Slides from my presentation at Cassandra Summit Europe 2013. Every year more and more people buy their Christmas gifts online and that gifts are delivered by the postal service of France "La Poste". At the end of the infrastructure a (not so) little MySQL was struggling for survival against that overwhelming load. Then, in 2011, MySQL hit its limit... Come hear the true story of La Poste switching its parcel management, PHP-based application, from MySQL to Cassandra in 3 weeks. You'll be taught about the details of the project constraints, how to use Cassandra from PHP, the migration plan, how to manage resilience testing, deploy your Cassandra with Puppet, and all the wonderful knowledge we accumulate through this project.

1. Cassandra
Delivering Christmas gifts
in France since 2012

2. Me, myself and I
Puppet
Software
@mNantern
Cassandra
Matthieu
Nantern
mnantern@xebia.fr
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
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3. From Mysql to Cassandra
Overview
1
2
3
4
Context
Why ?
How ?
Go Live!
Delivering parcels at
La Poste
Why do we need
another system ?
Project’s constraints
and alternatives
How we build our
solution. Using C*
with PHP and
managing TTL
Provisioning servers.
Performance and
resilience testing
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
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4. La Poste
Mail services
Parcels distribution
More than 250 000 employees
70 000 postmen delivering parcels
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
4

5. La Poste
Postman’s tour
(1) A postman scans every parcels
Print
Scan
(2) He prints his list of parcels
(3) He distributes the parcels
(4) He scans every remaining parcels
Distribute
Scan
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
5

6. From MySQL to C*
Why ?
1

7. Why do we need another system ?
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
7

8. Project’s constraints
Max 13ms per call
15 days of retention for data
Easy to deploy and operate
Easy to scale for years to come
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
8

9. From MySQL to C*
How ?
2

10. Data Modeling
Data
key1 key2 key3
Id
1
<Xml>
k11
k21
k31
2
<Xml>
k12
k22
3
<Xml>
k13
k23
Id
|
Data
Search1 Search2
1
<Xml>
k11k31 k21k11
k32
2
<Xml>
k12k32 k22k12
k33
3
<Xml>
k13k33 k23k13
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
10

11. Using Cassandra with PHP
For dummies
$pool = new ConnectionPool("Keyspace1", array("cass:9160"));
$column_family = new ColumnFamily($pool, 'ColumnFamily1');
$column_family->insert('row_key', array('name1' => 'val1', 'name2' => 'val2'));
$column_family->get('row_key');
$row1 = array('name1' => 'val1', 'name2' => 'val2');
$row2 = array('foo' => 'bar');
$column_family->batch_insert(array('row1' => $row1, 'row2' => $row2);
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
11

12. Using Cassandra with PHP
Level 2
$index_exp=CassandraUtil::create_index_expression($indexName, $indexValue,
$operator);
$index_clause = CassandraUtil::create_index_clause($indexArray);
$rows = $columnFamily->get_indexed_slices($index_clause);
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
12

13. TTL in C*
$cf->insert('row_key', array('col1' => 'col_val1','col2' =>'col_val2'),null,TTL);
$columnsTTL = array('col1'=>3, 'col2'=>4);
$cf->insert('row_key', array('col1' => 'val1','col2' =>'val2'),null, $columnsTTL);
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
13

14. From MySQL to C*
Go Live!
3

15. Provisioning C* with Puppet
12 servers with Ubuntu 10.04
package { 'cassandra':
ensure => installed
}
initial_token: <%= ((2**127) * (current_cdb_server.to_i-1) / cdb_servers_number.to_i ) %>
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
15

16. Provisioning C* with Puppet
Managing the data model
package { 'cassandra-data-model':
ensure => latest
}
migration_1.txt
migration_2.txt
migration_3.txt
migration_4.txt
Current Migration Id
2
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
16

17. Testing our cluster
Mysql performance
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
17

18. Testing our cluster
Cassandra performance
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
18

19. Testing our cluster
Resilience
|
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
19

20. Migration plan
t=0
t+15d
Read
Write
|
Read
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
Write
20

21. From MySQL to C*
Final words
4

22. THANK
YOU
For watching
Merci!

23. Thanks !
Thank you for trusting
me on Cassandra (and
everything else)!
|
Thank you for the
support !
Thank you for the
opportunity to work at
La Poste !
www.xebia.fr | http://blog.xebia.fr | #CassandraEU
Telephone : 33 (0)1 53 89 99 99 | email : info@xebia.fr | 156 bd Haussmann - 75008 Paris
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