How to run Cassandra on AWS

How to Run Cassandra on AWS

Apache Cassandra® powers massively scalable applications on AWS with top-notch performance and cost-effective flexibility, all while keeping downtime at zero. Pair it with Amazon Web Services, and you get a combo that scales globally, boosts speed, and trims operational costs. Trusted by giants like Netflix, Uber, and Pinterest—plus thousands of top engineering teams—this NoSQL database is a proven winner.

This guide walks you through the best managed and self-managed ways to run Cassandra on AWS, so you can deploy it on DataStax.

Three ways to run Cassandra on AWS

Managed service: Using Astra DB on AWS

The fastest way to use Cassandra on AWS is with Astra DB, a database-as-a-service built on Cassandra, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, and other cutting edge open source. Astra DB simplifies cloud-native application development and requires no operations or self-management. It reduces deployment time from weeks to minutes, delivering an unprecedented combination of serverless autoscaling, pay-as-you-go pricing, and an open source skillset you can take with you to any cloud provider. How does Astra DB make running on AWS easy?

Some IT organizations require complete control over their systems or are already set up for self-managed software. With self-managed virtual machines you have that control. This control comes with all the associated effort and expense, and is a tradeoff that should be considered carefully.

Self-managed service: K8ssandra on AWS EKS

K8ssandra is a cloud native distribution of Apache Cassandra® that runs on Kubernetes and AWS EKS. K8ssandra provides an ecosystem of tools to provide richer data APIs and automated operations alongside Cassandra. This includes metrics monitoring to promote observability, data anti-entropy services to support reliability, and backup / restore tools to support high availability and disaster recovery. As part of K8ssandra's installation process, all of these components are installed and wired together, freeing you from having to perform the tedious plumbing of components:

• Apache Cassandra
• Stargate, the open-source data gateway
• Cass-operator, the Kubernetes Operator for Apache Cassandra
• Reaper for Apache Cassandra, an anti-entropy repair feature (plus reaper-operator)
• Medusa for Apache Cassandra for backup and restore (plus medusa-operator)
• Metrics Collector for Apache Cassandra, with Prometheus integration, and visualization via pre-configured Grafana dashboards

Get started with Astra DB on AWS

Astra DB gets you running Apache Cassandra on AWS fast—no heavy lifting required. Register here with your GitHub, Google ID, or email to snag 80GB of free storage and up to 20 million read/write ops monthly, with no credit card needed for the free tier. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

1. Create Your Astra DB Account: Head to the registration page, sign up, and log in to the Astra DB dashboard. Click “Create Database,” give it a name (e.g., “myapp_db”), set a keyspace (e.g., “prod”), pick AWS as your cloud provider, and choose a region like us-east-1. Hit “Create”—your database is live in under five minutes, ready to roll.
2. Run Queries with the CQL Console: Open the built-in CQL Console from the dashboard. No need to install anything—you can run Cassandra Query Language (CQL) commands straight in your browser. Try CREATE TABLE users (id uuid PRIMARY KEY, name text), then INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (uuid(), 'Jane') to see data flow in real time.
3. Learn with Videos and Docs: New to this? Dive into Astra DB’s videos and documentation. The playlist covers essentials—like setting up tables or connecting apps—in short, digestible clips. Spend 10 minutes there, and you’ll be moving confidently.
4. Build Faster with Sample Apps: DataStax offers sample apps (e.g., real-time dashboards, e-commerce APIs) to kickstart your project. Grab one from the dashboard, tweak the code—like swapping in your keyspace—and deploy it in half the time it’d take to start from scratch.
5. Hook Up Your Tools: Connect Astra DB to your stack with drivers for Python, Java, or Node.js—or use REST and GraphQL APIs for quick integration. For automation, lean on the Terraform Provider or Postman Collection. It’s all designed to plug in smoothly.

