Getting Started with Cassandra

Objective: Explain the differences between NoSQL and RDBMS databases, Explain what the various NoSQL databases are, Explain the various Cassandra features, Explain why Cassandra scores over other NoSQL databases, Distinguish between use cases when Cassandra is a strong choice and when it is not, Understand the use cases where Cassandra is implemented.

Topics: Quick Review of RDBMS: Transactions, ACIDity, Schema, Two Phase Commit, Sharding and Share Nothing Architecture, Feature Based, Key Based, Lookup Table Based, NoSQL Databases, Brewers CAP Theorem, Cassandra Definition and Features, Distributed and Decentralised, Elastic Scalability, High Availability and Fault Tolerance, Tuneable Consistency, Strict Consistency, Casual Consistency, Weak (Eventual Consistency), Column Orientation, Schema Free, High Performance, USE Cases for Cassandra, Cassandra Installation.

Understanding Cassandra Data Model

Objective: Run basic Cassandra commands, Understand Design differences between RDBMS and Cassandra data model, Describe What a Cassandra cluster is,Describe what a Keyspace is, how it relates to Cluster and what is stored in the Keyspace, Explain what a Column Family is, Explain the primary key and its uses, Explain the parts of the compound primary Key, Explain what a partition key is, Explain how data is stored in a partition, Explain how clustering columns ensure that the stored data will be clustered in a partition, Explain secondary indexes and there implications, Explain how Cassandra locate data in the data cluster, Explain expiring column and Time to Live (TTL).

Topics: Installing Cassandra, Running the Command-Line Client Interface, Basic CLI Commands, Help, Connecting to a Server, Describing the Environment, Creating and Keyspace and Column Family, Writing and Reading Data, The Relational Data Model, Simple Introduction, Cluster, Keyspaces, Column Families, Column Family Options, Columns, Wide Rows, Skinny Rows, Column Sorting, Super Columns, Composite Keys, Design Differences between RDBMS and CASSANDRA, Query Language, Referential Integrity, Secondary Indexes, Sorting, DeNormalisation, Design Patterns, Materialized Views.

Understanding Cassandra Architecture

Objective: Explain what happens during the read and write operations, Explain how Cassandra accomplishes some of its basic notable aspects, such as durability and high availability. Understand more complex inner workings, such as the gossip protocol, hinted handoffs, read repairs, Merkle trees etc, Understand Staged Event-Driven Architecture (SEDA).

Topics: System Keyspace, Peer-To-Peer, Gossip and Failure Detection, Anti-Entropy and Read Repair, Memtables, SSTables, and Commit Logs, Hinted Handoff, Compaction, Bloom Filters, Tombstones, Staged Event-Driven Architecture (SEDA), Read, Mutation, Gossip, Response, Anti-Entropy, Load Balance, Migration, Streaming, Managers and Services, Casssandra Daemon, Storage Service, Messaging Service, Hinted Handoff Manager.

Creating Sample Application

Objective: Analyze the requirements for a Cassandra use case and apply data modeling techniques, Identify the challenges faced by RDBMS, Identify the design consideration for designing Cassandra data model, Understand how data modeling differs in Cassandra from traditional relational databases, Understand how to De-Normalize RDBMS data, Demonstrate how the queries are used to design Cassandra data model, Demonstrate ability to apply data modeling concepts to various exercises that are given during the class, Understand the implications of the client side joins when writing application that access data in Cassandra, Able to insert data, perform batch updates and search column families.

Topics: Database Design, Sample Application RDBMS Design, Sample Application Cassandra Design, Application Code, Creating Database, Loading Schema, Data Structures, Setting Connections, Population of database, Application Features.

Configuring, Reading and Writing Data in Cassandra

Objective: Understand what Replicas are, Understand various replica Placement Strategies, Understand Partitions, Understand Snitches, Create Clusters, Understand Dynamic Ring Participation, Understanding Security with in Cassandra, Understand Miscellaneous Settings and various additional tools in Cassandra, Understand Basic read and Write Properties, Understand what Slice Predicates are.

Topics: Keyspaces, Replicas, Replica Placement Strategy, Replication Factor, Partitioner, Snitches, Creating Clusters, Dynamic Ring Participation, Security, Miscellaneous Settings, Additional Tools, Query differences between RDBMS and Cassandra, Basic Write Properties, Consistency Level, Basic Read Properties, API's, Set Up and Inserting Data, Slice Predicate, Get Range Slices, Multiget Slice, Deleting, Programmatically Defining Keyspaces and Column Families.

Integrating Cassandra with Hadoop

Objective: Understand what Hadoop is and how it is used, Describe Cassandra File System, Start working with Map Reduce, Understand tools above Map Reduce like Pig and Hive and how they work with Cassandra, Understand Cluster Configuration, Understand live use cases.

Topics: Hadoop, MapReduce, Cassandra Hadoop Source Package, Outputting Data to Cassandra, PIG, HIVE, Use Cases.

CQL

Objective: Perform Data Definition Language (DDL) Statements within Cassandra, Perform Data Manipulation Language (DML) Statements within Cassandra, Create and modify Users and User permission within Cassandra, Capture CQL output to a file, Import and export data with CQL, Execute CQL scripts from within CQL and from the command prompt.

Topics: Data Definition language(DDL) Statements, Data Manipulation Language (DML), Create and modify Users, User permission, Capture CQL output to a file, Import and export data, CQL scripts from within CQL, CQL Scripts from the command prompt.

Clients and Live Project

Objective: Understand what Thrift is, Understand Cassandra web console, Demonstrate ability to implement the concepts learned during the course on a real life problem.

Topics: Basic Client API, Thrift, Thrift Support for Java, Exceptions, Thrift Summary, Cassandra Web Console, Hector (Java), Features, Hector API, Live Project.