Cassandra is a robust and highly scalable NoSQL datastore that usually consists of multiple nodes spread out across multiple datacenters.  If you are the system administrator for a large Cassandra deployment then you might be curious as to how your cluster is doing.  In fact your job probably depends on it!  So how can you combine a great service like Monitis with Cassandra to make sure you cluster is buzzing along smoothly?

The Internet is a great resource, but it is sometimes too much to wade through hundreds of web pages looking for tips about using Tomcat with a database. So we at Monitis have done it for you! Below are some of the more useful tips found in various places on the Internet.

Cassandra is a complex, highly scalable NoSQL database system that was initially developed by Facebook and is now under the purview of the Apache Foundation.  Apache Casandra has risen as a welcome alternative to HBase, another highly scalable, and available key value store.

Cassandra is different from most Relational Databases in that it stores data by column instead of by row.  This makes aggregating column values super fast.  It also makes dealing with the database somewhat different as well.  Instead of creating tables, you create column families.  And I shouldn’t have to mention this, but Cassandra is a NoSql solution, so don’t expect any “joins”!

Monitis is pleased to present the following tips for configuring Apache Tomcat for maximum performance. Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.

Apache is the most popular webserver, and M3 (Monitis Monitor Manager) is one very powerful Monitis tool. It’s a no-brainer to bring them together.

In this short document, first we will look briefly at how Apache presents its logs. Next we will define the way to measure the speed of a webserver, and finally we will learn how we can present results with Monitis (using M3).

Apache and syslog-ng

While logging to a database back-end has its benefits, the setup as it stands leaves us wanting. Some applications, such as Apache, do not log via syslog-ng by default. The good news is that this can be easily remedied, and there are a couple of different ways of doing this. First, the less good way:

Apache and MySQL make up the backbone of many Linux based web servers. According to the August 2011 Web Server Survey by Netcraft, Apache currently runs on 65.18% (or 301,771,518!) of web servers.  Similarly, MySQL is the most popular open source database and holds a significant portion of the market share – especially for web content.  This article will detail how you can get at the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in order to make some simple changes that will yield big performance gains.

Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP — together they stand for LAMP. And if you want to have a comprehensive and robust server, your IT infrastructure has to include all of these areas.

Just as we’ve been offering tips and advice on other IT issues in a recent series of blogs (for example, 25 Linux Server Hardening Tips), Monitis has put together a checklist of 101 actions you can take to maximize security around LAMP.

Recently, we talked about Linux operating system tips (20 Linux Server Performance Tips – Part 1, 20 Linux Server Performance Tips – Part 2). Now, let’s chat a bit about tips for Apache. It’s our hope that presenting this information will give you some new ideas on how to make administering your system an easier job!

We all know and love Apache.  Its great, it allows us to run websites on the Internet with minimal configuration and administration.

However, this same ease of flexibility and lack of tuning, is typically what leads Apache to becoming a memory hog.  Utilizing these easy to understand tips, you can gain a significant performance boost from Apache.