Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1. Getting Up and Running with
Cassandra
As an application developer, you have almost certainly worked with databases extensively.
You must have built products using relational databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL, and
perhaps experimented with a document store like MongoDB or a key-value database like
Redis. While each of these tools has its strengths, you will now consider whether a distrib-
uted database like Cassandra might be the best choice for the task at hand.
In this chapter, we'll talk about the major reasons to choose Cassandra from among the
many database options available to you. Having established that Cassandra is a great
choice, we'll go through the nuts and bolts of getting a local Cassandra installation up and
running. By the end of this chapter, you'll know:
• When and why Cassandra is a good choice for your application
• How to install Cassandra on your development machine
• How to interact with Cassandra using cqlsh
• How to create a keyspace
