About the cassandra-stress tool

A Java-based stress testing utility for basic benchmarking and load testing a DataStax Enterprise cluster.

cassandra-stress

The location of the cassandra-stress example files depends on the type of installation:

Package installations
Installer-Services installations

 /usr/share/dse/cassandra/tools

Tarball installations
Installer-No Services installations

 installation_location/dse/resources/cassandra/tools

The cassandra-stress tool is a Java-based stress testing utility for basic benchmarking and load testing a DataStax Enterprise 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.

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 installations: 
    cassandra-stress command [options]
  • Tarball installations: 
    cd install_location/tools && 
bin/cassandra-stress command [options]

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