You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to user@cassandra.apache.org by S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> on 2010/07/11 17:39:30 UTC
advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts, user
management, etc).
Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
Thanks in advance.
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
@Ahmed -
we are trying to use Redis + gizzard - with gizzard responsible for sharding
and maintaining replicas . Need to test it well before plunging into
production though.
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 7:46 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The only issue I see (please correct me if I am wrong) is that you loose,
> is that you have single points of failure in the system now i.e. redis etc.
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 3:33 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>
>> @michael - benjamin answered your question.
>>
>> Thing is if you use mysql just for indices you are not at all using the
>> benefits of the whole relational database engine(which is fine) but then are
>> inheriting all its disadvantages.
>>
>> You can use mysql for storing indices and then write your own sharding
>> layer on top and then make sure network partitions are taken care of and
>> then.. oh wait you are already starting to create a poor mans cassandra on
>> top of Mysql. Why not just use cassandra ???
>>
>> One valid argument can be mysql is solid in stability where as cassandra
>> still yet to prove it is rock solid. But then 0.7 release looks awesome.
>> There are some really wonderful people developing cassandra and then here to
>> answer most of your questions and then if you still need there is
>> Riptano(and jonathan ellis is one hell of a person to discuss your infra
>> issues).
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Deepu.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>
>>> wrote:
>>> > The thing about slow on joins is true (we experience that ourselves)
>>> but still I wonder myself, why you use cassandra for the indices. Can't you
>>> just store them in MySQL although?
>>> >
>>>
>>> ...and then shard and shard and shard to deal with hundreds of
>>> millions or billions of rows? That's usually the trade-off. Both can
>>> be made to work, but neither is free.
>>>
>>>
>>> b
>>>
>>
>>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com>.
The only issue I see (please correct me if I am wrong) is that you loose, is
that you have single points of failure in the system now i.e. redis etc.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 3:33 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> @michael - benjamin answered your question.
>
> Thing is if you use mysql just for indices you are not at all using the
> benefits of the whole relational database engine(which is fine) but then are
> inheriting all its disadvantages.
>
> You can use mysql for storing indices and then write your own sharding
> layer on top and then make sure network partitions are taken care of and
> then.. oh wait you are already starting to create a poor mans cassandra on
> top of Mysql. Why not just use cassandra ???
>
> One valid argument can be mysql is solid in stability where as cassandra
> still yet to prove it is rock solid. But then 0.7 release looks awesome.
> There are some really wonderful people developing cassandra and then here to
> answer most of your questions and then if you still need there is
> Riptano(and jonathan ellis is one hell of a person to discuss your infra
> issues).
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>
>> wrote:
>> > The thing about slow on joins is true (we experience that ourselves) but
>> still I wonder myself, why you use cassandra for the indices. Can't you just
>> store them in MySQL although?
>> >
>>
>> ...and then shard and shard and shard to deal with hundreds of
>> millions or billions of rows? That's usually the trade-off. Both can
>> be made to work, but neither is free.
>>
>>
>> b
>>
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
@michael - benjamin answered your question.
Thing is if you use mysql just for indices you are not at all using the
benefits of the whole relational database engine(which is fine) but then are
inheriting all its disadvantages.
You can use mysql for storing indices and then write your own sharding layer
on top and then make sure network partitions are taken care of and then.. oh
wait you are already starting to create a poor mans cassandra on top of
Mysql. Why not just use cassandra ???
One valid argument can be mysql is solid in stability where as cassandra
still yet to prove it is rock solid. But then 0.7 release looks awesome.
There are some really wonderful people developing cassandra and then here to
answer most of your questions and then if you still need there is
Riptano(and jonathan ellis is one hell of a person to discuss your infra
issues).
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>
> wrote:
> > The thing about slow on joins is true (we experience that ourselves) but
> still I wonder myself, why you use cassandra for the indices. Can't you just
> store them in MySQL although?
> >
>
> ...and then shard and shard and shard to deal with hundreds of
> millions or billions of rows? That's usually the trade-off. Both can
> be made to work, but neither is free.
>
>
> b
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us>.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de> wrote:
> The thing about slow on joins is true (we experience that ourselves) but still I wonder myself, why you use cassandra for the indices. Can't you just store them in MySQL although?
>
...and then shard and shard and shard to deal with hundreds of
millions or billions of rows? That's usually the trade-off. Both can
be made to work, but neither is free.
b
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type application?
Posted by Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>.
The thing about slow on joins is true (we experience that ourselves) but still I wonder myself, why you use cassandra for the indices. Can't you just store them in MySQL although?
