Cassandra

A prominent NoSQL Database. Though there are hundreds of databases, Cassandra has carved a niche in the space of NoSQL databases.

Is a Column oriented Database.  Stores data in the form of group of columns called Column Family.

Though there are other Column Oriented NoSQL databases, Cassandra is preferred because of its features.

Are You Curious to know the features.  Here it follows…..

Key Features

Goes by Architecture

• Memory components for better processing
  • MemTable
  • Key Cache
  • Row Cache
  • Bloom Filters
• Physical Structures for better storing
  • CommitLog | WAL
  • SSTable

Efficient Storage Structures

• Table (Column Family) to store data
• Keyspace to store tables
• Partitioning supported by default
• Primary Indexes used by default
• Though not recommended, secondary indexes are supported

Effective Advanced Configurations

• Replication
  • Built for Fault Tolerance
  • Automatic Fault detection and Self healing recovery
• Clustering
  • Equal peers, no Master – Slave configuration
  • Highly scalable, supports Horizontal scaling
•  Performance
  • Linear performance as 
    • Nodes added easily for processing
    • Data is auto distributed evenly

Being a DBA it is essential to learn and update on Cassandra, as it is considered as an alternate solution for RDBMS.

It is Numero Uno NoSQL database for Column oriented data storage.

It has scope to scale as the Database Configuration is simple and easy when compared with RDBMS Database configuration.

In today’s environment the amount of data that is accumulating with each Organization is enormous, any database must satisfy the two important factor of a database that is 

• Storing Data Efficiently
• Processing and Providing Data Effectively

All these days RDBMS Databases such as Oracle, have dominated as they are having matured storage structures within a database that can handle the data efficiently and the processing engine is capable of processing the request in a short period, effectively.

However the Efficiency and Effectiveness of RDBMS Database is only when the amount of data is not huge in volume.  

Whereas the amount of data is huge in volume, grows rapidly as in the case of BigData, then we need to look into alternate solutions those are as good as RDBMS and also having a scalable capability to accommodate and process the volume of data to be managed.