Cassandra, the distributed, column-oriented NoSQL database, has been updated to version 1.2, says the Apache Software Foundation. Version 1.2 of Cassandra sees the official release of CQL3, which was introduced in beta in April 2012's Cassandra 1.1 release. CQL is the modelling and query language for Cassandra that borrows, syntactically, from SQL to offer a more familiar database environment for developers. CQL3 allows for multi-column primary keys and many other changes, which are now established.

Another Cassandra 1.2 enhancement is the introduction of vnodes, virtual nodes which will allow a Cassandra cluster to bootstrap faster and be easier to decommission, repair and rebalance. Atomic batch support has also been added to Cassandra 1.2 allowing large transactions to be rolled back if they fail; batches are atomic by default in Cassandra 1.2 but do come with a 30% hit in performance and can be disabled as needed. Collections are now binary serialised instead of JSON serialised for better performance.

Cassandra began life as a Facebook-developed NoSQL system before being handed over to the Apache Software Foundation. Since then it has been put into use by companies such as Adobe, Cisco, Disney, eBay, FormSpring, IBM, Netflix, Openwave, Rackspace, Reddit, Twitter, and the US Government. Apache Cassandra is published under the Apache 2.0 licence and the server, driver and tools are available to download.

(djwm)