A new way to work with data and metadata including the first query engine to champion advanced Apache Parquet format files to support self-describing data, completely avoiding a central metadata repository.
A completely new columnar execution engine that leverages both runtime code compilation and advanced memory management for query execution.
Advanced cost-based query optimization that works with or without stats providing complex distributed query planning.
Focus on full SQL capability with support for correlated subqueries, complex subexpressions and scalar subqueries.
The first query engine to support JSON everything, enabling instant analysis of semi-structured and partially schemed data without setup or extra effort.
Full complex data semantics combined with complete SQL data types allow you to use JavaScript notation to access and interact with complex fields and data structures. This includes support for exact Decimal, Date, Time and Interval types.
In-query dynamic schema discovery allows you to redefine blob fields as complex objects, using advanced CONVERT_FROM and CONVERT_TO semantics.
Support for more than 150 data formats and thousands of existing function libraries through strong integration with Hive Serdes and UDFs.
Additional support for high performance native Drill storage plugins and UDFs.
A friendly web interface with query and profiling tools including an advanced query plan visualizer and execution flow visualizations.
A complete set of interfaces and APIs including support for JDBC, C++, Java, ODBC*, REST and CLI
Advanced dynamic analysis capabilities on top of HBase including dynamic schema discovery, high speed parallel scanning and operator pushdown.
Support for in-memory and beyond memory datasets with an multi-staged innovative sort algorithm that produces faster time to first record sorting than traditional query engines.
Ability to meet query SLAs and avoid resource starvation with multiple query resource queues.
Support for wide rows with thousands of columns within a single query.
An advanced modular design with extensibility points at storage, query, planning and operator execution to work for a large set of standalone or embedded setups.
Full scaling: run embedded on Linux, Mac or PC for development purposes or scale up to a full cluster on any platform.
Support for use of Zookeeper and HBase for Drill configuration and profiling management.
The only open source distributed query engine architected to work with all types of big data, not just Hadoop data sources.