Am 13.07.2010 um 08:26 schrieb Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com:
> @paul - cassandra is really good for storing indices. But i like redis because it provides us with some of the really good data-structures like sorted sets and all. So we use both to their strengths. For example in a forum - all the posts and replies in a thread + which user is following which threads etc etc are all stored in cassandra.
>
> But for something like which threads make up the top page (should be able to sort these both in terms of latest posted thread first - most active thread first etc etc) - sorted sets makes lots of sense as recomputing the whole (which threads make up the first page) is too much to re-compute every time a post is made. Hence in such cases i use redis but for storage of posts and follower lists et al i use cassandra.
>
> @micheal - Well with mysql writes are fast but reads are slow cause of joins et al . my main criterion is reads should be really really fast - which means i have to precompute indices so that my front end code will just read the index and output it - no more complex joins et al . so you need a store which is really good for storing lots of indices - in my opinion cassandra is one of the best store for storing indices. Hence the use of cassandra.
>
> Also complete de-normalization isn't so easy. There will be many cases where it will be a pain in the ass. I could handle most of such cases with the help of Varnish - ESI module. For example. You have a timeline of posts stored in cassandra. But we cannot store the author information in all the posts as it is subjected to change any time. This is the classic case of a join. If you want to use a NoSQL for that then you will end up making multiple calls to the database (first to fetch the posts and then to fetch the user information). But if you just use ESI then no need to make so many calls because you can cache that small user info module for as long as that information doesn't change. This seems a much more elegant solution than a mysql join. Hope i explained the point.
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de> wrote:
> Are your PVs mostly read or write? As if they are read, I'd think you wouldn't need a Cassandra like storage which is tuned towards writes.
>
> Am 12.07.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com:
>
> > well we were going down constantly with VB running on 3-4 dedicated servers due to huge traffic(couple of tens of millions of page views). We are also planning on some new major features, hence the shift to cassandra with future in mind.
> >
> > Well roughly the architecture is like this(in order of how the request proceeds) :-
> >
> > 1) Varnish - php reads from cassandra and the performance isn't always good(i am still yet to master it though. so probably my lack of expertise here). So we use heavy use of varnish to cache as much as possible. VCL means we can cache same page for different logged in users differently. ESI means no need to worry about joins. Really varnish is quite a good companion for NoSQL .
> >
> > 2) Front end php servers - contains most of the template code - reads directly from cassandra and Redis.
> >
> > 3) Middleware(written in scala + python -- planning to move middleware to scala completely to reduce no of langs in production) - all writes from php directly go to the middleware - As cassandra is infact mostly a storage of indices - which means you need to change your strategy from mysql(post computation) to precomputing all the needed indices and storing them on cassandra. so middleware takes care of computing the indices and storing them in cassandra and redis accordingly. This way php will just submit the write to middleware and the request can be completed while middleware might take couple secs at most to compute the indices and finish the request completely.
> >
> > 4) Cassandra + redis clusters.
> >
> >
> > So writes are taken care of by the middleware and hence writes complete uber fast and reads are also quite fast courtesy of utilizing varnish where ever it helps.
> >
> > Still not in production though. Hope it helped. Would welcome anybody's suggestions on the way i am using cassandra and if i can do anything better
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:48 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
> >
> > Very interested in seeing this go live.
> >
> > What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> > No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Very interesting!
> >
> > What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a port then?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> > we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing some bad scaling issues.
> >
> > we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my knowledge.
> >
> > I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts, user
> > > management, etc).
> > > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
> > > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
> > stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
> > always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
> > are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
> > experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
> > traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
> >
> > Paul Prescod
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
@paul - cassandra is really good for storing indices. But i like redis
because it provides us with some of the really good data-structures like
sorted sets and all. So we use both to their strengths. For example in a
forum - all the posts and replies in a thread + which user is following
which threads etc etc are all stored in cassandra.
But for something like which threads make up the top page (should be able to
sort these both in terms of latest posted thread first - most active thread
first etc etc) - sorted sets makes lots of sense as recomputing the whole
(which threads make up the first page) is too much to re-compute every time
a post is made. Hence in such cases i use redis but for storage of posts and
follower lists et al i use cassandra.
@micheal - Well with mysql writes are fast but reads are slow cause of
joins et al . my main criterion is reads should be really really fast -
which means i have to precompute indices so that my front end code will just
read the index and output it - no more complex joins et al . so you need a
store which is really good for storing lots of indices - in my opinion
cassandra is one of the best store for storing indices. Hence the use of
cassandra.
