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<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept rev="5.4.3" id="impala_isilon">

  <title>Using Impala with Isilon Storage</title>

  <titlealts audience="PDF">

    <navtitle>Isilon Storage</navtitle>

  </titlealts>

  <prolog>
    <metadata>
      <data name="Category" value="Impala"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Isilon"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Disk Storage"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Administrators"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Developers"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Data Analysts"/>
    </metadata>
  </prolog>

  <conbody>

    <p>
      <indexterm audience="hidden">Isilon</indexterm>
      You can use Impala to query data files that reside on EMC Isilon storage devices, rather
      than in HDFS. This capability allows convenient query access to a storage system where you
      might already be managing large volumes of data. The combination of the Impala query
      engine and Isilon storage is certified on <keyword keyref="impala224"/> or higher.
    </p>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/isilon_block_size_caveat"/>

    <p>
      The typical use case for Impala and Isilon together is to use Isilon for the default
      filesystem, replacing HDFS entirely. In this configuration, when you create a database,
      table, or partition, the data always resides on Isilon storage and you do not need to
      specify any special <codeph>LOCATION</codeph> attribute. If you do specify a
      <codeph>LOCATION</codeph> attribute, its value refers to a path within the Isilon
      filesystem. For example:
    </p>

<codeblock>-- If the default filesystem is Isilon, all Impala data resides there
-- and all Impala databases and tables are located there.
CREATE TABLE t1 (x INT, s STRING);

-- You can specify LOCATION for database, table, or partition,
-- using values from the Isilon filesystem.
CREATE DATABASE d1 LOCATION '/some/path/on/isilon/server/d1.db';
CREATE TABLE d1.t2 (a TINYINT, b BOOLEAN);
</codeblock>

    <p>
      Impala can write to, delete, and rename data files and database, table, and partition
      directories on Isilon storage. Therefore, Impala statements such as <codeph>CREATE
      TABLE</codeph>, <codeph>DROP TABLE</codeph>, <codeph>CREATE DATABASE</codeph>,
      <codeph>DROP DATABASE</codeph>, <codeph>ALTER TABLE</codeph>, and <codeph>INSERT</codeph>
      work the same with Isilon storage as with HDFS.
    </p>

    <p>
      When the Impala spill-to-disk feature is activated by a query that approaches the memory
      limit, Impala writes all the temporary data to a local (not Isilon) storage device.
      Because the I/O bandwidth for the temporary data depends on the number of local disks, and
      clusters using Isilon storage might not have as many local disks attached, pay special
      attention on Isilon-enabled clusters to any queries that use the spill-to-disk feature.
      Where practical, tune the queries or allocate extra memory for Impala to avoid spilling.
      Although you can specify an Isilon storage device as the destination for the temporary
      data for the spill-to-disk feature, that configuration is not recommended due to the need
      to transfer the data both ways using remote I/O.
    </p>

    <p>
      When tuning Impala queries on HDFS, you typically try to avoid any remote reads. When the
      data resides on Isilon storage, all the I/O consists of remote reads. Do not be alarmed
      when you see non-zero numbers for remote read measurements in query profile output. The
      benefit of the Impala and Isilon integration is primarily convenience of not having to
      move or copy large volumes of data to HDFS, rather than raw query performance. You can
      increase the performance of Impala I/O for Isilon systems by increasing the value for the
      <codeph>&#8209;&#8209;num_remote_hdfs_io_threads</codeph> startup option for the
      <cmdname>impalad</cmdname> daemon.
    </p>

<!-- <p outputclass="toc inpage"/> -->

  </conbody>

</concept>