The cassandra-stress
tool
The cassandra-stress
tool is a Java-based stress testing utility for basic benchmarking and load testing a Cassandra cluster.
Data modeling choices can greatly affect application performance.
Significant load testing over several trials is the best method for discovering issues with a particular data model.
The cassandra-stress
tool is an effective tool for populating a cluster and stress testing CQL tables and queries.
Use cassandra-stress
to:
-
Quickly determine how a schema performs.
-
Understand how your database scales.
-
Optimize your data model and settings.
-
Determine production capacity.
The cassandra-stress
tool also supports a YAML-based profile for defining specific schemas with various compaction strategies, cache settings, and types.
Sample files are located in the tools directory:
-
cqlstress-counter-example.yaml
-
cqlstress-example.yaml
-
cqlstress-insanity-example.yaml
The YAML file supports user-defined keyspace, tables, and schema. The YAML file can be used to design tests of reads, writes, and mixed workloads.
Where is the cassandra-stress example file?
The location of the cassandra-stress example files depends on the type of installation:
Installation Type | Location |
---|---|
Package installations + Installer-Services installations |
|
Tarball installations + Installer-No Services installations |
|
When started without a YAML file, cassandra-stress
creates a keyspace, keyspace1
, and tables, standard1
or counter1
, depending on what type of table is being tested.
These elements are automatically created the first time you run a stress test and reused on subsequent runs.
You can drop keyspace1
using DROP KEYSPACE
.
You cannot change the default keyspace and tables names without using a YAML file.
Usage:
-
Package and Installer-Services installations:
cassandra-stress command [options]
-
Tarball and Installer-No Services installations:
<install_location>/dse/resources/cassandra/tools/bin/cassandra-stress command [options]
Command | Description |
---|---|
|
Multiple concurrent reads of counters.
The cluster must first be populated by a |
|
Multiple concurrent updates of counters. |
|
Display help: |
|
Legacy support mode. |
|
Interleave basic commands with configurable ratio and distribution. The cluster must first be populated by a write test. |
|
Inspect the output of a distribution definition. |
|
Multiple concurrent reads. The cluster must first be populated by a write test. |
|
Interleave user provided queries with configurable ratio and distribution. |
|
Print the cassandra-stress version. |
|
Multiple concurrent writes against the cluster. |
Additional sub-options are available for each option in the following table. To get more detailed information on any of these, enter:
|
When entering the help
command, be sure to precede the option name with a hyphen, as shown.
Sub-option | Description |
---|---|
|
Column details, such as size and count distribution, data generator, names, and comparator. Usage:
|
|
How to handle errors when encountered during stress testing. Usage:
|
|
Graph results of cassandra-stress tests. Multiple tests can be graphed together. Usage:
|
|
Insert specific options relating to various methods for batching and splitting partition updates. Usage:
|
|
Where to log progress and the interval to use. Usage:
|
|
Thrift or CQL with options. Usage:
|
|
Nodes to connect to. Usage:
|
|
Population distribution and intra-partition visit order. Usage:
|
|
Specify port for connecting Cassandra nodes. Port can be specified for Cassandra native protocol, Thrift protocol or a JMX port for retrieving statistics. Usage:
|
-rate |
Set the rate using the following options:
where
OR
where
|
-schema |
Replication settings, compression, compaction, and so on. Usage:
|
|
Specify a server to send the stress command to. Usage:
|
|
Token range settings. Usage:
|
|
Custom transport factories. Usage:
|
Additional command-line parameters can modify how cassandra-stress runs:
Command | Description |
---|---|
|
Set the consistency level to use during |
|
Distribution clustering runs of operations of the same kind. |
|
Specify the time to run, in seconds, minutes or hours. |
|
Specify a standard error of the mean;
when this value is reached, |
|
Specify a minimum number of iterations to run before accepting uncertainly convergence. |
|
Specify a maximum number of iterations to run before accepting uncertainly convergence. |
|
Specify the number of operations to run. |
|
Do not warmup the process, do a cold start. |
|
Specify what operations to run and the number of each. (only with the user option) |