Get started with Cassandra on AWS EC2

Running Cassandra on AWS EC2 puts you in the driver’s seat, giving total control but plenty of work. Here’s how to set it up right:

1. Use a Prebuilt AMI for Development: For a quick dev setup, launch an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with Cassandra preinstalled from the AWS Marketplace (e.g., Bitnami’s offering). Pick a VM size like t3.medium, deploy it, and SSH in with ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@your-ip to poke around.
2. Craft a Custom AMI for Production: For test, staging, or production, start with a base AMI you trust—like Ubuntu 20.04. Install Cassandra manually for tighter security and performance. This means downloading from the Apache Cassandra website, avoiding bloat, and locking it down to your specs.
3. Assess Your Team’s Skills: Check your crew—do they know Linux, AWS networking, and Cassandra ops? Plan for ongoing work: patching, scaling, monitoring. A small team might need a few weeks to get comfy, so budget time and maybe some training.
4. Install Cassandra: On your EC2 instance, add the Cassandra repo (echo "deb http://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/debian 40x main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cassandra.list), install it with sudo apt install cassandra, and start it (sudo systemctl start cassandra). Check it’s alive with nodetool status.
5. Set Up the VM: Launch an EC2 instance (e.g., m5.large with 8 GB RAM) via the AWS Console. Strip it to essentials: Java, Cassandra, basic tools. Skip extras to keep it lean and fast. Test with a small dataset before scaling up.
6. Configure Networking: Create a VPC, set subnets, and open ports (9042 for CQL, 7000 for cluster chatter) in your security group. Lock it down to your app’s IP range, and test connectivity with nc -zv your-ip 9042. Keep it secure but reachable.
7. Handle UpdatesAfter setup, patch the OS (sudo apt update && apt upgrade) and Cassandra regularly. Watch for AWS security bulletins—apply fixes fast. Restart the service (sudo systemctl restart cassandra) after updates and verify with nodetool.
8. Manage the Database:
   • Scale: Add EC2 instances, update cassandra.yaml seeds, and join them to the cluster.
   • Backup/Restore: Use nodetool snapshot and store backups in S3.
   • Disaster Recovery: Plan multi-region copies and test restores monthly.
   • Capacity: Monitor disk and CPU with CloudWatch and adjust instance size as traffic grows.
   • Repair: Run nodetool repair weekly to fix data inconsistencies.
9. Monitor Performance: Set up CloudWatch or Prometheus to track failed ops (e.g., timeouts, latency spikes). Tweak JVM heap in jvm.options if memory chokes—aim for steady performance under load.
10. Stay Current with AWS: Watch EC2 and AWS service updates, like new instance types or VPC features. Adjust configs (e.g., swap t3 for t4g) to keep costs down and performance up. Test changes in staging first.
11. Secure the Setup: Use IAM roles for EC2 access, enforce encryption in cassandra.yaml, and audit logs weekly. Lock down the AWS security policy so only trusted IPs hit your cluster.

Get started with K8ssandra on AWS EKS

K8ssandra brings a cloud-native Cassandra to AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) with handy ops tools. Here’s the detailed rundown:

