Connecting and playing with Cassandra in Java

Question

Hi guys

I have read some tutorials on what Cassandra is and what it can do but my problem is how to interface with Cassandra in java? (A tutorial will be nice :-) )

If possible, can someone please show me whether I should use Thrift or Hector (which one is better and why)?

Thanks in advance.

PS Can I integrate Hibernate with Cassandra?

Answer 1

Hibernate uses JDBC Drivers to connect to relational databases. Cassandra is a ColumnFamily based, which is A relational database (distributed one).

The problem is to find a proper JDBC driver for your case. Here is a project I Googled:

http://code.google.com/p/sql4d/

It's not active currently, but you got the idea of how to find the right one.

Having object-relationship mapping through Hibernate you won't have to worry about the specific dialect Cassandra use and just enjoy the ride.

Well.. that's how it sounds theoretically.

Edit: Here is the tutorial I find most descriptive, separated in 5 posts:

• Installing and using Apache Cassandra With Java Part 1 (Installation)
• Installing and using Apache Cassandra With Java Part 2 (Data model)
• Installing and using Apache Cassandra With Java Part 3 (Data model 2)
• Installing and using Apache Cassandra With Java Part 4 (Thrift Client)
• Installing and using Apache Cassandra With Java Part 5 (Thrift Client 2)

Yet another way is using Pelops library for usage of Cassandra. More info on it HERE.

Getting started with Cassandra - a rather short post on the matter.

Hope you find of your answers there!