Bringing Apache Cassandra closer to Kubernetes (DoK Day EU 2022) // Jake Luciani

https://go.dok.community/slack
https://dok.community/
From the DoK Day EU 2022 (https://youtu.be/Xi-h4XNd5tE)

What does Kubernetes provide that allows us to reduce the complexity of Apache Cassandra while making it better suited for cloud native deployments? That was the question we started with as we began a mission to bring Cassandra closer to Kubernetes and eliminate the redundancy. Many great open source databases have been adapted to run on Kubernetes, without relying on the deep ecosystem of projects that it takes to run in Kubernetes(there is a difference). This talk will discuss the design and implementation of the Astra Serverless Database which re-architected Apache Cassandra to run only on Kubernetes infrastructure. Built to be optimized for multi-tenancy and auto-scaling, we set out with a design goal to completely separate compute and storage. Decoupling different aspects of Cassandra into scaleable services and relying on the benefits of Kubernetes and it's ecosystem created a simpler more powerful database service than a stand alone, bare-metal Cassandra cluster. The entire system is now built on Apache Cassandra, Stargate, Etcd, Prometheus, and object-storage like Minio or Ceph. In this talk we will discuss the downstream changes coming to several open source projects based on the work we have done.

Jake is a lead developer and software architect at DataStax with over 20 years of experience in the areas of distributed systems, finance, and manufacturing. He is a member of the Apache Foundation and is on the project committee of the Apache Cassandra, Arrow, and Thrift projects. Jake has a reputation for developing creative solutions to solve difficult problems and fostering a culture of trust and innovation. He believes the best software is built by small diverse teams who are encouraged to think freely. Jake received his B.S. in Computer Science from Lehigh University along with a minor in Cognitive Science.