KB Article #178081

Benefits of an external Cassandra Service

Question

Why is Cassandra no longer embedded in the API Gateway?

Answer

Here is a list of the benefits for moving Cassandra to an external service which is mandatory from version 7.5.1 onwards (7.2.0-7.4.1 an API Gateway instance would embed a Cassandra service)
  1. No longer tied to specific version of Cassandra
  2. No modification needed to stock version of Cassandra (unlike the embedded version)
  3. Cassandra not fixed to use Gateway's 3rd party libs
  4. Can use latest stable version of Cassandra (currently 2.2.4)
  5. We use a well-defined and standard Cassandra architecture that we support and document
  6. Improved security features available in stock Cassandra that are not available in embedded Cassandra
  7. No way to upgrade Cassandra embedded (external Cassandra can upgrade to v3.0 when stable independently of the API Gateway)
  8. Can’t configure Gateway topology independently of Cassandra cluster
  9. Can’t configure Cassandra cluster independently of the Gateway (i.e. requires stop/start)
  10. Lifecycle of the Gateway and Cassandra are inextricably linked - for example, you have to restart the GW to restart Cassandra.
  11. Run with a later bug fixed version of Cassandra
  12. More configuration options available in the long term including swapping out Cassandra for other KPS backing store e.g. RDBMS

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