What is Metastore in Hive

Question

I have heard this term lotta times but cannot make out what exactly is this?

Answer 1

It stores metadata for Hive tables (like their schema and location) and partitions in a relational database. It provides client access to this information by using metastoreservice API. Hive metastore consists of two fundamental units: A service that provides metastore access to other Apache Hive services.