Welcome to Cassandra and congratulations on choosing a database that beats most of the NoSQL databases in performance. Cassandra is a powerful database based on solid fundamentals of distributed computing and fail-safe design, and it is well-tested by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix. Unlike conventional databases and some of the modern databases that use the master-slave pattern, Cassandra uses the all-nodes-the-same pattern; this makes the system free from a single point of failure. This chapter is an introduction to Cassandra. The aim is to get you through with a proof-of-concept project to set the right state of mind for the rest of the book.

With version 2, Cassandra has evolved into a mature database system. It is now easier to manage, and more developer-friendly compared to the previous versions. With CQL 3 and removal of super columns, it is less likely that a developer can go wrong with Cassandra. In the upcoming sections, we will model, program, and execute a simple blogging application to see Cassandra in action. If you have a beginner-level experience with Cassandra, you may opt to skip this chapter.