Comcast: Sprinting from Cassandra to ScyllaDB

Comcast's migration from Apache Cassandra to ScyllaDB for its Xfinity X1 platform has resulted in significantly improved performance, particularly in reducing long-tail latency, prompting the removal of its caching layer for the user interface. During the ScyllaDB Summit 2019, Philip Zimich, Senior Director of Software Development & Engineering at Comcast, detailed the transition from Oracle to NoSQL via Apache Cassandra, then to ScyllaDB, and outlined a roadmap through 2022. This transition has led to a substantial reduction in node count from 962 Cassandra nodes to 78 ScyllaDB nodes, while ensuring scalability for more than 31 million set-top boxes and second-screen devices across 15 million households. The switch is expected to save over 60% of Cassandra operating costs, and the X1 Scheduler, which processes over 2 billion RESTful calls daily, employs multiple datastore technologies, including MongoDB and Elasticsearch, alongside ScyllaDB.