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?

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”!

In a series of blogs, Monitis has begun providing guidance on picking the right NoSQL database storage tool that meets your company’s needs. In our previous blog, we offered a comprehensive overview of why NoSQL technology is important and how it compares with Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMSs).

Now, we’d like to get a bit more specific and review various brands. We hope that this information will help choosing NoSQL DBs such as Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, CouchDB, Redis, Riak, HBase and others…easier. After all, you want to make sure that your data is being stored safely. Aren’t there enough worries out there about data security – whether the data is being stored on the cloud or behind your internal, private firewall?

Gosh; there are so many NoSQL database storage tools out there. It’s almost as bad as brands of sport drinks or water. Have you noticed that some mega-supermarkets have whole aisles dedicated to what we drink!

As an IT system administrator or manager, it’s sometimes very hard to compare various NoSQL tools. It involves considering your special computing needs, matching them to what is out there, aligning what’s right for your organization and then make the right decision!

That’s why Monitis, the first hosted all-in-one network and systems performance monitoring service for sysadmins, is publishing a series of blogs that are meant to offer a comprehensive guide to NoSQL technology and brands. We want to help you make the right choice that fits the particular needs of your company.

Why should we care, you may ask yourself? Increasingly, our clients, who depend on our ability to monitor servers and networks and a host of other key metrics 24/7 from the cloud, want our advice, too, on what kind of scalable and robust database technology to use. So, we’re obliging!

Here, in a series of blogs, we’ll present research on existing popular NoSQL data storage tools that are generally intended to store unprecedented large amounts of data, offer flexible and horizontal scalability and provide blazing-fast processing queries. We’ll also get down to the nitty-gritty and compare several well-known NoSQL DBs…such as Cassandra, MongoDB, CouchDB, Redis, Riak, HBase and others.

In this first post, let’s discuss the reason why NoSQL technology is important.