Cassandra Administration Training in Auckland, New Zealand

This course provides system administrators and database professionals with the practical skills needed to install, configure, manage, and monitor Apache Cassandra — a highly scalable and distributed NoSQL database. Emphasis is placed on understanding Cassandra’s architecture, data modeling best practices, replication, backup strategies, performance tuning, and troubleshooting. Participants will gain hands-on experience in setting up multi-node clusters and ensuring high availability and reliability in production environments.

Introduction and Architecture

• Introduction to NoSQL and Cassandra

• Use cases and benefits in large-scale environments

• Cassandra architecture overview: nodes, rings, partitions

• CAP theorem and Cassandra’s trade-offs (AP model)

Installation and Cluster Configuration

• Installing Cassandra on Linux systems

• Configuration files: cassandra.yaml and cassandra-env.sh

• Single-node and multi-node cluster setup

• Gossip, snitch, and seed nodes explained

Data Management and Keyspace Operations

• Cassandra Query Language (CQL) basics for admins

• Creating and managing keyspaces and tables

• Replication strategies (SimpleStrategy, NetworkTopologyStrategy)

• Data distribution and consistency levels

Administration and Maintenance

• Node operations: joining, decommissioning, and replacing nodes

• Repair, cleanup, compact, and flush operations

• Backup and snapshot strategies

• Upgrade processes and rolling restarts

Monitoring and Performance Tuning

• Performance metrics and thresholds

• Tools: nodetool, JMX, Prometheus + Grafana

• JVM and GC tuning

• Diagnosing and resolving performance issues

Security, Logging, and Troubleshooting

• Authentication and authorization with roles

• SSL/TLS encryption for inter-node and client-node communication

• Log files and system logs analysis

• Common cluster issues and troubleshooting techniques

Practical Lab and Final Assessment

• Hands-on: Configure and run a Cassandra cluster

• Simulate failure and recovery

• Performance tuning scenario

• Final assessment quiz and group review