Highly available, scalable and secure data with Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise

Highly available, scalable and secure data with
Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise
GOTO Berlin
27th February 2014

DataStax
•  Founded in April 2010
•  We drive Apache Cassandra™
•  400+ customers (24 of the Fortune 100)
•  220+ employees
•  Contribute approximately 80% of the code to Cassandra
•  Home to Apache Cassandra Chair & most committers
•  Headquartered in San Francisco Bay area
•  European headquarters established in London
Our Goal
To be the ﬁrst and best database choice for online applications
©2014 DataStax Confidential. Do not distribute without consent. 2

Training
•  Checkout the DataStax academy for free online virtual training!
•  http://www.datastax.com/virtual-training
•  Public courses
•  http://www.datastax.com/course-catalog
•  On-site training
http://www.datastax.com/training

DataStax Enterprise for start-ups
•  DataStax gives qualifying start-ups access to DataStax Enterprise for free!
•  For more information:
•  http://www.datastax.com/startup

DataStax
•  DataStax supports both the open source community and enterprises.
Open Source/Community Enterprise Software
•  Apache Cassandra (employ
Cassandra chair and 80+% of
the committers)
•  DataStax Community Edition
•  DataStax OpsCenter
•  DataStax DevCenter
•  DataStax Drivers/Connectors
•  Online Documentation
•  Online Training
•  Mailing lists and forums
•  DataStax Enterprise Edition
•  Certified Cassandra
•  Built-in Analytics
•  Built-in Enterprise Search
•  Enterprise Security
•  DataStax OpsCenter
•  Expert Support
•  Consultative Help
•  Professional Training

DataStax Enterprise
•  DataStax Enterprise: LOB* applications, with analytics and search for online/real-time
application data.
LOB
App
NoSQL
LOB
App
NoSQL
LOB
App
NoSQL
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
C*
Transactions:
•  LOB Style
•  Tunable
consistency
Analytics:
•  MapReduce
•  Hive
•  Pig
•  Mahout
Search
•  Solr
Data Warehouse
Hadoop
Transactions:
•  None
Analytics:
•  MapReduce
•  Hive
•  Pig
•  Mahout
Search
•  Solr
*Line of business
•  Hadoop: data warehouse applications with analytics and search for data warehouse.

Availability and Speed Matters for online apps!
•  UK retailers lost 8.5 billion last year to slow web sites, which is 1 million
for every 10 million in online sales
•  Over half of all web users expect a response time of 2 seconds or less
•  A 1 second delay causes a nearly 10% reduction in customer interactions
•  A 1 second decrease in Amazon page load time costs the company $1.6
billion in sales

Apache Cassandra™
•  Apache Cassandra™ is a massively scalable, open source, NoSQL, distributed
database built for modern, mission-critical online applications.
•  Written in Java and is a hybrid of Amazon Dynamo and Google BigTable
•  Masterless with no single point of failure
•  Distributed and data centre aware
•  100% uptime
•  Predictable scaling
Dynamo
BigTable
BigTable: http://research.google.com/archive/bigtable-osdi06.pdf
Dynamo: http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/files/amazon-dynamo-sosp2007.pdf
CASSANDRA"

Cassandra – Core Values
•  Ease of use
•  Massive scalability
•  High performance
•  Always Available

Cassandra – Performance and Scale
“In terms of scalability, there is a clear winner throughout our
experiments. Cassandra achieves the highest throughput for the
maximum number of nodes in all experiments with a linear increasing
throughput.”
Solving Big Data Challenges for Enterprise Application Performance Management, Tilman Rable, et
al., August 2012. Benchmark paper presented at the Very Large Database Conference, 2012.
http://vldb.org/pvldb/vol5/p1724_tilmannrabl_vldb2012.pdf
End Point Independent NoSQL Benchmark
Lowest in latency…
http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/11/benchmarking-
cassandra-scalability-on.html
http://www.datastax.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/WP-
Benchmarking-Top-NoSQL-Databases.pdf
Netflix Cloud Benchmark…
Highest in throughput…

Cassandra - Performance and Scale
•  Cassandra works for small to huge deployments.
•  Cassandra Footprint @ Netflix
•  80+ Clusters
•  2500+ nodes
•  4 Data Centres (Amazon Regions)
•  > 1 Trillion transactions per day
http://planetcassandra.org/functional-use-cases/

Cassandra –Overview
•  Cassandra was designed with the understanding that system/hardware failures can and do
occur
•  Peer-to-peer, distributed system
•  All nodes the same
•  Data partitioned among all nodes in the cluster
•  Custom data replication to ensure fault tolerance
•  Read/Write-anywhere and across data centres
Node 1
Node 2
Node 3Node 4
Node 5

