HBase98 -- sidebranch only

NOT backward compatible with earlier HBase versions.
For now, this is going into hbase98 branch for testing purposes.

Change-Id: Ic6bf124808ddcf5096540c56644dbd1be3be0c1e
Author: Oliver Bucaojit <oliver.bucaojit@hp.com>
Author: Narendra Goyal <narendra.goyal@hp.com>
Author: Joanie Cooper <joanie.cooper@hp.com>
Author: Shang-Sheng Tung <shang-sheng.tung@hp.com>
Author: Mike Hanlon <mike.hanlon@hp.com>
Author: Khaled Bouaziz <khaled.bouaziz@hp.com>
Author: Prashanth Vasudev <vasudev.prashanth@hp.com>