Cassandra - Lab 1

In this lab session, we will explore Apache Cassandra by setting up a Docker Cassandra instance using the provided command. We will cover the following:

Launching a Docker Cassandra Container
Connecting to the Cassandra Cluster
Creating a Keyspace and a Table
Inserting and Querying Data

1. Starting Cassandra

Steps

Start up Docker
Open your Terminal
Execute the following command
```
docker run -d --name cassandra-instance -p 9042:9042 cassandra
```
Info

This command creates a Docker container named "cassandra-instance" running the Cassandra image, maps port 9042 on your host to port 9042 inside the container, and runs Cassandra in the background.

Expected results

The terminal will show the container ID

2. Connecting to the Cassandra Cluster

Steps

Open the Terminal (or stay in the same Terminal window)
Execute the following command

docker exec -it cassandra-instance cqlsh

Expected results

The following information in the Terminal

Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042
[cqlsh 6.1.0 | Cassandra 4.1.3 | CQL spec 3.4.6 | Native protocol v5]
Use HELP for help.

3. Create a namespace and a table

Steps

Create a namespace and a table where the namespace is called people and the table is nammed person by copying and pasting the following content in the CQL shell

CREATE KEYSPACE people WITH replication = {'class':'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor':1};
USE people;

CREATE TABLE person (
    id UUID PRIMARY KEY,
    name TEXT,
    age INT
);

Run the folloiwing command in the CQL shell
```
describe people
```

Expected results

Namespace and table created, showing the following in the Terminal

CREATE KEYSPACE people WITH replication = {'class': 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor': '1'}  AND durable_writes = true;

CREATE TABLE people.person (
    id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
    age int,
    name text
) WITH additional_write_policy = '99p'
    AND bloom_filter_fp_chance = 0.01
    AND caching = {'keys': 'ALL', 'rows_per_partition': 'NONE'}
    AND cdc = false
    AND comment = ''
    AND compaction = {'class': 'org.apache.cassandra.db.compaction.SizeTieredCompactionStrategy', 'max_threshold': '32', 'min_threshold': '4'}
    AND compression = {'chunk_length_in_kb': '16', 'class': 'org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.LZ4Compressor'}
    AND memtable = 'default'
    AND crc_check_chance = 1.0
    AND default_time_to_live = 0
    AND extensions = {}
    AND gc_grace_seconds = 864000
    AND max_index_interval = 2048
    AND memtable_flush_period_in_ms = 0
    AND min_index_interval = 128
    AND read_repair = 'BLOCKING'
    AND speculative_retry = '99p';

4. Inserting data

Steps

Run the following command in the CQL shell

INSERT INTO person (id, name, age) VALUES (uuid(), 'Alice', 30);
INSERT INTO person (id, name, age) VALUES (uuid(), 'Bob', 25);
INSERT INTO person (id, name, age) VALUES (uuid(), 'Charlie', 35);

Retrieve data from the person table running the following command in the CQL shell
```
SELECT * FROM person;
```

Expected results

The person data with this similar output

 id                                  | age | name
-------------------------------------+-----+---------
4022c9af-4920-4787-8edb-8d1d8091ec30 |  30 |   Alice
ec3e9568-901e-41d4-af09-cae644d7d1a3 |  25 |     Bob
be51376c-d798-4234-ad8a-ba46e60b3131 |  35 | Charlie

(3 rows)