Apache Cassandra | Apache Cassandra Documentation

Our monthly roundup of key activities and knowledge to keep the community informed.

Release Notes

Released

We are focused on the final blockers to the next release of Apache Cassandra which will be 4.1. At the time of writing, we had 28 tickets remaining and the unassigned tickets would be a great introduction for someone new to contributing to the project (see details, below, on how to help).

The latest release of Apache Cassandra remains 4.0.4 (pgp, sha256, and sha512), which was released on 14 May 2022.

Please read the 4.0.4 release notes and let us know if you encounter any problems.

We also had a bug fix releases for both the 3.11 series (3.11.13, pgp, sha256, sha512) and 3.0 series (3.0.27, pgp, sha256, sha512) that were released on the same day as 4.0.4.

Please read the release notes for 3.11.13 and 3.0.27 and let us know if you encounter any problems.

Note: For this release cycle only, we will continue to support 3.0. as well as the 3.11., 4.0., and 4.1 latest patch versions. See Behind the Scenes of an Apache Cassandra Release for more details.

See the download section for the latest stable and older supported versions of source and binary distributions.

To stay up-to-date, we recommend joining the Cassandra mailing lists.

Community Notes

Updates on Cassandra Enhancement Proposals (CEPs), how to contribute, and other community activities.

For newcomers to the project, we have a useful ‘Contributing to Cassandra’ page for how to get involved and get started.

If you’d like to help us get 4.1 over the line, check out the unassigned tickets marked as beta blockers. These are great candidates for someone new to the project.

We also recommend taking a look at two Jira ticket queries we’ve created. One is a Kanban board for “Failing Tests” tickets that are unassigned and the other corresponds to our Low Hanging Fruit or “Starter Tickets” for 4.0.x and 4.1.x. Feel free to self-select a ticket to work on.

Any of these tickets should be of appropriate complexity for someone new to the project to tackle. Just remember to assign yourself to the ticket and acknowledge the status, such as ‘Work in Progress’ and ‘Needs Comitter/Patch Available’ when you submit your patch. You can also reach out on the ASF Slack in the #cassandra-dev Slack channel. Use @cassandra_mentors to contact our mentor team!

You can also read PMC member Josh McKenzie’s latest bi-weekly update for ongoing discussions and the latest on ticket progress.

Announced

The Apache Cassandra World Party is drawing closer and set for 20 July 2022. At the end of June, we announced some of the speakers, and confirmed a local Watch Party in London. A big thank you to AxonOps for stepping up as an official sponsor this year. 👏

To keep up to date on the latest developments for the event and updates on local Watch Parties, please register here

Announced

Aaron Ploetz has launched a community-driven podcast called Apache Cassandra Corner.

As you’d expect, the podcast will cover all things Cassandra, from use cases to projects and the people who make them happen. Aaron has already produced five episodes and the latest show is with Melissa Logan on open source marketing and her work with the Data on Kubernetes community. If you’d like to volunteer to talk about your Cassandra adventures for the podcast, please email Aaron.

Discussed

Johannes Weißl started a thread about slow custom unit tests running on Mac OS X. if you have experience of this issue, please contribute to the conversation.

Discussed

The role of Build Lead was discussed again in June as it’s been over six weeks without someone taking up the rotating position. The role is a really helpful way to gain a solid understanding of where the weaknesses are in our CI infrastructure, and to help keep visibility in the project to test failures as we burn them down leading up to 4.1’s GA. If you have the bandwidth to help (it only involves a few hours during a week), Josh McKenzie is happy to mentor anyone through their first run as build lead. You can contact him on the cassandra-dev channel in ASF Slack or email him.

Discussed

A popular and ongoing discussion, started by Blake Eggleston has been on the right way to shape an API around multi-key transactions in Cassandra for General Purpose Transactions:CEP-15. If you have an opinion on the shape a transactional / batch API in Cassandra should take, please contribute.

Discussed

Comments on a JIRA ticket generated a discussion on when the project cuts a Major vs. a Minor release and what qualifies as an API. If you want to wade into this discussion, make sure you’re registered on the Dev mailing list for a future formal discussion coming soon.

User Space

Capital One

"One of the bigger advantages of Cassandra is resiliency. Since Cassandra leans towards AP in CAP Theorem, it can manage partition failures to remain available round-the-clock. Cassandra’s masterless, peer-to-peer architecture ensures that applications never experience downtime even during disastrous system failures.

The company itself has invested a lot of time and effort into our resiliency and this commitment made Cassandra a great choice. It’s always available. It’s always there for us. And it has performed rock solid."

— David Andrzejek

Do you have a Cassandra case study to share? Email cassandra@constantia.io.