Apache Cassandra Node

Apache Cassandra is an open-source, distributed, wide-column store, NoSQL database management system designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability with no single point of failure. Cassandra offers robust support for clusters spanning multiple datacenters, with asynchronous masterless replication allowing low latency operations for all clients. This AMI could be used for setting up a single node Cassandra installation or used as a node for setting up a multi-node Cassandra cluster.

Features

AMI built with Java 8 and the latest, stable version of Apache Cassandra.
AMI compatible for setting up both single node Cassandra and multi-node Cassandra clusters.
AMI built on a patched operating system and the node created from this is ready to be deployed in production.

How It Works

When an EC2 node spun up from this AMI, Cassandra service is up and running.
If the node has to be added to a cluster, do the additional configuration using user data script.

Click on the links below to take you to Amazon Marketplace for spinning up EC2 nodes.

Configuration

When an EC2 node spun up from this AMI, Cassandra service would be up and running on port 9042.
Depending on the configuration of the cluster to which the node has to join, more ports need to be opened as follows:

Cassandra inter-node ports: 7000 Cassandra inter-node cluster communication. 7001 Cassandra SSL inter-node cluster communication. 7199 Cassandra JMX monitoring port.

Cassandra client ports: 9042 Cassandra client port. 9160 Cassandra client port (Thrift). 9142 Default for native_transport_port_ssl, useful when both encrypted and unencrypted connections are required
The EC2 node would run a standalone Cassandra installation by default.
If the node has to be added to a cluster make suitable changes and restart the service.
The Cassandra installation is at /opt/cassandra/apache-cassandra-VERSION (e.g. /opt/cassandra/apache-cassandra-3.11.10).
On platforms supporting systemd the cassandra service can managed using standard steps:

On older Linux platforms like Amazon Linux 2018, standard cassandra service is available to manage the service:

At times, especially when smaller instance types are used for spinning up the EC2 node the Cassandra might fail to start. In such cases, manually start the Cassandra service.
/opt/cassandra/apache-cassandra-VERSION/bin is in the global PATH and all the Cassandra binaries like nodetool can be run without specifying the full path.
The Cassandra service is configured run as user cassandra. Any configuration change should take that into account.

Unsupported Configurations

Kurian releases latest, stable versions of open source software on popular Linux distributions. If you need a configuration that is not currently available in marketplace, send us your requirements to contact@kurianinc.us. Please include the following info in the email:

Name of Software with version numbers that need to be released as AMIs.
Linux distribution and the version.
The EC2 instance type that you plan to spin up using the AMI (optional).

Upgrade

Follow Apache Cassandra directions for any upgrades.

Maintenance and Troubleshooting

The Cassandra service is cassandra, and it can be managed using standard options available for a Linux service. See the last section also.
The application can be maintained following the official documents.
Kurian can help with configuring the application for your specific needs using this AMI. Contact us with details to contact@kurianinc.us

Remote Access to EC2 Node

Following are the standard AWS defined users available for SSH when a node is provisioned:

Amazon Linux: ec2-user
Red Hat Linux: ec2-user
SuSE Linux: ec2-user
Fedora: fedora
CentOS: centos
Debian Linux: admin
Ubuntu: ubuntu

Release history

03/29/2021 – Initial release of version 3.11.10 on Debian 10, Ubuntu 16.04/18.04/20.04, Amazon Linux 2018/2, Fedora 31, CentOS 7.9/8.3, RHEL 7.9/8.3, SUSE 12.5/15.2, openSUSE Leap 15.2