableInterface getAutoFlushTable(String tableName) throws
> IOException {
> // (autoflush is true by default)
> return storedConnection.getTable(tableName, executorService);
> }
> private HTableInterface getBufferedTable(String tableName) throws IOException
> {
> HTableInterface table = getAutoFlushTable(tableName);
> table.setAutoFlush(false);
> return table;
> }
> // it's my contention that these two methods would behave almost identically,
> // except the first will hit a synchronous flush during the put call,
> and the second will
> // flush during the (hidden) close call on table.
> private void writeAutoFlushed(Put somePut) throws IOException {
> try (HTableInterface table = getAutoFlushTable(tableName)) {
> table.put(somePut); // will do synchronous flush
> }
> }
> private void writeBuffered(Put somePut) throws IOException {
> try (HTableInterface table = getBufferedTable(tableName)) {
> table.put(somePut);
> } // auto-close will trigger synchronous flush
> }
> ```
> For buffered writes to actually provide a performance benefit to users, one
> of two things must happen:
> - The writeBuffer itself shouldn't live, flush and die with the lifecycle of
> it's HTableInstance. If the writeBuffer were managed elsewhere and had a long
> lifespan, this could cease to be an issue. However, if the same writeBuffer
> is appended to by multiple tables, then some additional concurrency control
> will be needed around it.
> - Alternatively, there should be some pattern for having long-lived HTable
> instances. However, since HTable is not thread-safe, we'd need multiple
> instances, and a mechanism for leasing them out safely -- which sure sounds a
> lot like the old HTablePool to me.
> See discussion on mailing list here :
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/hbase-user/201412.mbox/%3CCAPdJLkEzmUQZ_kvD%3D8mrxi4V%3DhCmUp3g9MUZsddD%2Bmon%2BAvNtg%40mail.gmail.com%3E
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