DEVOPSdigest

DataStax announced the general availability of DataStax Astra, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) for Apache Cassandra applications, simplifying cloud-native Cassandra application development.

The DBaaS reduces deployment time from weeks to minutes, removing the biggest obstacle to using Cassandra, which is behind many of the most heavily used applications in the world. Developers can access Astra now at astra.datastax.com/register and on Google Cloud’s Marketplace.

Cassandra is a popular choice when applications need to support massive amounts of data with zero tolerance for downtime. According to research conducted by ClearPath Strategies, developers and operators cite the top two reasons for using Cassandra as a good hybrid solution (62 percent) and highly scalable (57 percent); however, 36 percent of practitioners cite a lack of skilled staff as the top obstacle to Cassandra adoption. Astra helps overcome that operational challenge by making Cassandra’s masterless, scale-out architecture and linear scalability easily accessible as an on-demand cloud service.

"Astra represents a breakthrough for anyone who wants to use Cassandra in the cloud," said Ed Anuff, CPO at DataStax. "We’ve been delivering products built on Cassandra to enterprises that deploy global-scale data for over a decade. Our enterprises and users have been asking for Cassandra-as-a-Service in the cloud. We're happy to offer Astra as that experience."

On Google Cloud, Astra deploys and manages enterprise clusters powered by Cassandra directly on top of Google Cloud’s Platform infrastructure, so that data sits in the same Google Cloud global infrastructure as applications. This means users and enterprises can deliver a high-performance experience with one of the most scalable databases on Google Cloud.

Astra users will find a consistent developer experience with open-source Cassandra tools and APIs, as well as REST and GraphQL endpoints and a browser-based CQL shell.

Astra is available now.