September 2019 Summaries

DataStax Enterprise (DSE) is a popular choice among customers like Capital One, Delta Airlines, and Macy's due to its Apache Cassandra® foundation which provides limitless scale and the most battle-tested geo-replication capabilities on the market. The new direction for the Verified Gold Apache Kafka Connector enables bidirectional functionality as both a sink and source for Kafka. This feature is particularly useful in building microservice architectures, allowing multi-data center/cloud replication of Cassandra-backed systems of record. The connector leverages the powerful Kafka Connect framework to distribute tasks across multiple worker nodes and processes, making it easy to scale as workload requirements change. With this new functionality, users can seamlessly move data between DSE and Kafka in event-driven architectures, enabling globally synchronized microservices.

The global Internet of Things (IoT) market is predicted to grow from $31.5 billion in 2016 to $158.1 billion by 2024, driven primarily by manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and utility companies. As smart cities, homes, and cars become more prevalent, businesses will need to manage an increasing amount of data effectively. Technologies such as time-series data modeling, streaming architectures, data tiering functionality, hybrid cloud environments, and advanced replication are critical for successful data management in the IoT era.

DataStax has expanded its support for the DataStax Distribution of Apache Cassandra on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This move allows organizations to use Cassandra as a database while developing applications on GCP, which is recognized as a global leader in cloud platforms. The pre-configured deployment comes with best practices for Google Cloud and can seamlessly scale as requirements grow. DataStax also provides support and services from experts who authored the majority of the Cassandra code. This collaboration enables developers to quickly build, deploy, and scale Cassandra-based applications in the cloud with an easy-to-use, open-source compatible solution that comes with unparalleled support.

DataStax has announced the general availability of its DataStax Distribution of Apache Cassandra on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This production-ready, open-source compatible database is supported by DataStax and can be deployed in various GCP regions with two levels of support. The solution integrates seamlessly with Google's Stackdriver Monitoring and Logging services for cluster health monitoring and issue troubleshooting. Additionally, users can integrate their data on a DataStax Distribution of Apache Cassandra cluster with other GCP cloud services like BigQuery for meaningful insights and SQL queries.

Built-in TypeScript support has been added to DataStax Node.js drivers for Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise. The TypeScript declarations are now contained within the same package and repository as the JavaScript API, ensuring they remain synchronized. DSE-specific types like geo, auth, and graph can also be used from TypeScript. To start using the Node.js driver for Apache Cassandra in a TypeScript project, install the driver package via npm and begin coding. The latest versions of the driver are available on the npm registry.

A new report from 451 Research reveals that many businesses still rely on older back-end technologies, making it difficult for them to meet evolving customer expectations during peak traffic periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The report suggests that companies with outdated databases built with scale-up architectures struggle to maintain optimal inventory levels and automatically scale their systems to accommodate high traffic. To overcome this challenge, more organizations are moving to scale-out database architectures, which distribute data across servers and allow for predictable scaling. This approach offers benefits such as leveraging the power of the cloud, managing costs efficiently, increasing performance, handling unpredictable workloads, and improving availability with built-in fault tolerance. The report highlights that 52% of organizations expect to have scale-out architectures in two years, emphasizing the importance of adopting modern database technologies for holiday sales success.

DataStax has announced three new developer tools for the Apache Cassandra community at the recent ApacheCon event. These include DataStax Insights, a performance management and monitoring tool; unified drivers for C++, C#, Java, Python, and node.js; and DataStax Proxy for DynamoDB™ and Apache Cassandra, which enables developers to run AWS DynamoDB™ workloads on Cassandra. These tools highlight the company's commitment to open source technology and will help developers build transformative software solutions and modern applications in the future.

Patrick McFadin has announced the public preview of an open-source tool that enables developers to run AWS DynamoDB workloads on Apache Cassandra®. By using DataStax Proxy for DynamoDB and Cassandra, developers can execute DynamoDB workloads on-premise and benefit from Cassandra's hybrid, multi-model, and scalability advantages. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that provides an elastic, fully managed cloud experience to developers. However, its tight integration with AWS can be a barrier for users who want to use it on-premise. Since Cassandra has long supported key-value and table-type datasets, supporting DynamoDB workloads was as simple as adding a conversion layer to the existing storage engine for DataStax customers. Today, a preview version of a proxy offering compatibility with the DynamoDB SDK is being released. Existing applications can read and write data between DataStax Enterprise (DSE) or Cassandra without modifying any code. Additionally, it brings the benefits of Cassandra, such as hybrid, multi-model, and scalability, to DynamoDB users. Those interested in viewing the code can visit DataStax Labs and GitHub: https://github.com/datastax/dynamo-cassandra-proxy/.