1. Install Terraform: Download Terraform from its site, install it (sudo unzip terraform.zip -d /usr/local/bin), and verify with terraform -version. This builds your EKS cluster.
2. Set Up AWS CLI v2: Install AWS CLI (curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"), unzip, and run ./aws/install. Authenticate with aws configure—add your access key and secret.
3. Configure kubectl: Install kubectl (curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"), move it to /usr/local/bin, and check kubectl version. It talks to your EKS cluster.
4. Add Helm: Grab Helm (curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash), confirm with helm version. This deploys K8ssandra later.
5. Install Python v3: Ensure Python 3 is on your machine (sudo apt install python3)—some scripts need it. Verify with python3 --version.
6. Set Environment Variables: Export your AWS creds: export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-key, export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret, export AWS_REGION=us-west-2. Add these to ~/.bashrc for persistence.
7. Provision EKS Infrastructure: Clone the K8ssandra repo (git clone https://github.com/k8ssandra/k8ssandra), navigate in, and run terraform init then terraform apply. Pick 3 nodes (e.g., t3.large) for a solid start—takes 15 minutes.
8. Check Cluster Connectivity: Get EKS creds with aws eks update-kubeconfig --name k8ssandra-cluster --region us-west-2. Test with kubectl get nodes—all nodes should show “Ready.”
9. Install K8ssandra: Add the Helm repo (helm repo add k8ssandra https://helm.k8ssandra.io/stable), update it (helm repo update), and install (helm install k8ssandra k8ssandra/k8ssandra). Watch pods spin up with kubectl get pods.
10. Deploy with Helm: Fine-tune with Helm values—edit values.yaml for pod count or storage (e.g., cassandra.persistence.size=50Gi), then redeploy (helm upgrade k8ssandra k8ssandra/k8ssandra -f values.yaml).
11. Grab Superuser Credentials: Fetch creds with kubectl get secret k8ssandra-superuser -o jsonpath="{.data.username}" | base64 -d (and repeat for password). Use these in CQLSH to manage your cluster.

Get started with Astra DB on AWS

Astra DB gets you running Apache Cassandra on AWS fast—no heavy lifting required. Register here with your GitHub, Google ID, or email to snag 80GB of free storage and up to 20 million read/write ops monthly, with no credit card needed for the free tier. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

1. Create Your Astra DB Account: Head to the registration page, sign up, and log in to the Astra DB dashboard. Click “Create Database,” give it a name (e.g., “myapp_db”), set a keyspace (e.g., “prod”), pick AWS as your cloud provider, and choose a region like us-east-1. Hit “Create”—your database is live in under five minutes, ready to roll.
2. Run Queries with the CQL Console: Open the built-in CQL Console from the dashboard. No need to install anything—you can run Cassandra Query Language (CQL) commands straight in your browser. Try CREATE TABLE users (id uuid PRIMARY KEY, name text), then INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (uuid(), 'Jane') to see data flow in real time.
3. Learn with Videos and Docs: New to this? Dive into Astra DB’s videos and documentation. The playlist covers essentials—like setting up tables or connecting apps—in short, digestible clips. Spend 10 minutes there, and you’ll be moving confidently.
4. Build Faster with Sample Apps: DataStax offers sample apps (e.g., real-time dashboards, e-commerce APIs) to kickstart your project. Grab one from the dashboard, tweak the code—like swapping in your keyspace—and deploy it in half the time it’d take to start from scratch.
5. Hook Up Your Tools: Connect Astra DB to your stack with drivers for Python, Java, or Node.js—or use REST and GraphQL APIs for quick integration. For automation, lean on the Terraform Provider or Postman Collection. It’s all designed to plug in smoothly.

Get started with Cassandra on AWS EC2

Running Cassandra on AWS EC2 puts you in the driver’s seat, giving total control but plenty of work. Here’s how to set it up right:

