Hi, I'm Russell and Software Engineer at DataStax and I work on the Spark
Cassandra Connector. I am excited about Apex as a great streaming solution
so I took a at the integration with C* and I had a few comments

https://github.com/apache/incubator-apex
-malhar/blob/master/contrib/src/main/java/com/datatorrent/contrib/cassandra/AbstractCassandraTransactionableOutputOperator.java

This behavior is a bit scary for me, building large batches like this
(especially non partition specific) can lead to some stability problems
over time. Hint build up can be a concern since those are stored in C* as
well Pre C* 3.0. Originally the spark C* connector used batches of 64kb but
this caused a large amount of problems on clusters with a HI RF or poorly
provisioned setups. Some method to lock the total batch size down may be
useful.

The other issue is that the "Atomicity" of the batch is a point of serious
fights within the C* community. One of the biggest issues being that do to
the nature of repair and entropy in the system the Atomicity of a batch
cannot be guaranteed in a traditional database sort of way. The guarantee
breaks completely in Multi-DC environments for example.

All this said, it is probably sufficient from a Data Loss perspective if
the CL is high enough and the batches are small enough.

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-10701

There are some other "Caveats" to batches that you should also be aware of.
For example a batch containing INSERT ( 1, 2, 1) and  INSERT (1 ,1, 2) will
treat these inserts as having occurred at the same timestamp (unless they
are manually adjusted). Which will end up with a row (1 , 2, 2) based on
the greatest value of colliding rows.

I also don't see a way to adjust Consistency Level here?

https://github.com/apache/incubator-apex
-malhar/blob/master/contrib/src/main/java/com/datatorrent/contrib/cassandra/CassandraPOJOInputOperator.java

The metadata for any give table can be retrieved without running a query
via the driver's Cluster's metadata object. May be better for future
proofing?

This class may also want to allow the pushdown of projections to C* to
limit columns retrieved or if ambitious, pushdown of clustering column
predicates.



https://github.com/apache/incubator-apex
-malhar/blob/master/contrib/src/main/java/com/datatorrent/contrib/cassandra/CassandraPOJOOutputOperator.java

Same metadata comment as with Input and CL comment

https://github.com/apache/incubator-apex
-malhar/blob/master/contrib/src/main/java/com/datatorrent/contrib/cassandra/CassandraStore.java


https://github.com/apache/incubator-apex
-malhar/blob/master/contrib/src/main/java/com/datatorrent/contrib/cassandra/CassandraTransactionalStore.java


I still haven't gotten to the Transaction Store but hopefully I can take a
good read later.

Thanks for your time,
Russ
-- 
http://datastax.com/all/images/cs_logo_color_sm.png

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