At the ApacheCon conference on September 11, 2019, Patrick McFadin from DataStax announced an open-source tool's public preview version that enables developers to run their Amazon DynamoDB applications on Apache Cassandra. With DataStax's support for both DynamoDB and Cassandra, developers can run DynamoDB applications in various environments while fully leveraging the advantages of Cassandra's hybrid cloud, multi-model, and infinite scalability. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value database that provides developers with an elastic and zero-operation cloud experience. However, its tight integration with AWS limits its use for customers who want to utilize it in their own data centers. Since Cassandra has always supported key-value and tabular data models, supporting DynamoDB applications means DataStax users only need a translation layer to access their existing Cassandra storage engine. Today, we are releasing a preview of an agent sequence compatible with the DynamoDB SDK that allows existing application sequences to read/write data from DataStax Enterprise (DSE) or Cassandra without any code changes. For users already using the DynamoDB SDK, they can easily enjoy the benefits of Cassandra's hybrid cloud, multi-model, and infinite scalability through this agent. If you are only interested in finding the code for this open-source tool, you can find it on GitHub and DataStax Labs: https://github.com/datastax/dynamo-cassandra-proxy/. Application lifecycle management: Many customers develop applications in their own data centers and then deploy them to cloud production environments. This agent sequence allows users to run their existing DynamoDB application sequences on a Cassandra cluster running in their local data center. Hybrid deployment: DynamoDB Streams can be used to implement hybrid workload management and migrate from the cloud-based DynamoDB database to an on-premises Cassandra database using the DynamoDB proxy sequence to access the local Cassandra database. The current implementation supports this usage mode, similar to DynamoDB Global Tables, and it also uses DynamoDB Streams to move data. For hybrid moving data to DynamoDB, please refer to the improvements in Cassandra CDC and continue monitoring DataStax's blog for updates on our Change Data Capture (CDC) functionality. The agent sequence is designed to enable users to use Cassandra to support their DynamoDB applications. We believe that the best way to help users leverage this new tool and grow is to open-source it under an Apache 2 license. This code provides a scalable proxy layer between your application and database. It maintains compatibility with the DynamoDB SDK, allowing existing DynamoDB applications to read and write data from Cassandra without changing the application. We made some design decisions when designing this agent sequence that align with our usual guiding principles for developing Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise products. We could have built it as a Cassandra plugin, which would allow it to run as part of the core process, but we decided to build it as a separate process for the following reasons: Ability to independently scale the agent from Cassandra The ability to leverage Kubernetes/cloud-native tools Agile development and easier attraction of open-source contributors - Developers do not need in-depth knowledge of the Cassandra kernel to get started developing this agent sequence Independent release cadence, separate from the Apache Cassandra project Providing better AWS integration for stateless applications (i.e., leveraging CloudWatch alerts, auto-scaling, etc.) At first glance, DynamoDB's data model appears very simple. It consists of a hash key, a sort key, and a JSON structure called an item. Depending on your goals, the DynamoDB data model can be stored in different ways in Cassandra Query Language (CQL). To support experimentation and pluggability, we built the translation layer as a pluggable component that allows for different translation mechanisms. We continue to build on this architecture, testing multiple data models, and determining which one is best suited for: Various workloads Support for various consistency/serialization requirements Performance trade-offs based on SLAs If you are interested in running DynamoDB applications on Cassandra, please check out this project. Getting started is easy; just follow the steps outlined in the readme file and DynamoDB section. The functionality supported by this agent sequence is rapidly increasing, and we welcome your contributions. https://github.com/datastax/dynamo-cassandra-proxy/. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Using these trademarks does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by the trademark owner. 1 Typically referred to as a partition key in DynamoDB documentation, we use the term hash key here because they do not have a one-to-one correspondence with partitions in DynamoDB.

