BigTable is a distributed storage system with three main components: a master server that manages tablet assignment and load balancing, tablet servers that handle reads/writes and split tablets, and a client library. It uses a column-oriented data model indexed by row, column, and timestamp, with tablets located through a hierarchy and assigned by the master to tablet servers. HBase is an open source Apache project that is a BigTable clone written in Java without Chubby or a CMS server, instead using ZooKeeper and the JobTracker.