Sqoop is a Hadoop command line program to process data between relational databases and HDFS through MapReduce programs. You can use Sqoop to import and export data. When you use Sqoop, you do not need to install the relational database client and software on any node in the Hadoop cluster.

To use Sqoop, you must configure Sqoop properties in a JDBC connection and run the mapping in the Hadoop environment. You can configure Sqoop connectivity for relational data objects, customized data objects, and logical data objects that are based on a JDBC-compliant database. For example, you can configure Sqoop connectivity for the following databases:

The Model Repository Service uses JDBC to import metadata. The Data Integration Service runs the mapping in the Hadoop run-time environment and pushes the job processing to Sqoop. The Sqoop program then creates MapReduce jobs in the Hadoop cluster, which perform the import and export job in parallel.