For the next few chapters, we'll be building the persistence layer for an application called MyStatus, which allows its users to post status updates for their friends to see. In this chapter, we'll make the first table of that persistence layer, which will store user profiles.
In Chapter 1, Getting Up and Running with Cassandra, you set up a local Cassandra installation and created a keyspace, so we're prepared to hit the ground running. This chapter will provide a whirlwind tour of many core Cassandra concepts such as:
How Cassandra tables are structured
Cassandra's type system
How to create a table
How to insert rows into a table
How to retrieve rows by primary key
How to query for all rows in a table
How to page through large result sets