Create an instance and write data with the cbt CLI

If you're learning about Cloud Bigtable, you can work through a quickstart to get a taste of the fundamentals that you would use at scale in a production environment.

Note: You can perform Bigtable operations at the command line using either the HBase shell or the cbt tool. Use the HBase shell if you are accustomed to it and prefer to use it. Otherwise, we recommend that you use the cbt CLI, which has fewer dependencies and installation steps. The cbt CLI is a component of the Google Cloud CLI.

This quickstart uses the cbt command-line interface. If you prefer to use the HBase shell, follow the quickstart using the HBase shell instead.

In this quickstart, you perform the following actions:

• Connect to a Cloud Bigtable instance.
• Perform basic administrative tasks.
• Write data to a table.
• Read data from a table.

You can do this quickstart using the Cloud Shell or in your local terminal window.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to check if billing is enabled on a project.

4. Enable the Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Bigtable Admin APIs.

   Enable the APIs

5. Create a service account:

   1. In the console, go to the Create service account page.

      Go to Create service account
   2. Select your project.

   3. In the Service account name field, enter a name. The console fills in the Service account ID field based on this name.

      In the Service account description field, enter a description. For example, Service account for quickstart.

   4. Click Create and continue.

   5. To provide access to your project, grant the following role(s) to your service account: Bigtable Administrator .

      In the Select a role list, select a role.

      For additional roles, click Add another role and add each additional role.

      Note: The Role field affects which resources your service account can access in your project. You can revoke these roles or grant additional roles later. In production environments, do not grant the Owner, Editor, or Viewer roles. Instead, grant a predefined role or custom role that meets your needs.
   6. Click Continue.

   7. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

      Do not close your browser window. You will use it in the next step.

6. Create a service account key:

   1. In the console, click the email address for the service account that you created.
   2. Click Keys.
   3. Click Add key, and then click Create new key.
   4. Click Create. A JSON key file is downloaded to your computer.
   5. Click Close.
7. Install and initialize the Google Cloud CLI.
   Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.

8. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

9. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to check if billing is enabled on a project.

10. Enable the Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Bigtable Admin APIs.

    Enable the APIs

11. Create a service account:

    1. In the console, go to the Create service account page.

       Go to Create service account
    2. Select your project.

    3. In the Service account name field, enter a name. The console fills in the Service account ID field based on this name.

       In the Service account description field, enter a description. For example, Service account for quickstart.

    4. Click Create and continue.

    5. To provide access to your project, grant the following role(s) to your service account: Bigtable Administrator .

       In the Select a role list, select a role.

       For additional roles, click Add another role and add each additional role.

       Note: The Role field affects which resources your service account can access in your project. You can revoke these roles or grant additional roles later. In production environments, do not grant the Owner, Editor, or Viewer roles. Instead, grant a predefined role or custom role that meets your needs.
    6. Click Continue.

    7. Click Done to finish creating the service account.

       Do not close your browser window. You will use it in the next step.

12. Create a service account key:

    1. In the console, click the email address for the service account that you created.
    2. Click Keys.
    3. Click Add key, and then click Create new key.
    4. Click Create. A JSON key file is downloaded to your computer.
    5. Click Close.
13. Install and initialize the Google Cloud CLI.
    Note: If you installed the gcloud CLI previously, make sure you have the latest version by running gcloud components update.

Create a Bigtable instance

1. Open the Create instance page in the Google Cloud console.

   Create an instance

2. For Instance name, enter Quickstart instance.

3. For Instance ID, enter quickstart-instance.

4. For Storage type, select SSD.

5. For Cluster ID, enter quickstart-instance-c1.

6. For Region, select a region near you.

7. For Zone, select a zone in the region you selected.

8. Click Create to create the instance.

Connect to your instance

1. Configure the cbt CLI to use your project and instance by creating a .cbtrc file, replacing project-id with the ID for the project where you created your Bigtable instance:

      echo project = project-id > ~/.cbtrc
      echo instance = quickstart-instance >> ~/.cbtrc

2. Verify that you set up the .cbtrc file correctly:

      cat ~/.cbtrc

   The terminal displays the contents of the .cbtrc file, which looks similar to the following:

   project = project-id
   instance = quickstart-instance

   Now you can use the cbt CLI with your instance.

Read and write data

Bigtable stores data in tables, which contain rows. Each row is identified by a row key.

Data in a row is organized into column families, which are groups of columns. A column qualifier identifies a single column within a column family.

There can be multiple time-stamped versions of the value at the intersection of a row and column. Each version is referred to as a cell.

1. Create a table named my-table.

      cbt createtable my-table

2. List your tables:

      cbt ls

   The command displays output similar to the following:

       my-table

3. Add one column family named cf1:

      cbt createfamily my-table cf1

4. List your column families:

      cbt ls my-table

   The command displays output similar to the following:

       Family Name     GC Policy
       -----------     ---------
       cf1             <never>

5. Put the value test-value in the row r1, using the column family cf1 and the column qualifier c1:

      cbt set my-table r1 cf1:c1=test-value

   Note: In this quickstart you only set one cell, but Bigtable lets you set up to ten thousand cells in a single write request.

6. Use the cbt read command to read the data you added to the table:

      cbt read my-table

   The shell displays output similar to the following:

       ----------------------------------------
       r1
         cf1:c1                                   @ 2019/11/26-15:05:38.840000
           "test-value"

   A timestamp is added automatically because you did not specify one.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used in this quickstart, delete the instance. Deleting the .cbtrc file leaves you ready to work on a different project.

1. Delete the table my-table:

      cbt deletetable my-table

2. Delete the instance:

      cbt deleteinstance quickstart-instance

3. Delete the .cbtrc file:

      rm ~/.cbtrc

What's next

• Work through a Bigtable codelab.
• View the cbt CLI reference documentation.
• Write a Hello World application in C#, C++, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, or using the HBase client for Java.