How to set table compression mode in Bigtable using HBase shell? - compression

Question

I'm creating tables in Bigtable using HBase shell and the usual create table command where you can specify compression apparently ignores the compression attribute.
Example:
hbase(main):003:0> create 'table_snappy', {NAME => 'event', VERSIONS => 1, COMPRESSION => 'SNAPPY', BLOOMFILTER => 'ROW'}
hbase(main):004:0> describe 'table_snappy'
Table table_snappy is ENABLED
table_snappy
COLUMN FAMILIES DESCRIPTION
{NAME => 'event', BLOOMFILTER => 'ROW', VERSIONS => '1', IN_MEMORY => 'false', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS => 'FALSE', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING => 'NONE', TTL => 'FOREVER', COMPRESSION => 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS => '0', BLOCKCACHE => 'true', BLOCKSIZE => '65536', REPLICATION_SCOPE => '0'}
1 row(s) in 0.0870 seconds
hbase(main):003:0> create 'table_lzo', {NAME => 'event', VERSIONS => 1, COMPRESSION => 'LZO', BLOOMFILTER => 'ROW'}
hbase(main):004:0> describe 'table_lzo'
Table table_lzo is ENABLED
table_lzo
COLUMN FAMILIES DESCRIPTION
{NAME => 'event', BLOOMFILTER => 'ROW', VERSIONS => '1', IN_MEMORY => 'false', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS => 'FALSE', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING => 'NONE', TTL => 'FOREVER', COMPRESSION => 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS => '0', BLOCKCACHE => 'true', BLOCKSIZE => '65536', REPLICATION_SCOPE => '0'}
1 row(s) in 0.0870 seconds

Answer 1

Bigtable uses proprietary compression algorithms, and does not expose compression methods or configuration. So while the input is ignored, compression is happening and is automatically managed for you.
This is documented in the Bigtable differences from HBase:
Column families
When you create a column family, you cannot configure the block size or compression method, either with the HBase shell or through the HBase API. Cloud Bigtable manages the block size and compression for you.
In addition, if you use the HBase shell to get information about a table, the HBase shell will always report that each column family does not use compression. In reality, Cloud Bigtable uses proprietary compression methods for all of your data.