HBase can run in two modes:

• Standalone. This is the default mode. In standalone mode, HBase does not use HDFS — it uses the local filesystem instead
• Distributed. For a production environment, distributed mode is advised. In distributed mode, multiple instances of HBase daemons run on multiple servers in the cluster. HDFS is used. As an example of running Aspire with distributed HBase can be Cloudera environment - Aspire Parcel and Service for Cloudera.

Installation and configuration instructions is part of this book: http://hbase.apache.org/book.html.

How to Configure Aspire with HBase is described here: HBase Settings.