Patrick McFadin from DataStax introduced a new open source tool at the ApacheCon event that allows developers to execute AWS DynamoDB® workloads in Apache Cassandra. The DataStax Proxy for DynamoDB and Cassandra enables developers to run DynamoDB workloads (on-premises, in hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments) while benefiting from the scalability advantages of Cassandra. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document database that provides developers with elasticity and seamless use in the cloud due to its tight integration with AWS. However, this close integration poses challenges when customers want to use the database on-premises. Apache Cassandra has always supported key-value and tabular datasets, but DataStax customers previously needed to add a translation layer to their existing storage engine to process DynamoDB workloads. Today, a Proxy compatible with the DynamoDB SDK is introduced, requiring no code changes for existing applications to read and write data in DataStax Enterprise (DSE) or Cassandra. Additionally, users of DynamoDB benefit from the hybrid-cloud and multi-model capabilities as well as scalability offered by Cassandra. The Proxy's source code can be found on GitHub and DataStax Labs: https://github.com/datastax/dynamo-cassandra-proxy/.

At ApacheCon, Patrick McFadin of DataStax announced the release of an open-source tool allowing developers to run their AWS DynamoDB processing capabilities within Apache Cassandra. With DataStax Proxy for DynamoDB and Cassandra, developers can execute their DynamoDB processing abilities locally and benefit from Cassandra's scalability features, as well as in hybrid or multi-model configurations. Amazon DynamoDB is a key-value and document-oriented database that provides developers with great flexibility and a zero-intervention cloud experience. However, the tight integration of AWS, which makes all the appeal of DynamoDB in the cloud, constitutes a barrier for customers who want to use it locally. Cassandra has always supported key-value and tabular data sets. For DynamoDB workloads, DataStax clients only needed a translation operation to their storage engine. Today, we introduce a preview proxy that ensures compatibility with the DynamoDB SDK, allowing existing applications to read/write data to DataStax Enterprise (DSE) or Cassandra without any code modification. It also offers scalability benefits in Cassandra's hybrid and multi-model environments for DynamoDB users. If you simply need the code, you will find it on GitHub and DataStax Labs: https://github.com/datastax/dynamo-cassandra-proxy/.

Software development has evolved significantly over the last decade, with leading teams adopting DevOps workflows and prioritizing CI/CD to release stronger software more frequently. Key technologies driving this change include microservices, containers (like Docker), open-source tools, and hybrid cloud environments. Microservices enable faster development by breaking applications into smaller services that can be updated independently. Containers allow developers to package code and dependencies together for easy deployment across various environments. Open-source tools provide access to proven technologies built collaboratively by developers worldwide, simplifying the coding process. Hybrid cloud environments offer scalability and security benefits, while multi-cloud or intercloud setups leverage multiple vendors' strengths. Adopting these technologies can help development teams pivot quickly in response to user feedback and improve their overall agility.

The upcoming holiday season presents an opportunity for businesses to capitalize on increased customer demand and online sales. Retail sales are expected to climb in 2019, with online sales growing between 10-12% - four to five times faster than traditional brick-and-mortar outlets. Omnichannel experiences are becoming increasingly popular, with the number of shoppers buying something online and picking it up in a physical store rising 65% between 2017 and 2018. To make the most of this holiday season, businesses need to ensure they have real-time inventory management and can handle peak-traffic periods on their websites and apps. Ensuring fast loading times, high availability, and strong security measures are crucial in meeting customer expectations and preventing potential fines or loss of customers due to network breaches. DataStax software provides continuous availability, predictable scalability, and advanced security features to help businesses prepare for the busiest holiday season ever.

Data is crucial for agile organizations, but it can also be devastating when not secured properly. The average cost of a data breach in 2019 was $3.92 million, with the U.S. facing an even higher average cost of $8.19 million. Beyond financial implications, breaches can generate negative PR and damage brand image, leading to customer churn. Data protection and security are essential for mitigating these risks. DataStax Enterprise offers advanced security options that protect distributed data and reduce the risk of a data breach. Its integrated, feature-rich security solution includes authentication and authorization frameworks, SSL to secure communications, transparent data encryption for data in transit and at rest, auditing, and more. DataStax continues to prioritize security by expanding its advanced security features with LDAP authentication, KMIP support for external key management, role-based, and row-level access control. In summary, securing your data is vital for protecting your organization from cyber attacks and their damaging consequences. Building applications on a trusted database like DataStax Enterprise can help ensure the security of one of your most valuable assets: your data.

Today, DataStax Labs released the DataStax Java Driver Spring Boot Starter, a tool that simplifies building standalone Spring-based applications using Apache Cassandra or DataStax databases. This is currently preview software and can be downloaded from the DataStax Labs website. The starter provides an easy way to configure the DataStax Java Driver through Spring properties and profiles. It also includes support for dependency injection, integration tests with Docker and CCM, and a demo project hosted on GitHub.