Looks like HDP 2.1 is expecting hive.serde2 verion 0.14 and 0.13 is on the platform…
2014-12-16 11:24:56,777 INFO [main] org.apache.hive.hcatalog.mapreduce.InternalUtil: Initializing org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.orc.OrcSerde with properties {field.delim=|, transient_lastDdlTime=1418143490, name=default.common_location_format, serialization.null.format=\N, columns=original_subscriber_id,original_subscriber_type,normalized_subscriber_id,source_network_element_id,source_network_element_type,create_timestamp,create_timestamp_string,event_timestamp_string,event_timestamp_utc,event_timestamp_local,duration,time_zone,geohash,latitude,longitude,altitude,mgrs_bin,locate_method,accuracy,geofence_ids,job_id, serialization.lib=org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.orc.OrcSerde, serialization.format=|, columns.types=string,string,string,string,string,bigint,string,string,bigint,bigint,int,string,string,float,float,float,string,string,float,array<string>,string}
2014-12-16 11:24:56,778 FATAL [main] org.apache.hadoop.mapred.YarnChild: Error running child : java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.SerDeUtils.initializeSerDe(Lorg/apache/hadoop/hive/serde2/Deserializer;Lorg/apache/hadoop/conf/Configuration;Ljava/util/Properties;Ljava/util/Properties;)V
at org.apache.hive.hcatalog.mapreduce.InternalUtil.initializeDeserializer(InternalUtil.java:156)
at org.apache.hive.hcatalog.mapreduce.HCatRecordReader.createDeserializer(HCatRecordReader.java:127)
at org.apache.hive.hcatalog.mapreduce.HCatRecordReader.initialize(HCatRecordReader.java:92)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapTask$NewTrackingRecordReader.initialize(MapTask.java:525)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapTask.runNewMapper(MapTask.java:763)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.MapTask.run(MapTask.java:340)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.YarnChild$2.run(YarnChild.java:168)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at javax.security.auth.Subject.doAs(Subject.java:415)
at org.apache.hadoop.security.UserGroupInformation.doAs(UserGroupInformation.java:1594)
at org.apache.hadoop.mapred.YarnChild.main(YarnChild.java:163)