In Hive on MR3, HiveServer2 runs in either shared session mode or individual session mode.

HiveServer2 in shared session mode

In shared session mode, HiveServer2 maintains a single session (by creating an MR3Session object) to be shared by all Beeline connections. This session creates a DAGAppMaster to serve all Hive queries submitted through Beeline connections, and DAGs generated from such Hive queries can send their TaskAttempts to any ContainerWorker. As a result, all Beeline connections share the entire pool of ContainerWorkers through a common DAGAppMaster.

HiveServer2 in individual session mode

In individual session mode, each Beeline connection creates its own session (by creating a new MR3Session object) not to be shared with any other Beeline connection. Each DAGAppMaster maintains its own pool of ContainerWorkers which are not visible to other sessions. As a result, there is no sharing of ContainerWorkers between Beeline connections, and in general, shared session mode achieves a better utilization of computing resources because ContainerWorkers can serve any TaskAttempt from any DAG.

Shared session mode is enabled if hive.server2.mr3.share.session is set to true in hive-site.xml. To use individual session mode, hive.server2.mr3.share.session should be set to false and the environment variable MR3_APPLICATION_ID_TIMESTAMP should not be set in HiveServer2 Pod.