Also complete de-normalization isn't so easy. There will be many cases where
it will be a pain in the ass. I could handle most of such cases with the
help of Varnish - ESI module. For example. You have a timeline of posts
stored in cassandra. But we cannot store the author information in all the
posts as it is subjected to change any time. This is the classic case of a
join. If you want to use a NoSQL for that then you will end up making
multiple calls to the database (first to fetch the posts and then to fetch
the user information). But if you just use ESI then no need to make so many
calls because you can cache that small user info module for as long as that
information doesn't change. This seems a much more elegant solution than a
mysql join. Hope i explained the point.
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>wrote:
> Are your PVs mostly read or write? As if they are read, I'd think you
> wouldn't need a Cassandra like storage which is tuned towards writes.
>
> Am 12.07.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com:
>
> > well we were going down constantly with VB running on 3-4 dedicated
> servers due to huge traffic(couple of tens of millions of page views). We
> are also planning on some new major features, hence the shift to cassandra
> with future in mind.
> >
> > Well roughly the architecture is like this(in order of how the request
> proceeds) :-
> >
> > 1) Varnish - php reads from cassandra and the performance isn't always
> good(i am still yet to master it though. so probably my lack of expertise
> here). So we use heavy use of varnish to cache as much as possible. VCL
> means we can cache same page for different logged in users differently. ESI
> means no need to worry about joins. Really varnish is quite a good companion
> for NoSQL .
> >
> > 2) Front end php servers - contains most of the template code - reads
> directly from cassandra and Redis.
> >
> > 3) Middleware(written in scala + python -- planning to move middleware to
> scala completely to reduce no of langs in production) - all writes from php
> directly go to the middleware - As cassandra is infact mostly a storage of
> indices - which means you need to change your strategy from mysql(post
> computation) to precomputing all the needed indices and storing them on
> cassandra. so middleware takes care of computing the indices and storing
> them in cassandra and redis accordingly. This way php will just submit the
> write to middleware and the request can be completed while middleware might
> take couple secs at most to compute the indices and finish the request
> completely.
> >
> > 4) Cassandra + redis clusters.
> >
> >
> > So writes are taken care of by the middleware and hence writes complete
> uber fast and reads are also quite fast courtesy of utilizing varnish where
> ever it helps.
> >
> > Still not in production though. Hope it helped. Would welcome anybody's
> suggestions on the way i am using cassandra and if i can do anything better
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:48 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
> >
> > Very interested in seeing this go live.
> >
> > What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> > No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Very interesting!
> >
> > What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
> port then?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> > we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing
> some bad scaling issues.
> >
> > we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing
> for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
> questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
> knowledge.
> >
> > I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
> functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Deepu.
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
> user
> > > management, etc).
> > > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
> > > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
> > stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
> > always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
> > are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
> > experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
> > traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
> >
> > Paul Prescod
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type application?
Posted by Michael Dürgner <mi...@duergner.de>.
Are your PVs mostly read or write? As if they are read, I'd think you wouldn't need a Cassandra like storage which is tuned towards writes.
Am 12.07.2010 um 23:40 schrieb Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com:
> well we were going down constantly with VB running on 3-4 dedicated servers due to huge traffic(couple of tens of millions of page views). We are also planning on some new major features, hence the shift to cassandra with future in mind.
>
> Well roughly the architecture is like this(in order of how the request proceeds) :-
>
> 1) Varnish - php reads from cassandra and the performance isn't always good(i am still yet to master it though. so probably my lack of expertise here). So we use heavy use of varnish to cache as much as possible. VCL means we can cache same page for different logged in users differently. ESI means no need to worry about joins. Really varnish is quite a good companion for NoSQL .
>
> 2) Front end php servers - contains most of the template code - reads directly from cassandra and Redis.
>
> 3) Middleware(written in scala + python -- planning to move middleware to scala completely to reduce no of langs in production) - all writes from php directly go to the middleware - As cassandra is infact mostly a storage of indices - which means you need to change your strategy from mysql(post computation) to precomputing all the needed indices and storing them on cassandra. so middleware takes care of computing the indices and storing them in cassandra and redis accordingly. This way php will just submit the write to middleware and the request can be completed while middleware might take couple secs at most to compute the indices and finish the request completely.
>
> 4) Cassandra + redis clusters.
>
>
> So writes are taken care of by the middleware and hence writes complete uber fast and reads are also quite fast courtesy of utilizing varnish where ever it helps.
>
> Still not in production though. Hope it helped. Would welcome anybody's suggestions on the way i am using cassandra and if i can do anything better
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:48 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
>
> Very interested in seeing this go live.
>
> What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Very interesting!
>
> What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a port then?
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing some bad scaling issues.
>
> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my knowledge.
>
> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts, user
> > management, etc).
> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>
> Paul Prescod
>
>
>
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us>.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:43 AM, Paul Prescod <pa...@prescod.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:44 PM, Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us> wrote:
>> We use Cassandra (multidimensional metrics) *and* redis (counters and
>> alerts) *and* MySQL (supporting Rails). Right tool for each job. The
>> idea that it is a good thing to cram everything into a single database
>> (and data model), beaten into everyone by years of relational database
>> marketing, is not true now and never really was. Embrace diversity!
>
> As I'm sure you know more than most, every component in production has
> an operational cost, and therefore each should be justifiable.
>
Similarly, there is a cost to using a tool that is ill-suited to the
task. This is the fundamental trade-off in using more specialized
systems vs a general, relational store. My experience so far is the
additional operational overhead is quite low, and the benefits in
performance and simplicity of implementation far outweigh it.
b
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Paul Prescod <pa...@prescod.net>.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:44 PM, Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us> wrote:
> We use Cassandra (multidimensional metrics) *and* redis (counters and
> alerts) *and* MySQL (supporting Rails). Right tool for each job. The
> idea that it is a good thing to cram everything into a single database
> (and data model), beaten into everyone by years of relational database
> marketing, is not true now and never really was. Embrace diversity!
As I'm sure you know more than most, every component in production has
an operational cost, and therefore each should be justifiable.
Paul
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Benjamin Black <b...@b3k.us>.
We use Cassandra (multidimensional metrics) *and* redis (counters and
alerts) *and* MySQL (supporting Rails). Right tool for each job. The
idea that it is a good thing to cram everything into a single database
(and data model), beaten into everyone by years of relational database
marketing, is not true now and never really was. Embrace diversity!
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:04 PM, Paul Prescod <pa...@prescod.net> wrote:
> Why Cassandra *and* Redis? What do you perceive as the strengths or
> weaknesses of the two?
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Paul Prescod <pa...@prescod.net>.
Why Cassandra *and* Redis? What do you perceive as the strengths or
weaknesses of the two?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com
<sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> well we were going down constantly with VB running on 3-4 dedicated servers
> due to huge traffic(couple of tens of millions of page views). We are also
> planning on some new major features, hence the shift to cassandra with
> future in mind.
> Well roughly the architecture is like this(in order of how the request
> proceeds) :-
> 1) Varnish - php reads from cassandra and the performance isn't always
> good(i am still yet to master it though. so probably my lack of expertise
> here). So we use heavy use of varnish to cache as much as possible. VCL
> means we can cache same page for different logged in users differently. ESI
> means no need to worry about joins. Really varnish is quite a good companion
> for NoSQL .
> 2) Front end php servers - contains most of the template code - reads
> directly from cassandra and Redis.
> 3) Middleware(written in scala + python -- planning to move middleware to
> scala completely to reduce no of langs in production) - all writes from php
> directly go to the middleware - As cassandra is infact mostly a storage of
> indices - which means you need to change your strategy from mysql(post
> computation) to precomputing all the needed indices and storing them on
> cassandra. so middleware takes care of computing the indices and storing
> them in cassandra and redis accordingly. This way php will just submit the
> write to middleware and the request can be completed while middleware might
> take couple secs at most to compute the indices and finish the request
> completely.
> 4) Cassandra + redis clusters.
>
> So writes are taken care of by the middleware and hence writes complete uber
> fast and reads are also quite fast courtesy of utilizing varnish where ever
> it helps.
> Still not in production though. Hope it helped. Would welcome anybody's
> suggestions on the way i am using cassandra and if i can do anything better
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:48 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
>> Very interested in seeing this go live.
>> What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com
>> <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
>>> Cheers,
>>> Deepu.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Very interesting!
>>>> What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
>>>> port then?
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com
>>>> <sa...@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing
>>>>> some bad scaling issues.
>>>>> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still
>>>>> testing for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any
>>>>> specific questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the
>>>>> best of my knowledge.
>>>>> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of
>>>>> the functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> Deepu.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads,
>>>>>> > posts, user
>>>>>> > management, etc).
>>>>>> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
>>>>>> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Thanks in advance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
>>>>>> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
>>>>>> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
>>>>>> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
>>>>>> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
>>>>>> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Paul Prescod
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
well we were going down constantly with VB running on 3-4 dedicated servers
due to huge traffic(couple of tens of millions of page views). We are also
planning on some new major features, hence the shift to cassandra with
future in mind.
Well roughly the architecture is like this(in order of how the request
proceeds) :-
1) Varnish - php reads from cassandra and the performance isn't always
good(i am still yet to master it though. so probably my lack of expertise
here). So we use heavy use of varnish to cache as much as possible. VCL
means we can cache same page for different logged in users differently. ESI
means no need to worry about joins. Really varnish is quite a good companion
for NoSQL .
