Reporting from the Trenches: Intuit & Cassandra

Reporting from the Trenches – How Intuit Uses Cassandra Effectively to Improve Customer Experiences

Rekha Joshi, Staff EngineerIntuit, Inc.

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Speaker Bio


O’Reilly Certified Apache Cassandra Architect

Rekha JoshiStaff Engineer at Intuit

Inc.

1 About Intuit

2 Use Case: Personalized A/B Testing 3 Database Requirements

4 Cassandra: Intuit NoSQL Standard

5 Using Cassandra Effectively

4© 2015 DataStax, All Rights Reserved.

Intuit On Mission


Intuit Data Platforms


50M+manage all of the data

complex compliancePublic and private cloud

customers to handle6+

petabytes of data

45M+ Customers

Manage all of the data 6+ Petabytes of data

Complex compliance

Use Case: Personalized A/B Testing


Opinion-vs-Opinion Wars

Huge Investment

Angry Customer

Experiment, experiment, experiment!

Let Data Be The Decision Maker!

No Personalized A/B Testing?

With Personalized A/B Testing!!

Use Case: Personalized A/B Testing


To Continuously Improve User Experience, Data Is Better Than Guess!

Personalized A/B Testing Platform


User Assignment

Personalization Service

Segmentation Filters and Sampling

Personalization Engine

Analytics

Set up and administration

Profile Store

User Actions

A/B Testing Service

Deployment


Monitoring

Alerting

Amazon CloudJenkinsCoopr ChefCloudformationECS/Docker

CloudwatchSplunkGraphiteGrafanaLogstashPrometheusNew Relic

SensuNew Relic AlertsHipchatPagerDuty

Database Requirements


• High Data Security• No Data Loss• No Downtime• Linear Scalability• Tunable Consistency• Performance Under Workloads

All This Data!!!!!


Can I Lift This Alone?


Need for Speed


Cassandra, Who?


Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL, linearly scalable, best in class tunable performance, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless, time series database.

Cassandra: The Hybrid Kid has the Edge!


DynamoDB(Amazon)

Big Table(Google)

Cassandra

Inherits data distribution Inherits data model

Masterless ArchitectureLinear Scalability Tunable Consistency/Performance

ApplicationQuery Access Patterns

influencing influencing

Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise


Advanced Security

Integrated Analytics (Spark)

Advanced Tools

24/7 Support

A Truly Successful Software


• Solves A Real Need• Is A Building Block for Platforms• Becomes Open Source• Gets Commercial Backing• Tools Ecosystem Builds Around It• Establishes Strong Users Base• Companies in Critical Domains use It!!

Database Options


Intuit and Cassandra


Cassandra = Intuit Technology Standard of Choice for NoSQL Distributed Database

High Data SecurityNo Data LossNo Downtime

Linear ScalabilityTunable ConsistencyOther NoSQL variants

Performance Under Workloads

Did You Use Cassandra Effectively?


Garbage Collection Issue


New objects created at faster rate, than they are GC’ed Can causes STOP-THE-WORLD GC pauses! •Configure Heap size, MAX_HEAP_SIZE•Set up GC logging CASSANDRA_HEAP_DIR•Configure CMS GC/G1GC•Automated Heap Dump•Upgrade System

Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL linearly scalable, fault tolerant, distributed time series database.

Clock Issue


Ensure when you move setups/do upgrades, the ntp server is set correctly

Cassandra is a NoSQL linearly scalable, fault tolerant, distributed time series database.

Understand the Node Ring


Repeat after me: Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL linearly scalable, best in class tunable performance, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless, time series database.

Nodetool statusNodetool ringNodetool infoNodetool cfstatsNodetool tpstats

What If A Node Goes Down?


ReplicationConsistencyNodetool repairNodetool decommissionNodetool snapshots

Cassandra is a NoSQL linearly scalable, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless time series database.

Tuning The Application


Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL linearly scalable, best in class tunable performance, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless, time series database.

Refactor data modelRevisit the usage access patternsParanoid Monitoring

Tuning For Reads


• Caching Layer – Key Cache/Row Cache• SSTable Compactions Frequency

• Multiple SSTable inefficient

Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL linearly scalable, best in class tunable performance, fault tolerant, distributed time series database.

Tuning For Writes


Cassandra is a Java based NoSQL linearly scalable, best in class tunable performance, fault tolerant, distributed time series database.

• Memtable – Fast Writes• CommitLog – Separate Dedicated Disk

Tuning the System


EXT4 Filesystem System Memory, CPU, DiskParanoid Monitoring

Cassandra is a NoSQL linearly scalable, fault tolerant, distributed, masterless time series database.

Little Talked Aspect Of The Pareto Principle!


Heavy Lifting? Easy!



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Q & A

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