As we know, we may store table definitions in the metastore. These table definitions then refer to a location where the data are stored. The format of the data might be an ordinary text file or it might be an avro file. Another possibility is a parquet file. This parquet format is an example of a packed/ zipped format.
To create such table is rather straightforward. First, we transfer a table to a parquet file on HDFS:

sqoop import \
--connect "jdbc:oracle:thin:@(description=(address=(protocol=tcp)(host=192.168.2.2)(port=1521))(connect_data=(service_name=orcl)))" \
--username scott --password binvegni \
--table fam \
--columns "NUMMER, NAAM" \
--m 1 \
--target-dir /loudacre/fam_parquet \
--as-parquetfile;

This results in a file that can be found in directory /loudacre/fam_parquet. For some reason, the file is called 5fe8fcaa-6095-40ec-b499-d73d6d971b6f.parquet. From Impala, we may then define the table with:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE fam_parquet
LIKE PARQUET '/loudacre/fam_parquet/5fe8fcaa-6095-40ec-b499-d73d6d971b6f.parquet'
STORED AS PARQUET
LOCATION '/loudacre/fam_parquet/';

Door tom