|
Designate the YAML file to use with |
|
Truncate the table created during |
Simple read and write examples
# Insert (write) one million rows
$ cassandra-stress write n=1000000 -rate threads=50
# Read two hundred thousand rows.
$ cassandra-stress read n=200000 -rate threads=50
# Read rows for a duration of 3 minutes.
$ cassandra-stress read duration=3m -rate threads=50
# Read 200,000 rows without a warmup of 50,000 rows first.
$ cassandra-stress read n=200000 no-warmup -rate threads=50
View schema help
cassandra-stress help -schema
replication([strategy=?][factor=?][<option 1..N>=?]): Define the replication strategy and any parameters
strategy=? (default=org.apache.cassandra.locator.SimpleStrategy) The replication strategy to use
factor=? (default=1) The number of replicas
keyspace=? (default=keyspace1) The keyspace name to use
compaction([strategy=?][<option 1..N>=?]): Define the compaction strategy and any parameters
strategy=? The compaction strategy to use
compression=? Specify the compression to use for SSTable, default:no compression
Populate the database
Generally it is easier to let cassandra-stress
create the basic schema and then modify it in CQL:
#Load one row with default schema
$ cassandra-stress write n=1 cl=one -mode native cql3 -log file=create_schema.log
#Modify schema in CQL
$ cqlsh
#Run a real write workload
$ cassandra-stress write n=1000000 cl=one -mode native cql3 -schema keyspace="keyspace1" -log file=load_1M_rows.log
Change the replication strategy
Changes the replication strategy to NetworkTopologyStrategy
and targets one node named existing
.
cassandra-stress write n=500000 no-warmup -node existing -schema "replication(strategy=NetworkTopologyStrategy, existing=2)"
Run a mixed workload
When running a mixed workload, you must escape parentheses, greater-than and less-than signs, and other such things. This example invokes a workload that is one-quarter writes and three-quarters reads.
cassandra-stress mixed ratio(write=1,read=3) n=100000 cl=ONE -pop dist=UNIFORM(1..1000000) -schema keyspace="keyspace1" -mode native cql3 -rate threads\>=16 threads\<=256 -log file=~/mixed_autorate_50r50w_1M.log
Notice the following in this example:
-
The
ratio
parameter requires backslash-escaped parenthesis. -
The value of
n
used in the read phase is different from the value used in write phase. During the write phase,n
records are written. However in the read phase, ifn
is too large, it is inconvenient to read all the records for simple testing. Generally,n
does not need be large when validating the persistent storage systems of a cluster.The
-pop dist=UNIFORM(1..1000000)
portion says that of then=100,000
operations, select the keys uniformly distributed between 1 and 1,000,000. Use this when you want to specify more data per node than what fits in DRAM. -
In the
rate
section, the greater-than and less-than signs are escaped. If not escaped, the shell attempts to use them for IO redirection: the shell tries to read from a non-existent file called=256
and create a file called=16
. Therate
section tells cassandra-stress to automatically attempt different numbers of client threads and not test less that 16 or more than 256 client threads.
Standard mixed read/write workload keyspace for a single node
CREATE KEYSPACE "keyspace1" WITH replication = {
'class': 'SimpleStrategy',
'replication_factor': '1'
};
USE "keyspace1";
CREATE TABLE "standard1" (
key blob,
"C0" blob,
"C1" blob,
"C2" blob,
"C3" blob,
"C4" blob,
PRIMARY KEY (key)
) WITH
bloom_filter_fp_chance=0.010000 AND
caching='KEYS_ONLY' AND
comment='' AND
dclocal_read_repair_chance=0.000000 AND
gc_grace_seconds=864000 AND
index_interval=128 AND
read_repair_chance=0.100000 AND
replicate_on_write='true' AND
default_time_to_live=0 AND
speculative_retry='99.0PERCENTILE' AND
memtable_flush_period_in_ms=0 AND
compaction={'class': 'SizeTieredCompactionStrategy'} AND
compression={'class': 'LZ4Compressor'};
Split up a load over multiple cassandra-stress instances on different nodes
This example demonstrates loading into large clusters, where a single cassandra-stress
load generator node cannot saturate the cluster.
In this example, $NODES
is a variable whose value is a comma delimited list of IP addresses such as 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, and so on.
#On Node1
$ cassandra-stress write n=1000000 cl=one -mode native cql3 -schema keyspace="keyspace1" -pop seq=1..1000000 -log file=~/node1_load.log -node $NODES
#On Node2
$ cassandra-stress write n=1000000 cl=one -mode native cql3 -schema keyspace="keyspace1" -pop seq=1000001..2000000 -log file=~/node2_load.log -node $NODES
Run cassandra-stress with authentication
The following example shows using the -mode
option to supply a username and password:
cassandra-stress -mode native cql3 user=cassandra password=cassandra no-warmup cl=QUORUM
Check the documentation of the transport option for SSL authentication. |
Run cassandra-stress
with authentication and SSL encryption
The following example shows using the -mode
option to supply a username and password, and the -transportation
option for SSL parameters:
cassandra-stress write n=100k cl=ONE no-warmup -mode native cql3 user=cassandra password=cassandra
-transport truststore=/usr/local/lib/dsc-cassandra/conf/server-truststore.jks truststore-password=truststorePass
factory=org.apache.cassandra.thrift.SSLTransportFactory
keystore=/usr/local/lib/dsc-cassandra/conf/server-keystore.jks keystore-password=myKeyPass
Cassandra authentication and SSL encryption must already be configured before executing |
Run cassandra-stress
using the truncate option
This option must be inserted before the mode option, otherwise the cassandra-stress
tool won’t apply truncation as specified.
