Demystifying the Apache Cassandra Database: A Comprehensive Guide
When internet connection became a part of our daily lives (with the likes of 4G and 5G in some places), 
we started consuming data and uploading them on the internet. Do you know that on Youtube, every day, 300 hours of video are uploaded every hour? People upload nearly 1 million files in a day at Dropbox. The majority of the data is in the form of images, audio, and video.
Hence you need a robust system to manage this database. Managing your database is inevitable especially when you are in an era where you have got a lot of scopes to leverage your widespread data with prowess. Yes, your data can do a lot of wonders if they are utilized finely without getting into any sort of mishandling. With Apache Cassandra database in the picture, you are here to optimize all your database management activities.
Cassandra- The underlying meaning
When you look forward to a more scalable and highly available database solution, Apache Cassandra database would be the go-to choice. With methods such as proven fault-tolerance as well as linear scalability on any cloud infrastructure or commodity hardware, you can go on to make it a powerful platform for different mission-critical data. Cassandra offers people with support to replicate itself across different datacenters. It is the best ever platform. When you provide lower latency for every user, you should know that you can handle any regional outages with the Apache Cassandra database.
The undeniable advantages of the Cassandra database
Are you thinking about why you should be using Cassandra? Cassandra database has been a backbone for database management across different organizations. These are the advantages of using Apache Cassandra DB:
The Resilience of Fault Tolerance
You can replicate the data automatically to serve a number of nodes meant for fault-tolerance. We can serve replication across many data centers easily. While replacing the failed nodes, you are not going to face any downtime. You can find that Cassandra, 
in general, is tolerant to both nodes dying as well as network partitions. Cassandra inherently can store writes for various other nodes until it is going to return back. When the node or nodes is going to recover, you can replay both side changes as well. If the read and write consistency level is less or equal to the replication factor, then your reads are going to return to stale.
When you bring up a new node, your data is going to get replicated. The efficiency of any platform is measured with its fault-tolerance capability. Hence we should opt for it to get the maximum benefits for leveraging our data wisely. It is of extreme need that every platform adopt a fault-tolerance mechanism. Cassandra has done it extremely well. It is one of the best role models that people can ever take in terms of fault tolerance. Cassandra inherently can store writes for various other nodes until it is going to return back. Your business can adopt Cassandra, with one of the prime reasons being its fault tolerance ability.
Its prominence is proven
Cassandra has taken over the realms of CERN, GitHub, Constant Contact, Instagram and Netflix. More than 1500 companies are actively using it. Owing to its prominence, people have started trusting the security aspects of Apache Cassandra Database. Businesses of various sizes and models are using Cassandra for their Database management requirements.
It’s performance-oriented
Apache Cassandra database is known for its ability to outperform any popular NoSQL alternatives when it comes to real-time apps or benchmarks. It is owing to its fundamental architectural base. Cassandra databases can increase the performance of your team in the right way. The distributed architecture of Cassandra makes it extremely user-friendly, thus allowing increased performance on the whole. With the interconnected nodes, Cassandra can offer the most prolific performance, thus going on to handle thousands of operations at a time. This would also allow it to offer continuous up-time.
Decentralize it
This is one of the major advantages of apache cassandra database. Here we do not have any kind of failure points. Without any network bottlenecks, every cluster node would be quite identical. The aim of Cassandra is to run their infrastructure consisting of hundreds and thousands of nodes which are spread under various data centres. This leads to the failure of large and small data structures. Hence it has to be decentralized.
Scalability at its best
A few of the largest production deployments available are from Apple, which has nearly 75,000 nodes to store 10 PB of data. Netflix has the ability to handle 2,500 nodes, more than 1 trillion requests in a day and 420 TB. Even Chinese search engines like eBay and Easou are leveraging it wisely. With more scalable solutions, every business can ensure that their data is in the right hands.
Durability at its peak
Cassandra suits well for apps where you cannot lose your data, at times when the data entered shuts itself. In such cases, you might need some external support. Cassandra allows smoother operations in such conditions. With more durability, you can also expect improvements in the performance factors. All this will match up with the credibility of the platform.
You are the one who controls
While you go about choosing between asynchronous or synchronous replication suitable for every update, you can optimize any asynchronous operations with Read Repair or Hinted Handoff. Your data would always remain in your control when you are making the best use of Apache Cassandra database. You need not worry about anything like security issues. It would be an extremely viable solution for everyone in your business.
Elastic approach
You should know that Read and write throughput is going to increase in a linear fashion while you add new machines without any interruption or downtime to any of the apps. Flexibility is at its core in terms of Apache Cassandra database management. You can work the way you prefer. Owing to its flexibility, many businesses have chosen to rely upon Apache Cassandra Database to manage all their database management needs and requirements.
It offers professional support
Cassandra would offer you support to host your services and contracts that are available from various third parties. Hence professional support is of extreme importance when you are working with the Cassandra database. With widespread database management support, it is obvious. The community is also friendly towards any new users. They are always ready to support you when you have any queries or concerns regarding the app.
With the professional support that apache cassandra database offers you, you need to understand its overall efficiency. You should remember all these factors to bring the maximum performance for your business using any of the platforms. One of the major traits of Apache Cassandra database is handling the lifecycle of Tombstones.
The lifecycle of Tombstones in Apache Cassandra Database
While handling factors like deletion and expiration of data in Cassandra, you are supposed to be extremely careful. When there is no proper planning involved,
it can pave way for a number of problems to your cluster such as an increase in disk usage footprint as well as read-latency, When we go about deleting in Cassandra, we create a new SSTable containing the marker. The marker shows which row, partition or cell has been rid off, With immutable files existing on any disk, while deleting it, we come across the marker indicating what has been deleted or removed. That deletion marker is known as a tombstone.
By using grace_seconds as your safety mechanism, you can get everything up and running. While the tombstones get accumulated, it can impact Cassandra. The disk space should not have any hurdles. The marker shows which row, partition or cell has been rid off, With immutable files existing on any disk, while deleting it, we come across the marker indicating what has been deleted or removed. Hence you need to delete your data in an ad-hoc manner without deleting it at once. To get all this done, you might need an upper-hand to help you with Apache Cassandra database management.
Why depend on Pattem Digital for Apache Cassandra database requirements?
Pattem Digital is among the pioneering companies offering Apache Cassandra development services, with state-of-the-art solutions in the field of database management. These include services related to documentation, maintenance, and providing an experience that is frictionless. We house specialist professionals who have an in-depth understanding of Apache Cassandra database to help you out with any requirements. Contact us today to learn how we will be able to drive the power of Cassandra into your business success.
