Cassandra Operator release notes

The Cass Operator release notes provide information about the product's features, prerequisites, changes per release, upgrade considerations, and limitations.

The Cass Operator release notes provide information about the product's features, prerequisites, changes per release, upgrade considerations, and limitations.

Cass Operator features

Cass Operator v1.5.0 simplifies the process of deploying and managing Apache Cassandra® or DataStax Enterprise (DSE) in a Kubernetes cluster.

Key Cass Operator features include:
  • Support for Apache Cassandra 3.11.7 or 3.11.6 as a Technology Preview.
    Note: Not recommended at this point for production environments.
  • Support for DSE 6.8.4.
  • Support for the following Kubernetes platforms:
    • Open-source Kubernetes
    • Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
    • Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
    • Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    • Pivotal Container Service (PKS)
  • Hosted operator YAML manifests and CassandraDatacenter examples. The YAML files help you get up and running quickly with Cassandra or DSE in Kubernetes. For the CassandraDatacenter details, see the examples:
  • Self orchestration for your Cassandra or DSE resources as a result of operating in Kubernetes.
  • Proper token ring initialization, with only one node bootstrapping at a time
  • Seed node management - one per rack, or three per datacenter, whichever is more
  • Server configuration integrated into the CassandraDatacenter CustomResourceDefinition (CRD)
  • Rolling reboot nodes by changing the CRD
  • Store data in a rack-safe way - one replica per cloud AZ
  • Scale up racks evenly with new nodes
  • Option via configuration to force rack upgrades if a pod hosted by a rack does not start
  • Replace dead/unrecoverable nodes
  • Multi DC clusters (limited to one Kubernetes namespace)

Cass Operator prerequisites

  • The kubectl CLI tool.
  • A Kubernetes cluster.
    Tip: If you're new to Kubernetes, see Create a Kubernetes cluster for a walkthrough of the steps.
    Kubernetes v1.13 or later is recommended. For the supported manifests, refer to the sample YAML files in this GitHub folder.
  • The ability to download Docker Hub images from within the Kubernetes cluster.
  • At least one Kubernetes worker node per Cassandra or DSE instance.

Cass Operator v1.5.0 changes

Release date: 20 November 2020

For links to the source from the specified GitHub Issue numbers, see the Cass Operator 1.5.0 changelog.

Features:
  • Allow configuration of the system.log tail-er [#311]
  • Update Kubernetes support to cover 1.15 to 1.19 [#296] and #304
  • Specify more named ports for advanced workloads, and additional ports for ClusterIP service [#289 and #291]
  • Support WATCH_NAMESPACE=* to watch all namespaces [#286]
  • Support arbitrary Cassandra and DSE versions, using a regex for validation [#271]
  • Support running cassandra as a non-root cassandra user [#275]
  • Always gracefully drain Cassandra nodes before pod termination, and make terminationGracePeriodSeconds configurable [#269]
  • Add canaryUpgradeCount to support canary upgrade of a single node [#258]
  • Support merging all user customizations into the Cassandra podTemplateSpec [#263]
  • Add DSE 6.8.4 support [#257]
  • Add arm64 support [#238]
  • Support safely scaling down a datacenter, decommissioning Cassandra nodes [#242 and ##265]
  • Add support to override the default registry for all container images [#228]
  • Better helm chart support for branch / master builds on private Docker registries [#236]
  • Support for specific reconciliation logic in VMware k8s environments [#203, #204, #206, #224, #259, #288]
Bug fixes:
  • Increase default init container CPU for better startup performance [#261]
  • Re-enable the most common quiet period [#253]
  • Added label to all-pods service to narrow metrics scrape selection [#277]
Docs/tests:
  • Add test for infinite reconcile [#220]
  • Added keys from datastax/charts and updated README [#221]
  • Support integration tests with k3d v3 [#248]
  • Default to KIND for integration tests [#252]
  • Run OSS/DSE integration smoke tests in github workflow [#267]

Cass Operator changes in prior versions

See the changelog for each version:

Cass Operator limitations

  • Cass Operator release v1.5.0 is compatible with Cassandra 3.11.7, Cassandra 3.11.6, and DSE 6.8.0 and later, including the latest DSE 6.8.6. Cass Operator is not supported and will not function with prior releases of Cassandra or DSE. Furthermore, this release of Cass Operator is compatible only with specific Cassandra and DSE docker images that are hosted in the DataStax Docker Hub repository. Prior (pre-release) DataStax Labs releases of DSE 6.8.0 will not function with the current Cass Operator.
  • The use of Cass Operator with Cassandra 3.11.7 or 3.11.6 is intended as a Technology Preview only. Using Cass Operator with Cassandra is not recommended at this time for production environments.
  • Cass Operator supports cassandra workloads of Apache Cassandra and DSE. Cass Operator provides experimental support for DSE Advanced Workloads such as analytics, graph, and search.
  • While you can scale up the resources in a Kubernetes cluster, scaling down is not supported.
  • There is no facility for multi-region Cassandra or DSE clusters. Cass Operator functions within the context of a single Kubernetes cluster, which typically also implies a single geographic region.