DataStax Node.js driver

Before using the DataStax driver, review the Best practices for DataStax drivers to understand the rules and recommendations for improving performance and minimizing resource utilization in applications that use a DataStax driver.

DataStax recommends using the unified DataStax driver. See this blog post for more information. You can also use the DataStax Enterprise (DSE) drivers, which exposes the same API for connecting to Cassandra databases.

Connecting with Node.js cloud-native driver

Prerequisites

Generate a Bearer Token and select API Administrator User for the role.
Create a keyspace
Create a table for your keyspace (optional): REST

Connecting the driver

Install stargate-grpc-node-client using either npm or yarn:

npm
yarn

npm i @stargate-oss/stargate-grpc-node-client

yarn add @stargate-oss/stargate-grpc-node-client

While running Stargate on Astra DB, download a bearer token from the Astra DB dashboard and add that token to the connection portion of the script.

The Bearer Token to use in the header of API calls is same as your database’s application token. It starts with an AstraCS: prefix, followed by a generated alphanumeric string. You can generate this token in your Astra DB console. Copy the token value, and paste it into your API call to authenticate with Astra DB resources.

// Astra DB configuration
// replace with values from the Astra DB dashboard
const astra_uri = "{astra-base-url}-{astra-region}.apps.astra.datastax.com:443";
const bearer_token = "AstraCS:xxxxxxx";

// Set up the authentication
// For Astra DB: Enter a bearer token for Astra, downloaded from the Astra DB dashboard
const bearerToken = new StargateBearerToken(bearer_token);
const credentials = grpc.credentials.combineChannelCredentials(
  grpc.credentials.createSsl(), bearerToken);

// Uncomment if you need to check the credentials
//console.log(credentials);

For a connection to a remote Stargate instance like Astra automatically generate on every call to the client:

// Create the gRPC client
// For Astra DB: passing the credentials created above
const stargateClient = new StargateClient(astra_uri, credentials);

console.log("made client");

// Create a promisified version of the client, so we don't need to use callbacks
const promisifiedClient = promisifyStargateClient(stargateClient);

console.log("promisified client")

Connecting with Node.js legacy driver

Prerequisites

Create your database and set your environment variables to save time developing on your database. There are four environment variables, three of which are on the Astra dashboard (database id, region, and keyspace), and one that you must create (token). For more, see Create your database.
Download and install a current Node.js LTS version with npm.
Client ID and Client Secret by creating your application token for your username and password.

Working with secure connect bundle

Downloading secure connect bundle

To connect to your Astra DB database using the drivers, download the secure database bundle from the DataStax Astra Portal that contains the connection credentials.

Open a browser, navigate to Astra DB, and log in.

From your Dashboard page, select your database.

On the Overview page, select Connect.

In the Select a Method section, select Drivers and then Legacy from the dropdown menu to select your driver type from the list to load language-specific instructions.

Java and Node.js are available as legacy and cloud native drivers.

If you have multiple regions, select the region you want to connect to from the dropdown menu for instructions.

The bundle URL is the same for all languages.

Click Download Bundle.

If you have multiple regions, you will have the option to download a bundle for each region from the expanded Download Bundle drop-down menu.

The secure-connect-database_name.zip file downloads, which contains the security certificates and credentials for your database.

Sharing secure connect bundle

Although teammates can access your Astra DB database, it will not display in their list of available databases under My Databases in Astra Portal.

After you create an Astra DB database, you can grant access to other members of your team by providing them with the database credentials and connection details for your database.

Be careful when sharing connection details. Providing this information to another user grants them access to your Astra DB database and ownership capabilities, such as making modifications to the database.

For security, delete downloaded connection credentials after sending them to your teammate.

Connecting the driver

Install the DataStax Node.js driver:
```
npm install cassandra-driver
```
Create a connect-database.js file in the main directory for your Node.js project.
```
cd nodejsProject
touch connect-database.js
```

Copy the following connection code into the connect-database.js file.

Include the absolute path to the secure connect bundle for your Cassandra database (secure-connect-database_name.zip) in the secureConnectBundle parameter, as shown in the following examples.

'use strict'
const { Client } = require('cassandra-driver');

After the Client class, add the following code to connect-database.js. This code creates a Client instance to connect to your Astra DB database, runs a CQL query, and prints the output to the console.

async function run() {
  const client = new Client({
    cloud: { secureConnectBundle: 'path/to/secure-connect-database_name.zip' },
    credentials: { username: 'clientId', password: 'clientSecret' }
  });

  await client.connect();

  // Execute a query
  const rs = await client.execute('SELECT * FROM system.local');
  console.log(`Hello from cluster: ${rs.first()['cluster_name']}`);

  await client.shutdown();
}

// Run the async function
run();

Save and close the connect-database.js file.
Run the connect-database.js example with the Node.js runtime:
```
node connect-database.js
```

The console output displays the cluster_name value from the system.local table.

Migrating Node.js driver

Complete the following procedure to migrate your existing DataStax Node.js driver to a version that is capable of connecting to Astra DB databases created using DataStax Astra DB.

Install the DataStax Node.js driver:
- DataStax Node.js driver for Apache Cassandra
- DSE driver
npm install cassandra-driver
npm install dse-driver

In your existing DataStax Node.js driver code, modify the connection code to use the Astra DB API. Include the absolute path to the secure connect bundle for your Cassandra database (secure-connect-database_name.zip) in the secureConnectBundle parameter, as shown in the following examples.

DataStax Node.js driver for Apache Cassandra
DSE Node.js driver

const { Client } = require('cassandra-driver');
const client = new Client({
    cloud: { secureConnectBundle: 'path/to/secure-connect-database_name.zip' },
    credentials: { username: 'clientId', password: 'clientSecret' }
  });

const dse = require('dse-driver');

const client = new Client({
    cloud: { secureConnectBundle: 'path/to/secure-connect-database_name.zip' },
    credentials: { username: 'clientId', password: 'clientSecret' }
  });

Run your Node.js script to connect to your Astra DB database:

node my_node.js_driver.js

If successful, the code builds, compiles, and connects to your Cassandra database.