Cassandra – More Than One Server
•  All nodes participate in a cluster
•  Add or remove as needed
•  All nodes the same – masterless with no single point of failure
•  Each node communicates with each other through the Gossip
protocol, which exchanges information across the cluster every
second
•  Data partitioned among all nodes in the cluster
•  A commit log is used on each node to capture write activity.
Data durability is assured
•  Data also written to an in-memory structure (memtable) and
then to disk once the memory structure is full (an SStable)
•  More capacity? Add a server!
•  More throughput? Add a server!
Node 1
Node 2
Node 3Node 4
Node 5

•  Replication factor (RF): How many copies of your
data?
•  RF = 3 in this example
•  Each node is storing 60% of the clusters total data
i.e. 3/5
Handy Calculator: http://www.ecyrd.com/cassandracalculator/
Cassandra – Locally Distributed
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
•  Client reads or writes to any node
•  Node coordinates with others
•  Data read or replicated in parallel

Cassandra – Rack Aware
•  Cassandra is aware of which rack (or
availability zone) each node resides in.
•  It will attempt to place each data copy in a
different rack.
•  RF = 3 in this example
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 2
Node 3
2nd copy
Rack 1
Rack 2Rack 2
Rack 3
Rack 1
Node 5
3rd copy

Cassandra – Data Centre Aware
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
DC: EUROPEDC: USA•  Active Everywhere – reads/writes in
multiple data centres
•  Client writes local
•  Data syncs across WAN
•  Replication Factor per DC
•  Different number of nodes per
data centre

Cassandra – Tunable Consistency
•  Consistency Level (CL)
•  Client speciﬁes per read or write
•  Handles multi-data center operations
•  ALL = All replicas ack
•  QUORUM = > 51% of replicas ack
•  LOCAL_QUORUM = > 51% in local DC ack
•  ONE = Only one replica acks
•  Plus more…. (see docs)
•  Blog: Eventual Consistency != Hopeful Consistency
http://planetcassandra.org/blog/post/a-netflix-experiment-eventual-consistency-
hopeful-consistency-by-christos-kalantzis/
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
Parallel
Write
Write
CL=QUORUM
5 μs ack
12 μs ack
500 μs ack
12 μs ack

Node Failure
•  A single node failure shouldn’t bring failure.
•  Replication Factor + Consistency Level = Success
•  This example:
•  RF = 3
•  CL = QUORUM
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
Parallel
Write
Write
CL=QUORUM
5 μs ack
12 μs ack
12 μs ack
>51% ack – so request is a success

Node Recovery
•  When a write is performed and a replica node for the row is
unavailable the coordinator will store a hint locally.
•  When the node recovers, the coordinator replays the missed
writes.
•  Note: a hinted write does not count towards the consistency
level
•  Note: you should still run repairs across your cluster
http://www.datastax.com/documentation/cassandra/2.0/cassandra/dml/
dml_about_hh_c.html
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 5
Node 2
2nd copy
Node 3
3rd copy
Stores Hints while Node 3 is offline

Rack Failure
•  Cassandra will place the data in as many different
racks or availability zones as it can.
•  This example:
•  RF = 3
•  CL = QUORUM
•  Rack 2 fails
•  Data copies still available in Node 1 and Node 5
•  Quorum can be honored i.e. > 51% ack
Node 1
1st copy
Node 4
Node 2
Node 3
2nd copy
Rack 1
Rack 2Rack 2
Rack 3
Rack 1
Node 5
3rd copy
request is a success

Don’t be afraid of Weak Consistency
•  More tolerant to failure
•  Consistency Level of 1 is the most popular (I think)
•  If you want stronger consistency go for LOCAL_QUORUM i.e. quorum is
honored in the local data centre.
•  If you go stronger than LOCAL_QUORUM – understand what this means
and why you are doing it.
•  Remember – you can have different consistency levels for reads and
writes e.g. write with CL:1, read with CL:LOCAL_QUORUM

Example Application
Cassandra
Replication
Cassandra
Replication
•  Active-Active-Active
•  Service based DNS routing
DC: USA DC: Europe DC: Asia
Web Tier Web Tier Web Tier
Web Tier
App TierApp TierApp Tier

Example Application - Uptime
Cassandra
Replication
Cassandra
Replication
•  Normal service maintenance
•  Application is unaware
Web Tier

Example Application – DC Failure
Cassandra
Replication
Cassandra
Replication
•  Data is safe.
•  Route Trafﬁc
Web Tier

Tier Failure
Cassandra
Replication
•  App Tier is aware of the other DC
•  Switches to access remote DC automatically
Web Tier

WAN Failure
Cassandra
Replication
Cassandra
Replication
Web Tier
Consistency level?

