This topic describes required and recommended steps to configure the Cassandra database component for a Apigee hybrid production installation.

Required configurations

The following configurations are required.

Ensure high availability

Cassandra clusters need three availability zones to maintain availability in a production environment. If one zone goes down, the remaining zones will continue responding to requests while the remaining zone comes back online. If two or more zones go down, Cassandra will be unable to respond to requests until at least two zones are online. Apigee recommends bringing zones back online within three hours to minimize the risk of missing data updates.

Configure Cassandra storage settings

For a production installation of Apigee hybrid, Google recommends that you add the following storage and heap settings to your overrides file and apply them to the cluster:

cassandra:  ...  replicaCount: 3  storage:    storageclass:your-preferred-ssd-storage #If not using default storage for your cluster    capacity: 500Gi  resources:    requests:      cpu: 7      memory: 15Gi  maxHeapSize: 8192M  heapNewSize: 1200M

Apply changes to cassandra with the following command:

helm upgrade datastore apigee-datastore/ \--namespaceapigee \--atomic \-fOVERRIDES_FILE.yaml

For production, Cassandra storage must be an SSD StorageClass. Set the value ofstorageclass if you are not using the default Kubernetes StorageClass for your cluster. You can check the default StorageClass with the following command.

kubectl get storageclass

Your output should look something like:

NAME                     PROVISIONER             RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE      ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGEpremium-rwo              pd.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   true                   6d23hstandard                 kubernetes.io/gce-pd    Delete          Immediate              true                   6d23hstandard-rwo(default)   pd.csi.storage.gke.io   Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   true                   6d23h

Follow the instructions inStorageClass configuration if you want to change the default Kubernetes StorageClass.

To check the currentstorageclass setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get pvc -nNAMESPACE cassandra-data-apigee-cassandra-default-0 -o=jsonpath="{['.spec.storageClassName', '.metadata.annotations.volume\.beta\.kubernetes\.io/storage-class']}"

storageSize

For production installations, Google recommends a storage size of at least 500Gi (gibibytes). You can change the storage size in response to your cluster's storage needs. See the instructions inExpand Cassandra persistent volumes to change the storage capacity.

To check the current size setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get pvc -nNAMESPACE cassandra-data-apigee-cassandra-default-0 -o=jsonpath='{.spec.resources.requests.storage}'

cpu andmemory

For production installations, Google recommends at least 7 CPUs and a minimum 15Gi (gibibytes) per pod. When specifyingcassandra.resources.requests.cpu andcassandra.resources.requests.memory, consider the traffic volume and the CPU and Memory demands of your proxies.

To check the current cpu setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get pods -nNAMESPACE apigee-cassandra-default-0 -o=jsonpath='{.spec.containers[].resources.requests.cpu}'

To check the current memory setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get pods -nNAMESPACE apigee-cassandra-default-0 -o=jsonpath='{.spec.containers[].resources.requests.memory}'

maxHeapSize andheapNewSize

These properties determine the maximum memory heap allocated to cassandra processes and the amount by which memory is increased, respectively, in megabytes (heap sizes are specified in megabytes, not mebibytes). For production environments, Google recommends the following values:

• maxHeapSize: 8192M
• heapNewSize: 1200M

Consult your Kubernetes platform provider's documentation for optimal heap size values.

To check the currentmaxHeapSize setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get sts -nNAMESPACE apigee-cassandra-default -o=jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[].env[?(@.name=="MAX_HEAP_SIZE")]}'

To check the currentheapNewSize setting, execute the following command on your cluster:

kubectl get sts -nNAMESPACE apigee-cassandra-default -o=jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.containers[].env[?(@.name=="HEAP_NEWSIZE")]}'

For more information on these property settings, see the Configuration property reference.

Use SSD storage for production deployments

For the Cassandra database, the hybrid runtime only supports using dynamically created persistent volumes to store data. Local solid state disk (SSD) drives are not supported.

If you do not currently have SSD configured for Cassandra, you must configure aStorageClass definition that is backed by a solid-state drive (SSD) and make it the default class. SeeStorageClass configuration for detailed steps.

Follow the instructions inStorageClass configuration if you want to change the default Kubernetes StorageClass.

In the event of a multi-regional Cassandra issue following a misconfiguration, Google will not be able to restore theruntime data, which will result in permanent data loss.

To prevent data loss, configure a dailybackup schedule. Monitor your backup sizes and frequency, and ensure that you are notified when the backup pipeline fails.

Adhere to Cassandra minimal cluster requirements

Followminimal cluster configuration for Cassandra.

Treat all customer-facing environments as production

Even if your hybrid installation is considered "non-prod", you still might need production-ready settings. For example, outages in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) installations should trigger high priority incidents.

Use production-ready settings even for "non-prod" customer-facing hybrid installations. We recommend that you adhere to the same principles for all customer-facing environments as for production servers, as outlined in this article. In particular, follow the disaster recovery principles usingreplicaCount and regions. SeeConfigure Cassandra storage settings for details.