How-to guides

Designing your database

• Designing your schema

  Design a schema that uses Cloud Bigtable effectively.

• Time-series data

  Read detailed advice about storing time-series data in Cloud Bigtable.

Managing instances

• Choosing between SSD and HDD

  Learn what to consider when choosing the type of drive that's used to store your data.

• Creating a Cloud Bigtable instance

  Create an instance that can store your data.

• Modifying an instance

  Update an instance's configuration, including the number and size of the instance's clusters.

• Monitoring an instance

  View performance metrics for a Cloud Bigtable instance.

• Deleting an instance

  Delete an instance that is no longer needed.

• Programmatically scaling Cloud Bigtable

  Resize a Cloud Bigtable cluster programmatically based on CPU usage and other metrics.

• Creating and managing labels

  Add custom labels to an instance.

Managing data

• Importing and exporting data

  Import and export data into and from Cloud Bigtable.

• Managing tables

  Learn how to create and configure tables.

• Overview of writes

  Understand the types of write requests you can send to Cloud Bigtable, including when to use them.

• Writing data

  Send write requests to Cloud Bigtable.

Optimizing garbage collection

• Overview of garbage collection

  Learn how garbage collection works in Cloud Bigtable.

• Configuring garbage collection

  Set up and update garbage-collection policies.

• Simulating cell-level TTL

  Strategies for simulating cell-level TTL, including the pros and cons of each strategy.

• Garbage collection when timestamps are sequential numbers

  Garbage collection when you write timestamps that are sequential numbers.

• Keeping only the latest value

  An alternative to using garbage collection when you always want to read only the most recent value.

Evaluating performance

• Understanding performance

  Overview of the performance you can expect with Cloud Bigtable.

Using replication

• Overview of replication

  How replication works in Cloud Bigtable.

• Application profiles

  How an application profile manages the traffic to your Cloud Bigtable clusters.

• Configuring app profiles

  Update the settings for connecting to an instance that uses replication, and for getting separate metrics for different types of requests.

• Examples of replication settings

  Settings to implement common use cases for replication.

• Failovers

  How manual and automatic failovers work between Cloud Bigtable clusters.

• Managing failovers

  Find out how to fail over between clusters in an instance that uses replication.

Troubleshooting with Key Visualizer

• Overview of Key Visualizer

  Overview of the Key Visualizer tool for troubleshooting performance issues.

• Getting started with Key Visualizer

  Learn the basics of troubleshooting performance issues with Key Visualizer.

• Exploring heatmaps

  Find out how to investigate a performance issue in detail by exploring the heatmap in a Key Visualizer scan.

• Heatmap patterns

  Explanations of patterns that you might see in Key Visualizer heatmaps.

• Key Visualizer metrics

  Descriptions of the metrics that you can view in Key Visualizer heatmaps.

• Key Visualizer diagnostic messages

  Descriptions of the diagnostic messages that can appear in a Key Visualizer scan.

Miscellaneous how-to guides

• Audit logging information

  Details about information that Cloud Bigtable logs for auditing purposes.

• Creating a Hadoop cluster for Cloud Bigtable

  Create a Hadoop cluster that can communicate with Cloud Bigtable instances.

• Emulating Cloud Bigtable locally

  Run a local, in-memory Cloud Bigtable emulator for testing your application.

• Installing the Cloud SDK for Cloud Bigtable

  Install the components you need to manage Cloud Bigtable instances.

Using the HBase client for Java

• Cloud Bigtable and the HBase API

  Overview of the HBase client for Java, which provides an API that is compatible with HBase.

• Differences between HBase and Cloud Bigtable

  Methods and features that the Cloud Bigtable HBase client for Java does not support.

• Connecting to Cloud Bigtable

  Learn how to manage connections in the HBase client for Java.

• Handling batch exceptions

  Understand best practices for handling exceptions from batch operations.

• Installing the HBase shell for Cloud Bigtable

  Install a command-line tool for working with Cloud Bigtable.

• Migrating from earlier HBase versions

  Upgrade from the HBase 0.x APIs to the HBase 1.x APIs.

• Reporting Cloud Bigtable metrics

  Get performance insights by enabling client-side metrics for Cloud Bigtable operations.