Merge pull request #26 from hildrum/master

Fixed IBMStreams/streamsx.hbase #25.  Please reopen if you think I need more detail.

Author: hildrum

com.ibm.streamsx.hbase/com.ibm.streamsx.hbase/GettingStarted.spl

@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+/* Copyright (C) 2013-2014, International Business Machines Corporation  */
+/* All Rights Reserved                                	                 */
+
+/**
+ * This file describes how to get started using HBASE and Streams with this toolkit.
+ * 
+ * [https://hbase.apache.org/|Apache HBASE] is non-relational database modeled 
+ * after Google's BigTable. It is highly scalable, but does not have some of the 
+ * features that come with a standard relational database.
+ * 
+ * 
+ * **Getting HBASE**
+ * This toolkit requires that HBASE already be installed and running on your system.
+ * HBASE, in turn, requires [http://hadoop.apache.org/|HDFS] and [http://zookeeper.apache.org/|Zookeeper].
+ * If you are working from a BigInsights installation, all of these are installed as part of that. 
+ * If not, see their documentation for how to download, setup, and install.
+ * 
+ * *Note: The host on which Streams is installed must be able to communicate with the hosts where
+ * HBASE is installed, but you do not need both on the same host.* 
+ * 
+ * This toolkit was tested against HBASE v0.94, but probably will work against newer versions.
+ * 
+ * **Setup**
+ * The toolkit needs certain libraries from HBASE to compile.  At runtime, it needs some IP and port
+ * information to connect.
+ * 
+ * For the toolkit to find what it needs, set the environment variable HBASE_HOME to point to the 
+ * directory containing HBASE (ie, the directory one step above conf and bin).  You'll likewise need to set HADOOP_HOME to point
+ * to the directory containing hadoop.  Again, this is the directory one step up from conf and bin.
+ * In BigInsights, it's `IHC`.
+ * 
+ * *If streams is not a host containing the HBASE* then first copy the entire HBASE_HOME and HADOOP_HOME to
+ * a place accessible to streams.  The operators need both the config files from the conf directory
+ * and some of the jars under those directories.
+ * 
+ * **Building the toolkit**
+ * Once you have set the HBASE_HOME and HADOOP_HOME environment variables, you can build the toolkit
+ * by typing ant either in the top-level directory or in the toolkit directory.  If you cloned the repository
+ * from github, or downloaded the zip file or archive, then you must do this step, as otherwise there is
+ * none of the toolkit artifacts (toolkit.xml, operator xml files, etc) that Streams needs.
+ * 
+ * **Using the toolkit**
+ * The [com.ibm.streamsx.hbase:overview.spl] contains an overall description of the toolkit.  To see the operators
+ * in action, look at the samples.  `PutRecord` uses HBASE to store book information, and `PutSample` stores information
+ * about characters in a book.  In both cases, you'll need to create the table before running the app, so be sure to read 
+ * the comment.
+ *
+ * **Viewing tuples in HBASE**
+ * One very useful tool for debugging is the hbase shell.  To run it, you must be on a HBASE host (ie, 
+ * just copying over the files works for streams, but won't work here), and then run `$HBASE_HOME/bin/hbase shell`
+ * You'll use the shell to create tables and view their status.
+ * 
+ */
+
+namespace com.ibm.streamsx.hbase;