title: HBase row key design for monotonically increasing keys
body: <p>I've an HBase table where I'm writing the row keys like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;prefix&gt;~1
  &lt;prefix&gt;~2
  &lt;prefix&gt;~3
  ...
  &lt;prefix&gt;~9
  &lt;prefix&gt;~10
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The scan on the HBase shell gives an output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;prefix&gt;~1
  &lt;prefix&gt;~10
  &lt;prefix&gt;~2
  &lt;prefix&gt;~3
  ...
  &lt;prefix&gt;~9
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How should a row key be designed so that the row with key <code>&lt;prefix&gt;~10</code> comes last? I'm looking for some recommended ways or the ways that are more popular for designing HBase row keys.</p>