Cassandra Clients - Native Driver
•  Clients that use the native driver also have access to various policies that enable the client to
intelligently route requests as required.
•  This includes:
•  Load Balancing
•  Data Centre Aware
•  Latency Aware
•  Token Aware
•  Reconnection policies
•  Retry policies
•  Downgrading Consistency
•  Plus others..
•  http://www.datastax.com/download/clientdrivers

Quotes
•  “Cassandra, our distributed cloud persistence store which is
distributed across all zones and regions, dealt with the loss of one
third of its regional nodes without any loss of data or availability”.
http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/07/lessons-netflix-learned-from-aws-storm.html
•  “During Hurricane Sandy, we lost an entire data center. Completely.
Lost. It. Our application fail-over resulted in us losing just a few
moments of serving requests for a particular region of the country, but
our data in Cassandra never went offline.”
http://planetcassandra.org/blog/post/outbrain-touches-over-80-of-all-us-online-users-with-help-from-cassandra/

Ring-fenced resources
•  If you need to isolate resources for different uses, Cassandra is a great ﬁt.
•  You can create separate virtual data centres optimised as required – different workloads,
hardware, availability etc..
•  Cassandra will replicate the data for you – no ETL is necessary
Cassandra
Replication
Customer
Facing
Analytics

Hybrid Cloud
•  DataStax Enterprise and Cassandra are multi-data centre and cloud capable
•  Data written to any node is automatically and transparently written to all other nodes in
multiple data centres i.e. no etl
Data Centre 1 Data Centre2
Public Cloud

Security in Cassandra
FEATURESBENEFITS
Internal Authentication Manages
login IDs and passwords inside
the database
+  Ensures only authorized users
can access a database system
using internal validation
+  Simple to implement and easy
to understand
+  No learning curve from the
relational world
Object Permission Management
controls who has access to what
and who can do what in the
database
+  Provides granular based control
over who can add/change/
delete/read data
+  Uses familiar GRANT/REVOKE
from relational systems
+  No learning curve
Client to Node Encryption
protects data in flight to and from
a database cluster
+  Ensures data cannot be
captured/stolen in route to a
server
+  Data is safe both in flight from/
to a database and on the
database; complete coverage is
ensured

Advanced Security in DataStax Enterprise
FEATURESBENEFITS
External Authentication uses
external security software
packages to control security
+  Only authorized users have
access to a database system
using external validation
+  Uses most trusted external
security packages (Kerberos),
mainstays in government and
finance
+  Single sign on to all data
domains
Transparent Data Encryption
encrypts data at rest
+  Protects sensitive data at rest
from theft and from being read
at the file system level
+  No changes needed at
application level
Data Auditing
provides trail of who did and
looked at what/when
+  Supplies admins with an audit
trail of all accesses and
changes
+  Granular control to audit only
what’s needed
+  Uses log4j interface to ensure
performance and efficient audit
operations

Data Replication Security in Cassandra
•  A popular feature from a data security perspective is the ability to control at a keyspace/schema level which data centres
data should be replicated to.
•  What this means is that in a multi-data centre (both physical and virtual) cluster you can ensure that data is not shipped
anywhere it shouldn’t be and access to that data can be controlled.
•  This is very simple to set-up and is extremely useful when you need to share some of your data, but not all of you data or if
you have requirements around where your data is permitted to reside.
DC 1 DC 2
Shared Data

DataStax Enterprise 4.0, OpsCentre 4.1
•  DataStax Enterprise 4.0
•  New in-memory option. Brings all of the goodness of Cassandra to an in-memory
database
•  Production-certiﬁed version of Apache Cassandra (2.0)
•  Enterprise search enhancements
•  OpsCenter 4.1
•  Capacity planning updates
•  Better insight into node performance
•  More information:
http://www.datastax.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/WP-WhatsNewDSE40.pdf
http://www.datastax.com/download

How does in-memory work?
•  Developers can create new tables to be in-memory or alter existing tables
to be in-memory
•  Writes are durable
•  10-100x improvement

Find Out More
•  DataStax: http://www.datastax.com
•  Getting Started: http://www.datastax.com/documentation/gettingstarted/index.html
•  Training: http://www.datatstax.com/training
•  Downloads: http://www.datastax.com/download
•  Documentation: http://www.datastax.com/docs
•  Developer Blog: http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog
•  Community Site: http://planetcassandra.org
•  Webinars: http://planetcassandra.org/Learn/CassandraCommunityWebinars
•  Summit Talks: http://planetcassandra.org/Learn/CassandraSummit

Thank You
We power the big data
apps that transform business.

Highly available, scalable and secure data with Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise

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