1. Use a Prebuilt AMI for Development: For a quick dev setup, launch an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) with Cassandra preinstalled from the AWS Marketplace (e.g., Bitnami’s offering). Pick a VM size like t3.medium, deploy it, and SSH in with ssh -i your-key.pem ec2-user@your-ip to poke around.
2. Craft a Custom AMI for Production: For test, staging, or production, start with a base AMI you trust—like Ubuntu 20.04. Install Cassandra manually for tighter security and performance. This means downloading from the Apache Cassandra website, avoiding bloat, and locking it down to your specs.
3. Assess Your Team’s Skills: Check your crew—do they know Linux, AWS networking, and Cassandra ops? Plan for ongoing work: patching, scaling, monitoring. A small team might need a few weeks to get comfy, so budget time and maybe some training.
4. Install Cassandra: On your EC2 instance, add the Cassandra repo (echo "deb http://www.apache.org/dist/cassandra/debian 40x main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cassandra.list), install it with sudo apt install cassandra, and start it (sudo systemctl start cassandra). Check it’s alive with nodetool status.
5. Set Up the VM: Launch an EC2 instance (e.g., m5.large with 8 GB RAM) via the AWS Console. Strip it to essentials: Java, Cassandra, basic tools. Skip extras to keep it lean and fast. Test with a small dataset before scaling up.
6. Configure Networking: Create a VPC, set subnets, and open ports (9042 for CQL, 7000 for cluster chatter) in your security group. Lock it down to your app’s IP range, and test connectivity with nc -zv your-ip 9042. Keep it secure but reachable.
7. Handle UpdatesAfter setup, patch the OS (sudo apt update && apt upgrade) and Cassandra regularly. Watch for AWS security bulletins—apply fixes fast. Restart the service (sudo systemctl restart cassandra) after updates and verify with nodetool.
8. Manage the Database:
   • Scale: Add EC2 instances, update cassandra.yaml seeds, and join them to the cluster.
   • Backup/Restore: Use nodetool snapshot and store backups in S3.
   • Disaster Recovery: Plan multi-region copies and test restores monthly.
   • Capacity: Monitor disk and CPU with CloudWatch and adjust instance size as traffic grows.
   • Repair: Run nodetool repair weekly to fix data inconsistencies.
9. Monitor Performance: Set up CloudWatch or Prometheus to track failed ops (e.g., timeouts, latency spikes). Tweak JVM heap in jvm.options if memory chokes—aim for steady performance under load.
10. Stay Current with AWS: Watch EC2 and AWS service updates, like new instance types or VPC features. Adjust configs (e.g., swap t3 for t4g) to keep costs down and performance up. Test changes in staging first.
11. Secure the Setup: Use IAM roles for EC2 access, enforce encryption in cassandra.yaml, and audit logs weekly. Lock down the AWS security policy so only trusted IPs hit your cluster.

Get started with K8ssandra on AWS EKS

K8ssandra brings a cloud-native Cassandra to AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) with handy ops tools. Here’s the detailed rundown:

1. Install Terraform: Download Terraform from its site, install it (sudo unzip terraform.zip -d /usr/local/bin), and verify with terraform -version. This builds your EKS cluster.
2. Set Up AWS CLI v2: Install AWS CLI (curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"), unzip, and run ./aws/install. Authenticate with aws configure—add your access key and secret.
3. Configure kubectl: Install kubectl (curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"), move it to /usr/local/bin, and check kubectl version. It talks to your EKS cluster.
4. Add Helm: Grab Helm (curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash), confirm with helm version. This deploys K8ssandra later.
5. Install Python v3: Ensure Python 3 is on your machine (sudo apt install python3)—some scripts need it. Verify with python3 --version.
6. Set Environment Variables: Export your AWS creds: export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-key, export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret, export AWS_REGION=us-west-2. Add these to ~/.bashrc for persistence.
7. Provision EKS Infrastructure: Clone the K8ssandra repo (git clone https://github.com/k8ssandra/k8ssandra), navigate in, and run terraform init then terraform apply. Pick 3 nodes (e.g., t3.large) for a solid start—takes 15 minutes.
8. Check Cluster Connectivity: Get EKS creds with aws eks update-kubeconfig --name k8ssandra-cluster --region us-west-2. Test with kubectl get nodes—all nodes should show “Ready.”
9. Install K8ssandra: Add the Helm repo (helm repo add k8ssandra https://helm.k8ssandra.io/stable), update it (helm repo update), and install (helm install k8ssandra k8ssandra/k8ssandra). Watch pods spin up with kubectl get pods.
10. Deploy with Helm: Fine-tune with Helm values—edit values.yaml for pod count or storage (e.g., cassandra.persistence.size=50Gi), then redeploy (helm upgrade k8ssandra k8ssandra/k8ssandra -f values.yaml).
11. Grab Superuser Credentials: Fetch creds with kubectl get secret k8ssandra-superuser -o jsonpath="{.data.username}" | base64 -d (and repeat for password). Use these in CQLSH to manage your cluster.

