I'm running cdh4.2 hbase 0.94.2, and am looking to merge some regions in a table. Looking at Merge.java, it seems to require that the entire cluster be offline. However, I also notice an HMerge.java which doesn't appear to do the same validation.
Two questions: 1) Why does Merge.java validate the entire cluster is down, as opposed to just the single table being disabled? 2) Could I write my own tool that uses HMerge, so as to merge regions in the disabled table without bringing the whole cluster down? I know there is also https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-7403, but that doesn't appear to be incorporated into my version of HBase. Any help would be appreciated. - Bryan
