This chapter will introduce you to the underlying data structure of tables in Cassandra. Let's set some development rules of thumb before we dive into CQL. With CQL 3, Cassandra development team has done a commendable job of almost entirely eliminating any chance of using an antipattern, and at the same time bringing an interface that is SQL people friendly.
If you are a developer, this is probably the most important chapter for you. You will get a sense of things that are possible and not possible when working with Cassandra. You may also want to refer Chapter 8, Integration with Hadoop, to understand how to use Cassandra with various big data technologies such as the Hadoop ecosystem and Spark/Shark.
When dealing with Cassandra, keep the following things in mind:
Denormalize, denormalize, and denormalize: Forget about old school 3NF in Cassandra; the fewer the network trips, the better the performance. Denormalize wherever you can for quicker retrieval and let the...