The following example shows the truncate
command:
cassandra-stress write n=100000000 cl=QUORUM truncate=always -schema keyspace=keyspace-rate threads=200 -log file=write_$NOW.log
Use a YAML file to run cassandra-stress
This example uses a YAML file named cqlstress-example.yaml
, which contains the keyspace and table definitions, and a query definition.
The keyspace name and definition are the first entries in the YAML file:
keyspace: perftesting
keyspace_definition:
CREATE KEYSPACE perftesting WITH replication = { 'class': 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor': 3};
The table name and definition are created in the next section using CQL:
table: users
table_definition:
CREATE TABLE users (
username text,
first_name text,
last_name text,
password text,
email text,
last_access timeuuid,
PRIMARY KEY(username)
);
In the extra_definitions
section you can add secondary indexes or materialized views to the table:
extra_definitions:
- CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW perftesting.users_by_first_name AS SELECT * FROM perftesting.users WHERE first_name IS NOT NULL and username IS NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY (first_name, username);
- CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW perftesting.users_by_first_name2 AS SELECT * FROM perftesting.users WHERE first_name IS NOT NULL and username IS NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY (first_name, username);
- CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW perftesting.users_by_first_name3 AS SELECT * FROM perftesting.users WHERE first_name IS NOT NULL and username IS NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY (first_name, username);
The population distribution can be defined for any column in the table. This section specifies a uniform distribution between 10 and 30 characters for username values in gnerated rows, that the values in the generated rows willcreates , a uniform distribution between 20 and 40 characters for generated startdate over the entire Cassandra cluster, and a Gaussian distribution between 100 and 500 characters for description values.
columnspec:
- name: username
size: uniform(10..30)
- name: first_name
size: fixed(16)
- name: last_name
size: uniform(1..32)
- name: password
size: fixed(80) # sha-512
- name: email
size: uniform(16..50)
- name: startdate
cluster: uniform(20...40)
- name: description
size: gaussian(100...500)
After the column specifications, you can add specifications for how each batch runs.
In the following code, the partitions
value directs the test to use the column definitions above to insert a fixed number of rows in the partition in each batch:
insert:
partitions: fixed(10)
batchtype: UNLOGGED
The last section contains a query, read1
, that can be run against the defined table.
queries:
read1:
cql: select * from users where username = ? and startdate = ?
fields: samerow # samerow or multirow (select arguments from the same row, or randomly from all rows in the partition)
The following example shows using the user option and its parameters to run cassandra-stress
tests from cqlstress-example.yaml
:
cassandra-stress user profile=tools/cqlstress-example.yaml n=1000000 ops(insert=3,read1=1) no-warmup cl=QUORUM
Notice that:
-
The user option is required for the
profile
andopt
parameters. -
The value for the
profile
parameter is the path and filename of the.yaml
file. -
In this example,
-n
specifies the number of batches that run. -
The values supplied for
ops
specifies which operations run and how many of each. These values direct the command to insert rows into the database and run theread1
query.How many times? Each insert or query counts as one batch, and the values in
ops
determine how many of each type are run. Since the total number of batches is 1,000,000, andops
says to run three inserts for each query, the result will be 750,000 inserts and 250,000 of theread1
query.Use escaping backslashes when specifying the
ops
value.
For more information, see Improved Cassandra 2.1 Stress Tool: Benchmark Any Schema — Part 1.
Use the -graph
option
In Cassandra 3.2 and later, the -graph
option provides visual feedback for cassandra-stress
tests.
A file must be named to build the resulting HTML file.
A title
and revision
are optional, but revision
must be used if multiple stress tests are graphed on the same output.
cassandra-stress user profile=tools/cqlstress-example.yaml ops(insert=1) -graph file=test.html title=test revision=test1
An interactive graph can be displayed with a web browser:
cassandra-stress
tool graph