Kudu clusters store tables that look exactly like the tables in relational (SQL), databases. A table can have a single binary key and value or a multitude of strongly-typed attributes. Every table has a primary key that is made up of one or more columns, just like SQL. This could be a single column, such as a unique user ID, or a compound key, such as a (host.metric.timestamp) tuple to a machine-time-series database. Rows can be easily read, updated, and deleted by their primary keys. Kudu's data model is simple and easy to use. It makes it easy to port legacy applications and build new ones. You can use standard tools such as Spark or SQL engines to analyze your tables. Tables are self-describing. Kudu's APIs were designed to be simple to use.