Cassandra Data Modeling

Cassandra Data Modeling Workshop Matthew F. Dennis // @mdennis

Overview● Hopefully interactive● Use cases submitted via Google Moderator, email, IRC, etc● Interesting and/or common requests in the slides to get us started● Bring up others if you have them !

Data Modeling Goals● Keep data queried together on disk together● In a more general sense think about the efficiency of querying your data and work backward from there to a model in Cassandra● Dont try to normalize your data (contrary to many use cases in relational databases)● Usually better to keep a record that something happened as opposed to changing a value (not always advisable or possible)

ClickStream Data (use case #1)● A ClickStream (in this context) is the sequence of actions a user of an application performs● Usually this refers to clicking links in a WebApp● Useful for ad selection, error recording, UI/UX improvement, A/B testing, debugging, et cetera● Not a lot of detail in the Google Moderator request on what the purpose of collecting the ClickStream data was – so I made some up

ClickStream Data Defined● Record actions of a user within a session for debugging purposes if app/browser/page/server crashes

Recording Sessions● CF for sessions a user has had ● Row Key is user name/id ● Column Name is session id (TimeUUID) ● Column Value is empty (or length of session, or some aggregated details about the session after it ended)● CF for actual sessions ● Row Key is TimeUUID session id ● Column Name is timestamp/TimeUUID of each click ● Column Value is details about that click (serialized)

UserSessions Column Family Session_01 Session_02 Session_03 (TimeUUID) (TimeUUID) userId (TimeUUID) (empty/agg) (empty/agg) (empty/agg)● Most recent session● All sessions for a given time period

Sessions Column Family timestamp_01 timestamp_02 timestamp_03 SessionId(TimeUUID) ClickData ClickData ClickData (json/xml/etc) (json/xml/etc) (json/xml/etc)● Retrieve entire sessions ClickStream (row)● Order of clicks/events preserved● Retrieve ClickStream for a slice of time within the session● First action taken in a session● Most recent action taken in a session● Why JSON/XML/etc?

Alternatives?

Of Course (depends on what you want to do)● Secondary Indexes● All Sessions in one row● Track by time of activity instead of session

Secondary Indexes Applied● Drop UserSessions CF and use secondary indexes● Uses a “well known” column to record the user in the row; secondary index is created on that column● Doesnt work so well when storing aggregates about sessions in the UserSessions CF● Better when you want to retrieve all sessions a user has had

All Sessions In One Row Applied● Row Key is userId● Column Name is composite of timestamp and sessionId● Can efficiently request activity of a user across all sessions within a specific time range● Rows could potentially grow quite large, be careful● Reads will almost always require at least two seeks on disk

Time Period Partitioning Applied● Row Key is composite of userId and time “bucket” ● e.g. jan_2011 or jan_01_2011 for month or day buckets respectively● Column Name is TimeUUID of click● Column Value is serialized click data● Avoids always requiring multiple seeks when the user has old data but only recent data is requested● Easy to lazily aggregate old activity● Can still efficiently request activity of a user across all sessions within a specific time range

Rolling Time Window Of Data Points (use case #2)● Similar to RRDTool was the example given● Essentially store a series of data points within a rolling window● common request from Cassandra users for this and/or similar

Data Points Defined● Each data point has a value (or multiple values)● Each data point corresponds to a specific point in time or an interval/bucket (e.g. 5 th minute of th 17 hour on some date)

Time Window Model System7:RenderTime TimeUUID0 TimeUUID1 TimeUUID2 s7:rt 0.051 0.014 0.173 Some request took 0.014 seconds to render● Row Key is the id of the time window data you are tracking (e.g. server7:render_time)● Column Name is timestamp (or TimeUUID) the event occurred at● Column Value is the value of the event (e.g. 0.051)

The Details● Cassandra TTL values are key here ● When you insert each data point set the TTL to the max time range you will ever request; there is very little overhead to expiring columns● When querying, construct TimeUUIDs for the min/max of the time range in question and use them as the start/end in your get_slice call● Consider partitioning the rows by a known time period (e.g. “year”) if you plan on keeping a long history of data (NB: requires slightly more complex logic in the app if a time range spans such a period)● Very efficient queries for any window of time

