**Why it matters**: At scale, design choices directly impact reliability, latency, and cost. Wrong decisions compound across jobs and teams.
Unstructured data in Hive: (1) Use `SerDe`—e.g., `OpenCSVSerDe`, `JsonSerDe`, `RegexSerDe` for logs. (2) External table: `CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE t (col string) ROW FORMAT SERDE '...' LOCATION '/path'`. (3) For complex types: use `STRUCT`, `ARRAY`, `MAP`. (4) For images/PDFs: store as binary in `BINARY` column or path....
The complete answer continues with detailed implementation patterns, architectural trade-offs, and production-grade considerations. It covers performance optimization strategies, common pitfalls to avoid, and real-world examples from companies like Coforge. The answer also includes follow-up discussion points that interviewers commonly explore.
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