HBase ships with HBaseTestingUtility, which makes it easy to write integration tests using a mini-cluster. The first step is to add some dependencies to your Maven POM file. Check the versions to be sure they are appropriate.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
    <artifactId>hadoop-common</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
    <type>test-jar</type>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.hbase</groupId>
    <artifactId>hbase</artifactId>
    <version>0.98.3</version>
    <type>test-jar</type>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
        
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
    <artifactId>hadoop-hdfs</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
    <type>test-jar</type>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.hadoop</groupId>
    <artifactId>hadoop-hdfs</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.0</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>                    
                    

This code represents an integration test for the MyDAO insert shown in Chapter 19, Unit Testing HBase Applications.

public class MyHBaseIntegrationTest {
    private static HBaseTestingUtility utility;
    byte[] CF = "CF".getBytes();
    byte[] QUALIFIER = "CQ-1".getBytes();
    
    @Before
    public void setup() throws Exception {
    	utility = new HBaseTestingUtility();
    	utility.startMiniCluster();
    }

    @Test
        public void testInsert() throws Exception {
       	 HTableInterface table = utility.createTable(Bytes.toBytes("MyTest"),
       			 Bytes.toBytes("CF"));
       	 HBaseTestObj obj = new HBaseTestObj();
       	 obj.setRowKey("ROWKEY-1");
       	 obj.setData1("DATA-1");
       	 obj.setData2("DATA-2");
       	 MyHBaseDAO.insertRecord(table, obj);
       	 Get get1 = new Get(Bytes.toBytes(obj.getRowKey()));
       	 get1.addColumn(CF, CQ1);
       	 Result result1 = table.get(get1);
       	 assertEquals(Bytes.toString(result1.getRow()), obj.getRowKey());
       	 assertEquals(Bytes.toString(result1.value()), obj.getData1());
       	 Get get2 = new Get(Bytes.toBytes(obj.getRowKey()));
       	 get2.addColumn(CF, CQ2);
       	 Result result2 = table.get(get2);
       	 assertEquals(Bytes.toString(result2.getRow()), obj.getRowKey());
       	 assertEquals(Bytes.toString(result2.value()), obj.getData2());
    }
}                    
                

This code creates an HBase mini-cluster and starts it. Next, it creates a table called MyTest with one column family, CF. A record is inserted, a Get is performed from the same table, and the insertion is verified.

To use an HBase mini-cluster on Microsoft Windows, you need to use a Cygwin environment.

See the paper at HBase Case-Study: Using HBaseTestingUtility for Local Testing and Development (2010) for more information about HBaseTestingUtility.