If you're an application developer familiar with SQL databases such as MySQL or Postgres, and you want to explore distributed databases such as Cassandra, this is the perfect guide for you. Even if you've never worked with a distributed database before, Cassandra's intuitive programming interface coupled with the step-by-step examples in this book will have you building highly scalable persistence layers for your applications in no time.
What you will learn
Install Cassandra and create your first keyspace
Choose the right table structure for the task at hand in a variety of scenarios
Use range slice queries for efficient data access
Effortlessly handle concurrent updates with collection columns
Ensure data integrity with lightweight transactions and logged batches
Understand eventual consistency and use the right consistency level for your situation
Implement best practices for data modeling and access
The book covers Cassandra features and CQL very well. Book also touches on internal workings of Cassandra.Book doesn't touch any programming language API available for for communicating with Cassandra. It would have been good if one additional chapter has been dedicated to programming language API like Java.
Amazon Verified review
Jascha CasadioDec 20, 2015
5
Sooner or later, every professional working with noSQL databases will meet a beauty called Cassandra, a distributed database management system initially developed by Facebook and now a top-level project at the Apache Foundation. Widely acclaimed for its features, Cassandra is a beast difficult to tame. Next to tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Ubisoft are a myriad of start-ups selling data driven products relying on Cassandra. The high demand of professionals able to properly set it up and tune it results in a lot of documentation available, plus a very active community ready to improve it and support new comers. Among the many titles available to us at the bookstore is Learning Apache Cassandra by Mat Brown, released early this 2015, a title that covers the latest features and targets beginners, be them professionals or simply curious people interested in a quick taste of what Cassandra is and what is it capable of.Spanning through less than 300 pages, Learning Cassandra is short but very intense book. By the time the reader gets to the back cover, he will feel like he has been exposed to a lot of information and, mainly, that he was gradually been taken, step by step, through the very basics of this technology, without any abrut change of topic, without feeling lost. The book written by Mat is easy to follow and comprehensive. Through a learn by doing approach, he does introduce each and every concepts, starting with an overview of what Cassandra is and how it differs from other solutions, up to topics such as lightweight transactions and collections, passing through the different data types. The different topics are presented to the reader through a unique example, an application that closely resembles some basic feature of Facebook. The examples are explained step by step. Nothing is taken for granted.A couple of things deserve a praise: the first, is the choice of the author to present Cassandra through CQL, rather than through the bindings of a specific programming language, which would make it less useful and interesting to most of us; the second is the many concepts presented first in SQL, then in Cassandra. Mat here beautifully shows the differences between a noSQL database and an old school relational database. The author often highlights the importance of denormalizing the data and to state the questions we want to answer first and then build our queries around them.Being a book for beginners, we must say that this title does not present any real world example. Similarly, Mat does use a test cluster made of a single machine, which is far from what we find in production. This rules out all the worries about replication, consensus and so on.Overall, this is by far the most friendly introduction to Cassandra that I have read so far. While it does not provide anything related to administration and configuration, as well as nothing about real world scenarios, it is a perfect companion to anyone interested in learning what Cassandra is and how to get it to work.As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!
Amazon Verified review
AJJun 22, 2015
5
Thanks to Mat, this book is awesome. I read almost all the books on Cassandra available, and somehow I missed this one. This happens to be my latest reading.One question I have for Mat on Pp 170 of the book. While the diagram seems to be correct, the explanation between the two diagrams on this page, for me, looks incorrect. I could be mistaken.In my opinion the explanation should say Alice is on Node3, Bob is on Node1 and Ivan is on Node2Am I missing something. If any one could clarify I would appreciate it.Five stars for this book and the author.
Amazon Verified review
Amazon CustomerJan 21, 2016
5
I am completely new to Apache Cassandra. I just decided to learn it out of my own interest. I purchased the Kindle edition of this book 3 days back. Till now I have completed 5th chapter and I must say that after a long time I am reading such a good book.Contents are perfectly organized.Lots of real life examples and solutions.No unnecessary description or irrelevant data.Language and presentation style is so simple that beginners will love to read it.I am completely satisfied with this book.
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