Rolling Window Of Counters (use case #3)● “How to model rolling time window that contains counters with time buckets of monthly (12 months), weekly (4 weeks), daily (7 days), hourly (24 hours)? Example would be; how many times user logged into a system in last 24 hours, last 7 days ...”● Timezones and “rolling window” is what makes this interesting

Rolling Time Window Details● One row for every granularity you want to track (e.g. day, hour)● Row Key consists of the granularity, metric, user and system● Column Name is a “fixed” time bucket on UTC time● Column Values are counts of the logins in that bucket● get_slice calls to return multiple counters which are them summed up

Rolling Time Window Counter Model user3:system5:logins:by_day 20110107 ... 20110523 U3:S5:L:D 2 ... 7 2 logins in Jan 7th 2011 7 logins on May 23rd 2011 for user 3 on system 5 for user 3 on system 5 user3:system5:logins:by_hour 2011010710 ... 2011052316 U3:S5:L:H 1 ... 7one login for user 3 on system 5 2 logins for user 3 on system 5on Jan 7th 2011 for the 10th hour on May 23rd 2011 for the 16th hour

Rolling Time Window Queries● Time window is rolling and there are other timezones besides UTC ● one get_slice for the “middle” counts ● one get_slice for the “left end” ● one get_slice for the “right end”

Example: logins for the past 7 days● Determine date/time boundaries● Determine UTC days that are wholly contained within your boundaries to select and sum● Select and sum counters for the remaining hours on either side of the UTC days● O(1) queries (3 in this case), can be requested from C* in parallel● NB: some timezones are annoying (e.g. 15 minute or 30 minutes offsets); I try to ignore them

Alternatives? (of course)● If youre counting logins and each user doesnt login in hundreds of times a day, just have one row per user with a TimeUUID column name for the time the login occurred● Supports any timezone/range/granularity easily● More expensive for large ranges (e.g. year) regardless of granularity, so cache results (in C*) lazily.● NB: caching results for rolling windows is not usually helpful (because, well its rolling and always changes)

Eventually Atomic (use case #4)● “When there are many to many or one to many relations involved how to model that and also keep it atomic? for eg: one user can upload many pictures and those pictures can somehow be related to other users as well.”● Attempting full ACID compliance in distributed systems is a bad idea (and impossible in the general sense)● However, consistency is important and can certainly be achieved in C*● Many approaches / alternatives● I like transaction log approach, especially in the context of C*

Transaction Logs (in this context)● Records what is going to be performed before it is actually performed● Performs the actions that need to be atomic (in the indivisible sense, not the all at once sense)● Marks that the actions were performed

In Cassandra● Serialize all actions that need to be performed in a single column – JSON, XML, YAML (yuck!), cpickle, JSO, et cetera ● Row Key = randomly chosen C* node token ● Column Name = TimeUUID● Perform actions● Delete Column

Configuration Details● Short GC_Grace on the XACT_LOG Column Family (e.g. 1 hour)● Write to XACT_LOG at CL.QUORUM or CL.LOCAL_QUORUM for durability (if it fails with an unavailable exception, pick a different node token and/or node and try again; same semantics as a traditional relational DB)● 1M memtable ops, 1 hour memtable flush time

Failures● Before insert into the XACT_LOG● After insert, before actions● After insert, in middle of actions● After insert, after actions, before delete● After insert, after actions, after delete

Recovery● Each C* has a crond job offset from every other by some time period● Each job runs the same code: multiget_slice for all node tokens for all columns older than some time period● Any columns need to be replayed in their entirety and are deleted after replay (normally there are no columns because normally things are working normally)

XACT_LOG Comments● Idempotent writes are awesome (thats why this works so well)● Doesnt work so well for counters (theyre not idempotent)● Clients must be able to deal with temporarily inconsistent data (they have to do this anyway)● Could use a reliable queuing service (e.g. SQS) instead of polling – push to SQS first, then XACT log.

Q?Cassandra Data Modeling Workshop Matthew F. Dennis // @mdennis

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Cassandra Data Modeling

by Matthew Dennis on Jul 15, 2011

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Cassandra Data Modeling — Presentation Transcript