DataStax to Support Multiple Distributions of Cassandra

DataStax today announced it will provide support services for any distribution of the open source Cassandra database via a subscription offering dubbed DataStax Luna.

The company also announced it has made available two additional free tools in the form of DataStax Apache Kafka Connector for integrating Cassandra with the open source real-time streaming engine, and Bulk Loader to make loading and unloading data into Cassandra faster and simpler.

Based on a wide column store architecture, Cassandra has emerged as a popular NoSQL alternative to traditional distributed databases because the column store on which Cassandra is based can also be organized into rows made up of multiple columns.

Previously, DataStax only supported its own distribution of Cassandra alongside an enterprise variant through which it makes available additional features. There’s also a managed service, available in beta, through which DataStax will run Cassandra on a public cloud on behalf of customers.

Created at Facebook, Cassandra is currently maintained under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). DataStax was subsequently created to provide a curated distribution of Cassandra alongside the distribution made available by ASF. Cassandra also makes use of Cassandra Query Language (CQL) as an alternative to SQL for processing queries. DataStax is now the largest contributor of code to the upstream Cassandra project.

DataStax CTO Jonathan Ellis said that as the adoption of Cassandra has increased, there is now enough critical mass of multiple distributions of Cassandra to support. DataStax is now offering support via community and enterprise editions of DataStax Luna.

Adoption of DataStax largely has been driven by developers. However, as the number of instances of Cassandra deployed increases, IT teams are finding they don’t have the expertise required to manage yet another database platform on their own. DataStax Luna provides a subscription service through which IT teams can rely on support from DataStax regardless of what distribution or version number of Cassandra they are running, said Ellis.

In many cases, Cassandra databases are being managed by DevOps teams rather than traditional database administrators (DBAs). However, it’s not clear whether more DBAs will be expanding their roles to include managing alternatives to traditional relational databases. Many organizations are now coming to terms with the need to support multiple types of databases. In fact, in many cases, the management of databases on which modern applications are built has been incorporated into a larger DevOps team.

Regardless of who manages the database, Ellis said the most important thing for any organization embracing Cassandra to understand its data model. As organizations look to process analytics alongside transactions in real-time, Cassandra affords IT organizations a lower-cost alternative.

When it comes to databases, there is no shortage of alternatives. The days when organizations standardized on a single database are, for all intents and purposes, over. The challenge now is defining the best DevOps practices that will be required to manage multiple database engines as instances of each type of database continue to proliferate.

— Mike Vizard