2) Front end php servers - contains most of the template code - reads
directly from cassandra and Redis.
3) Middleware(written in scala + python -- planning to move middleware to
scala completely to reduce no of langs in production) - all writes from php
directly go to the middleware - As cassandra is infact mostly a storage of
indices - which means you need to change your strategy from mysql(post
computation) to precomputing all the needed indices and storing them on
cassandra. so middleware takes care of computing the indices and storing
them in cassandra and redis accordingly. This way php will just submit the
write to middleware and the request can be completed while middleware might
take couple secs at most to compute the indices and finish the request
completely.
4) Cassandra + redis clusters.
So writes are taken care of by the middleware and hence writes complete uber
fast and reads are also quite fast courtesy of utilizing varnish where ever
it helps.
Still not in production though. Hope it helped. Would welcome anybody's
suggestions on the way i am using cassandra and if i can do anything better
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:48 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
>
> Very interested in seeing this go live.
>
> What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>
>> No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Deepu.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Very interesting!
>>>
>>> What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
>>> port then?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
>>> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing
>>>> some bad scaling issues.
>>>>
>>>> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing
>>>> for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
>>>> questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
>>>> knowledge.
>>>>
>>>> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
>>>> functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Deepu.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
>>>>> user
>>>>> > management, etc).
>>>>> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
>>>>> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Thanks in advance.
>>>>>
>>>>> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
>>>>> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
>>>>> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
>>>>> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
>>>>> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
>>>>> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul Prescod
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com>.
What sort of traffic levels made you port the application to Cassandra?
Very interested in seeing this go live.
What sort of server setup are you looking at using?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Very interesting!
>>
>> What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
>> port then?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
>> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>>
>>> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing
>>> some bad scaling issues.
>>>
>>> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing
>>> for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
>>> questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
>>> knowledge.
>>>
>>> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
>>> functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Deepu.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
>>>> user
>>>> > management, etc).
>>>> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
>>>> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Thanks in advance.
>>>>
>>>> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
>>>> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
>>>> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
>>>> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
>>>> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
>>>> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>>>>
>>>> Paul Prescod
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
No we re-coded from scratch with most of the needed functionality.
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 7:49 PM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Very interesting!
>
> What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
> port then?
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
> sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
>
>> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing some
>> bad scaling issues.
>>
>> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing
>> for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
>> questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
>> knowledge.
>>
>> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
>> functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Deepu.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
>>> user
>>> > management, etc).
>>> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
>>> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
>>> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
>>> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
>>> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
>>> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
>>> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>>>
>>> Paul Prescod
>>>
>>
>>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com>.
Very interesting!
What kind of integration do you have between vB and Cassandra? its not a
port then?
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:34 AM, Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com <
sandeep.kalidindi@pagalguy.com> wrote:
> we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing some
> bad scaling issues.
>
> we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing
> for bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
> questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
> knowledge.
>
> I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
> functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
>
> Cheers,
> Deepu.
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
>> user
>> > management, etc).
>> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
>> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
>> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
>> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
>> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
>> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
>> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>>
>> Paul Prescod
>>
>
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by "Sandeep Kalidindi at PaGaLGuY.com" <sa...@pagalguy.com>.
we were one of the vbulletin customers and our forums has been facing some
bad scaling issues.
we coded our forum software to work with cassandra. we are still testing for
bugs and might go live in couple of weeks. You can ask any specific
questions about vbulletin and cassandra and i will answer to the best of my
knowledge.
I our case a combination of cassandra and redis took care of most of the
functionality that vbulletin offers and much more.
Cheers,
Deepu.
On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 9:58 AM, Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts,
> user
> > management, etc).
> > Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
> > Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
> stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
> always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
> are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
> experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
> traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
>
> Paul Prescod
>
Re: advice, is cassandra suitable for a multi-tanency vBulletin type
application?
Posted by Paul Prescod <pr...@gmail.com>.
On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 8:39 AM, S Ahmed <sa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to build a vBulletin type application (forums, threads, posts, user
> management, etc).
> Support multi-tenancy for a Saas type environment.
> Would Cassandra be suitable for this type of application?
>
>
> Thanks in advance.
Most likely, it is technically a fine fit. But Cassandra is very early
stage software, so you should expect that the documentation will not
always be clear and things will change from version to version. If you
are not extremely self-reliant, you may find it a frustrating
experience. Unless you are confident you will have trouble scaling
traditional technologies, it might not make business sense.
Paul Prescod