Apache Hive is a fault-tolerant, distributed data warehouse system designed to simplify large-scale data management and provide efficient data processing for big data analytics. It's built on top of Apache Hadoop and supports various storage systems like Amazon S3, Azure Data Lake Storage, and GoodSync. Hive uses its own query language, Hive Query Language (HiveQL), which is similar to SQL but provides more flexibility in handling structured and unstructured data. The system consists of three main parts: clients, services, and storage and computing components. Hive Metastore plays a crucial role in virtualizing data, providing discoverability, schema evolution, and performance improvements. Apache Hive offers benefits such as fast processing of large volumes of data, scalability, and improved performance compared to traditional relational databases. It supports both structured and unstructured data and provides defined schemas for all tables, making it an ideal choice for big data analytics and data integration.