DataStax Enterprise 1.0 Documentation

Upgrading DataStax Enterprise

This section includes information on upgrading between releases and from the community versions of Cassandra:

Upgrade Description
DSE 1.0.1 to 1.0.2 Cassandra updated from 1.0.5 to 1.0.7. Updated Pig driver to support integer data types. This is in addition to current support for ASCII, UTF8 and long types. Exceptions are no longer thrown for bytes, UUID, and counters, but the data isn’t returned correctly.
Community Editions to DSE 1.0 Guidelines for upgrading from the community project version of Apache Cassandra or DataStax Community Edition.

Best Practices for Upgrading

The following best practices are recommended when upgrading:

  • Always take a snapshot before any upgrade. This allows you to rollback to the previous version if necessary. Cassandra is able to read data files created by the previous version, but the inverse is not always true.

    Note

    Snapshotting is fast, especially if you have JNA installed, and takes effectively zero disk space until you start compacting the live data files again.

  • Be sure to check https://github.com/apache/cassandra/blob/trunk/NEWS.txt for any new information on upgrading.

  • For a list of fixes and new features, see https://github.com/apache/cassandra/blob/trunk/CHANGES.txt

Upgrading DataStax Enterprise Between Minor Releases

Upgrading minor releases can be done with a rolling restart, one node at a time. You do not need to bring down the whole cluster at once.

To upgrade a binary tarball installation:

  1. On each node, download and unpack the binary tarball package from the downloads section of the DataStax website.

    For detailed information, see Installing the DataStax Enterprise Tarball Distribution.

  2. Merge your existing configuration file (cassandra.yaml) into the upgraded DSE instance and manually update it with new content.

  3. Make sure any client drivers, such as Hector or Pycassa clients, are compatible with the new version.

  4. Flush the commit log on the upgraded node by running nodetool drain.

  5. Stop the old Cassandra process, then start the new binary process.

  6. Monitor the log files for any issues.

To upgrade a Debian or RPM package installation:

  1. On each node, download and install the package from the downloads section of the DataStax website.

    For detailed information, see Installing DataStax Enterprise Packaged Releases or Tarball Distribution.

  2. Merge your existing configuration file (cassandra.yaml) into the upgraded DSE instance and manually update it with new content.

  3. Make sure any client drivers, such as Hector or Pycassa clients, are compatible with the new version.

  4. Flush the commit log on the upgraded node by running nodetool drain.

  5. Restart the Cassandra process.

  6. Monitor the log files for any issues.

Guidelines for Upgrading from Community Project Versions to DataStax Enterprise

  • To upgrade from the community project version of Apache Cassandra to DataStax Enterprise (DSE) 1.0, first read NEWS.txt, next uninstall Cassandra, then install DSE.
  • To upgrade from DataStax Community Edition to DataStax Enterprise 1.0, first uninstall the DataStax Community Edition, then install DataStax Enterprise 1.0.