November 2020 Summaries

Kubecon North America has sparked discussions around managing data in Kubernetes. New projects, such as K8ssandra, aim to simplify running Apache Cassandra™ on Kubernetes and accessing it from applications deployed on the platform. K8ssandra offers a production-ready solution with automation for operational tasks like repairs, backups, and monitoring. Additionally, the Astra Service Broker leverages the Open Service Broker API to enable developers to provision and consume DataStax Astra databases alongside their applications inside Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. Developers can learn more about these projects through resources available on GitHub and YouTube.

Kubecon North America has sparked discussions around managing data in Kubernetes. New projects like K8ssandra provide a production-ready platform for running Apache Cassandra™ on Kubernetes, automating operational tasks such as repairs, backups, and monitoring. The Astra Service Broker leverages the Open Service Broker API to let developers provision and consume DataStax Astra databases alongside their applications inside Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry. Developers can learn more about these projects through resources available on GitHub and YouTube.

The DataStax Astra Service Broker enables seamless integration of Apache Cassandra into Kubernetes deployments, allowing developers to focus on application development while leaving operational responsibilities to the service. This cloud-native DBaaS platform is highly scalable and portable across multiple cloud platforms. By using the Open Service Broker API and Service Catalog operator for Kubernetes, users can easily provision and bind services like DataStax Astra, making it simple to manage data layers in a continuous delivery environment. The integration process involves creating a Kubernetes secret with service account information from Astra, registering the broker via a ServiceBroker custom resource, and then using svcat or kubectl to provision and monitor database instances.

In this episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, Barclays CEO of Consumer Banking & Payments Ashok Vaswani discusses his global career journey, emphasizing the importance of a cultural mindset shift for successful digital transformation. He also highlights the crucial role data plays in modern financial services organizations and how it will shape their success. Additionally, he shares insights on leading teams through challenging times like the pandemic. The podcast is available on InspiredExecution.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

In a recent episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, Barclays CEO of Consumer Banking & Payments Ashok Vaswani discusses his experiences working in various parts of the world, emphasizing that despite cultural differences, people fundamentally share similar traits. He also highlights the importance of a cultural mindset shift for successful digital transformation and the increasing role data plays in financial services companies. Vaswani believes that organizations with control over their data will be best positioned to succeed in the future, as more enterprises become data-driven. The podcast also touches on the challenges presented by the pandemic and the crucial role leaders play in helping their teams navigate these difficult times.

In a recent episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, Pearson Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operations Officer Albert Hitchcock discusses how to successfully enact digital transformation initiatives, the role AI will play in the future of education and employment, and more. He emphasizes that businesses across industries face similar challenges when it comes to digital transformation, with a focus on improving digital customer experience. Successful transformation is dependent on having the right people in place and fostering a culture that embraces change. One key challenge is leadership turnover, as CIOs and CTOs often have short tenures at companies, making it difficult to see projects through to completion. Pearson is currently working towards becoming a platform company like Netflix and Spotify, with the goal of helping one billion learners acquire new skills faster through personalized, engaging courses. The podcast also covers the impact COVID-19 has had on education and how it has accelerated the adoption of digital learning.

In this webinar, we discussed the new Storage Attached Index (SAI) feature in Apache Cassandra 4.0 and beyond. We covered how SAI improves upon previous indexing schemes like 2i and SASI, making it easier for developers to create efficient queries without having to bolt on extra parts to their system. We also discussed the performance implications of using SAI, including a significant reduction in storage costs compared to other indexing methods. We provided a downloadable Studio notebook that users can use to run their own demonstrations and learn more about how to use SAI effectively. Finally, we answered several questions from attendees, covering topics such as geospatial support, participating in the CEP process, avoiding full cluster scans, trade-offs to consider when using SAI, index creation timing, DSE Search deprecation, and max limits on the number of indexes on a table.

In this webinar, Patrick McFadin and Matt Kennedy discuss the Storage Attached Index (SAI) feature in Apache Cassandra. They explain how SAI improves performance by reducing disk usage and write amplification, making it a more efficient indexing solution compared to previous methods like SASI. The presenters also share details about the development process for SAI, its implementation in Astra and DSE, and future plans for incorporating geospatial support. They encourage viewers to participate in the Cassandra Enhancement Proposal (CEP) process by joining the ASF Slack or dev mailing list, and provide a downloadable Studio notebook for users to explore SAI on their own. The webinar concludes with a Q&A session addressing various aspects of SAI, such as its performance trade-offs, storage limits, and comparison with DSE Search.

In a recent episode of the Inspired Execution podcast, Pearson Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operations Officer Albert Hitchcock discusses successful digital transformation initiatives, the role of AI in education and employment, and more with DataStax Chairman and CEO Chet Kapoor. Hitchcock emphasizes that challenges faced by businesses are similar across industries, and highlights the importance of people and culture in driving transformative change. He also notes that many companies struggle to complete digital transformation projects due to short leadership tenures. Currently, Pearson is following the path of companies like Netflix and Spotify to become a platform company, with the goal of helping one billion learners acquire new skills faster through personalized, engaging courses. The podcast delves into various aspects of digital transformation, including its impact on education during COVID-19 and how consumer expectations have been raised by companies like Uber, Amazon, and Netflix.

The text discusses strategies for implementing Cassandra Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to enhance data safety in a database. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining separate roles for users and permissions, creating standardized roles for common permissions like "read-only" and "read-write", and avoiding overly complex role structures. The text also suggests using prefixes or suffixes for roles specific to keyspaces or tables, and advises against assigning "roles of roles" to users.

The text discusses using Cassandra Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) as a tool to ensure data safety in databases. It suggests treating users and roles as distinct types of database objects, creating basic roles for common permissions, and avoiding deep nesting of roles. These strategies can help maintain clear and manageable database permissions.

This article provides guidance on sizing DataStax Astra for new or existing Apache Cassandra applications. It explains that the free tier (C10) is a good starting point, and suggests using D10 for time-series or immutable workloads. The article also discusses replication and scalability in Astra, which ensures availability across multiple nodes and availability zones. Users can choose between C and D tiers based on their compute size requirements and storage needs, with storage scaling in increments of 500GB for the C tier and 1.5TB for the D tier. The article concludes by highlighting Astra's features and tools that aim to simplify database management and improve user experience.

This article provides guidance on sizing DataStax Astra for new or existing Apache Cassandra applications. It explains that the free tier (C10) is always a good starting point, and suggests using D10 for time-series or immutable workloads. The article also discusses replication and scalability in Astra, which ensures availability across multiple nodes and availability zones. Users can choose between C and D tiers based on their compute size requirements and storage needs, with the option to expand capacity units as needed. Additionally, users can deploy databases across multiple regions within the same cloud provider. The article highlights that operational considerations are eliminated in Astra, making it easier for users to manage their applications.