Which one is the most efficient way of running Cassandra on AWS?

This answer depends on your requirements, your existing investments, your staff and their skills - a host of factors.

In general, we recommend Astra DB for the vast majority of Cassandra use cases. You can be ready to go in minutes, freed from operational, security and scalability concerns

All but the most demanding, security-conscious applications will be served by environments like Astra DB that are already compliant to common security standards, saving months or even years of effort, to say nothing of expense.

Startups and enterprises alike who do not want to, or cannot, dive deep into database administration and configuration should opt for Astra DB.

Self-managing databases of Kubernetes is less efficient than DBaaS, but may be driven by preexisting organizational proficiency with Kubernetes. K8s managed services like AWS EKS and K8ssandra not only make running system-of-engagement databases on Kubernetes possible but can significantly ease the burden on SRE/Ops teams.

Self-managing IaaS is the least efficient option relative to DBaaS, but may be driven by a need to self-manage for regulatory reasons or the need to interoperate with proprietary or custom systems. Alternatively, a self-managed IaaS may involve the nature of an existing application, being migrated to the cloud. Your application may simply not require, or be ready for, a cloud-native architecture.

Why Astra DB?

Global Scale

• Scales to petabytes without breaking a sweat.
• Puts data and apps anywhere globally—no hits to speed or uptime.
• Replicates across AWS regions and zones, dodging leader/follower snags.
• Splits compute and storage for cheap, flexible scaling—or down to zero when quiet.
• Tunes consistency to balance availability and accuracy on Cassandra nodes.

No Operations

• Autoscales serverlessly—no sizing guesswork or manual fiddling.
• Launches in 5 minutes: pick an AWS region, name it, and go.
• Manages updates, backups, and repairs for you.
• Runs in any AWS region Astra DB covers.
• Handles infra glitches with Kubernetes to keep things humming.
• Stays up with self-healing and multi-node replication for zero data loss.
• Hits 99.9% uptime single-region, 99.99% multi-region—no SRE overtime needed.
• Integrates Grafana for live performance tracking.

DBaaS as APIs

• Skips schema setup—use it like a JSON store with the Document API.
• Offers REST, GraphQL, and gRPC for fast hookups.
• Fuels cloud-native builds with a microservices-first vibe.

Developer Productivity

• Needs no AWS expertise—name your database, pick a region, done.
• Packs drivers for Python, Java, and more, plus a CQLSH console.
• Ties into Spring Boot, Quarkus, and Spark effortlessly.
• Adds Terraform and Postman for DevOps automation.

Enterprise Security

• Simplifies multi-region data rules with no replication fuss.
• Locks down with SOC2, mTLS, and JWT authentication.
• Encrypts everything, end-to-end, and links via AWS PrivateLink.

Features of Astra DB managed Cassandra on AWS

Serverless Database Built on Apache Cassandra®

Scale database resources in and out on demand to match application requirements and traffic so that you pay only for what you use. Put the power of Cassandra in the hands of every developer without ever worrying about managing the infrastructure.

Global Scale

Data replication across multiple data centers, availability zones, and multi-region. Scale-up to petabytes of data without impacting performance. The Astra service is resilient and highly available to minimize both downtime and the need for site-reliability engineering.

Enterprise Security

All data is encrypted at rest and in motion. Sophisticated authentication and authorization with role based access. Client connections use two-way certificate validation for VPN-level security from client to database. Private connectivity options like VPC peering upon request. JSON web token(JWT) based authentication to ensure secure connectivity to your Astra DB database.

No Operations

Fully managed database and OS updates and upgrades. IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) failures handled gracefully by K8s operator to keep databases healthy. Eliminate anti-entropy repair procedures. Auto scaling eliminates manual configuration changes and guesswork on database sizing.