Apache Cassandra is a highly-scalable partitioned row store. Rows are organized into tables with a required primary key.

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster.

Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

For more information, seethe Apache Cassandra web site.

Issues should be reported onThe Cassandra Jira.

• Java: see supported versions in build.xml (search for property "java.supported").

• Python: forcqlsh, seebin/cqlsh (search for function "is_supported_version").

This short guide will walk you through getting a basic one node cluster upand running, and demonstrate some simple reads and writes. For a more-complete guide, please see the Apache Cassandra website’sGetting Started Guide.

First, we’ll unpack our archive:

After that we start the server. Running the startup script with the -f argument will causeCassandra to remain in the foreground and log to standard out; it can be stopped with ctrl-C.

Now let’s try to read and write some data using the Cassandra Query Language:

The command line client is interactive so if everything worked you shouldbe sitting in front of a prompt:

As the banner says, you can use 'help;' or '?' to see what CQL has tooffer, and 'quit;' or 'exit;' when you’ve had enough fun. But lets trysomething slightly more interesting:

If your session looks similar to what’s above, congrats, your single nodecluster is operational!

For more on what commands are supported by CQL, seethe CQL reference. Areasonable way to think of it is as, "SQL minus joins and subqueries, plus collections."

Wondering where to go from here?

• Join us in #cassandra on theASF Slack and ask questions.

• Subscribe to the Users mailing list by sending a mail touser-subscribe@cassandra.apache.org.

• Subscribe to the Developer mailing list by sending a mail todev-subscribe@cassandra.apache.org.

• Visit thecommunity section of the Cassandra website for more information on getting involved.

• Visit thedevelopment section of the Cassandra website for more information on how to contribute.