September 2020 Summaries

In this Q&A series "Behind the Innovator", Regimantas Snieška, a lead software engineer at MobilePay, shares his experience and learnings from working with Apache Cassandra™ and open source technologies. He discusses the challenges of designing highly available systems in a microservices architecture, emphasizing the importance of understanding trade-offs for each design decision. Domain-driven design is recommended as a useful tool to simplify system design and improve communication across teams. An extensive automated testing suite is also highlighted as crucial for enabling CI/CD pipelines and fast, reliable deployment. Regimantas advises designing systems that are easy to change due to the rapid advancement of technology. For learning Cassandra, DataStax Academy is recommended, while Pluralsight is suggested for SQL knowledge.

In this webinar, DataStax introduces Storage Attached Indexes (SAI), a new indexing implementation that allows users to create secondary indexes on any column in their Cassandra tables without the need for denormalization or materialized views. SAI is designed to be efficient and performant, with better throughput and latency compared to previous indexing mechanisms. The webinar includes live demos of SAI in action, as well as a discussion of its performance characteristics and limitations. DataStax also provides an overview of the Astra on GKE solution and how it integrates with Google Cloud.

In a recent episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, T-Mobile EVP, CIO, and Chief Product Officer, Cody Sanford, discusses T-Mobile's customer-obsessed approach with DataStax Chairman and CEO Chet Kapoor. Sanford shares insights about his 20-year career in wireless, the importance of keeping customers and employees at the center of decision-making processes, and how T-Mobile has adapted to a distributed workforce during COVID-19. The podcast also highlights how T-Mobile uses data to continuously prioritize its customers' needs and provides tips for other organizations looking to do the same.

The guest-edited issue by Rebecca Mills discusses the new Storage Attached Index (SAI) in Cassandra, which addresses write amplification and index size on disk issues present in previous secondary indexing implementations. SAI is designed to use significantly less disk space and supports faster writes than other indexes. It is available in DataStax Enterprise 6.8.3 and can be tested in a free Astra cluster. The Apache CEP has been submitted for bringing this functionality to the Apache version of Cassandra, with user feedback welcome. Additionally, DataStax's Chief Strategy Officer Sam Ramji hosts a new podcast series on open-source data and software.

Rebecca Mills guest edits an issue on DataStax Developer Learning, focusing on the new Storage Attached Index (SAI) in Cassandra. SAI addresses previous indexing challenges such as write amplification and index size on disk. It is designed to use less disk space and supports faster writes than other indexes. SAI is available in DataStax Enterprise 6.8.3, with a hands-on learning experience provided through the new Cassandra Indexing Skills Page. DataStax has submitted the Apache CEP for bringing this functionality to the Apache version of Cassandra and encourages feedback from users. The company's Chief Strategy Officer, Sam Ramji, hosts a podcast series called Open||Source||Data exploring open-source data and related topics.

The new podcast series "Open||Source||Data" has been launched, focusing on open-source data, software, and their applications in Kubernetes, DevOps, and AI. The podcast aims to explore cloud-native development and share insights with developers, engineers, product owners, and managers. In the first episode, Patricia Boswell, a Staff Technical Writer at Google, is interviewed. The series can be subscribed on various platforms including the website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Mike Heinen, the customer platform operations manager at Cengage, an education and technology company, discusses his experience in managing Apache Cassandra environments and overseeing the digital transformation of the company from physical textbook learning to digital content creation. He highlights the importance of working closely with engineering teams to solve problems and emphasizes the value of having a trusted partner like DataStax for expertise and support. Looking ahead, Mike's vision is to establish Cassandra as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) at Cengage, ensuring that issues are detected before they impact application teams.

DataStax has introduced Storage-Attached Indexing (SAI), a highly scalable, globally distributed index for Apache Cassandra®, now available on Astra and DataStax Enterprise (DSE). SAI enables developers to use relational WHERE patterns that leverage user-expected database indexing capabilities for Apache Cassandra. It provides an efficient and simpler filtering capability than Cassandra’s current indexing or bolt-on search solutions. SAI is deeply integrated with the storage engine of Apache Cassandra, which is why it's called Storage-Attached Indexing. It does not abstractly index tables but indexes Cassandra’s in memory Memtable and on-disk SSTable data structures as data is written. SAI intelligently filters results both in-memory and on-disk data structures at read time. SAI requires significantly lower disk usage compared to other native or bolt-on Cassandra index solutions, and it has been shown to improve performance for mutations (Cassandra insert, update, delete statements) by about 40% better throughput when using SAI compared to Secondary Indexes and about 230% better latency.

In a recent episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, Banco Santander Chief Platform Officer Aiaz Kazi discusses moving from traditional on-premise to cloud-native, mobile-first, and AI-enabled platforms in today's modern world. He shares his thoughts on leading digital transformation initiatives at Banco Santander, which was founded in 1857, and transitioning the bank from an on-premises mindset to deliver innovative solutions. Kazi also talks about changing the way he views success with each new role and what inspired leadership looks like. The podcast is available on InspiredExecution.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

The DataStax Developer Advocate team recently concluded their 8-week Cassandra Developer Workshop series, which included a special bonus episode to celebrate the winners of the Astrackathon - a hackathon for developing applications on Datastax Astra. David Jones-Gilardi expressed his enjoyment in going through all submitted projects. Participants who missed out on the Astrackathon can look forward to more hackathons in partnership with Hacker Earth and Major League Hacking. The team is also launching a new technical podcast, Open || Source || Data, on September 15th. They thanked everyone for their participation and contributions over the last three years and encouraged feedback at [email protected] or @DataStaxDevs.

The DataStax Developer Advocate team recently concluded their 8-week Cassandra Developer Workshop series, which included a special bonus episode to celebrate the winners of the Astrackathon - a hackathon for developing applications on Datastax Astra. Participants are encouraged to showcase their skills in future hackathons as DataStax partners with Hacker Earth and Major League Hacking. The team is also launching a new technical podcast, Open || Source || Data, starting September 15th. They thanked everyone who participated in the Astrackathon and workshop series, and encouraged feedback at [email protected] or @DataStaxDevs.