DataStax Delivers New Open-Source API Stack for Modern Data Apps

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - December 9, 2020 - DataStax today announced a new API stack for modern data apps. Stargate, an open-source API framework for data, first unveiled this summer, is now generally available in DataStax’s Astra cloud database and for free download. The new offering enables millions of developers to build modern data apps through the API of their choice. 

The new open-source API stack for modern data apps is available today for free on GitHub and in the cloud.  

Join the React \w/ Cassandra Dev Day to hear from Charity Majors, Chief Technology Officer at honeycomb, Ania Kubów, Software Developer & YouTube Creator, and Matt Biilmann, Co-founder and CEO Netlify, the popular Jamstack platform.

Modern data apps require a new tech stack that can manage massive amounts of data, be delivered via APIs, and power rich experiences. Millions of developers want to work with the code and data format they are most familiar with.

"App developers want simple APIs to unlock the powerful infrastructure that they haven't had access to until now," said Ed Anuff, Chief Product Officer at DataStax. "Developers tell us they want easy and quick access to their data from the languages and tech stack of choice. Stargate will help millions of full-stack developers work with any shape of data or type of data store they want."

"The Stargate API framework for data significantly broadens the universe of developers and applications for the Cassandra database, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this project evolves,” said Carl Olofson, IDC Research Vice President, Data Management Software. "Stargate availability through DataStax's cloud database service, Astra, can make this development turnkey. I see this new offering as an important milestone, greatly simplifying the effort and expertise required to build cloud-based data apps on Cassandra."

The integration of Stargate into Astra enables developers to use any data store for modern data apps by adding support for new APIs, data types, and access methods. Developers no longer need to work with different databases and different APIs to power modern data apps. 

DataStax Astra leverages the foundation of open-source projects to enable developers to easily and immediately start building modern data apps with: 

• Apache Cassandra: Astra is built on the proven, open-source NoSQL database to manage data at global-scale.
• K8ssandra: an open-source distribution that enables elastic scale for data on Kubernetes.
• Stargate: an open-source API framework that enables developers to use their choice of schemaless JSON, GraphQL, and REST APIs.

Developers will benefit from: 

• Choice of APIs — Developers can use their choice of the REST API, GraphQL API or schemaless Document API to access data. For the first time, developers can use the fastest-to-deploy app stacks with a Cassandra-based data service. 
• No modeling — By using the Document API, developers can store JSON objects in Astra, without doing upfront modeling. Developers can easily prototype without having to pre-define schema and queries.
• Affordable at any scale — Developers don't need to stress on cost overruns and can pay-as-they-use. The new serverless data storage capabilities in Astra enables a fully elastic pay-as-you-use model for usage above the free tier limits.
• Multi-cloud — Developers have the freedom of choice to run on any cloud. They can start storing data immediately on the cloud of their choice and scale apps across AWS, GCP, and Azure. 
• Global-scale  — Take apps from zero to infinity scale in minutes. Developers can now future-proof their apps on Cassandra, the proven, open-source NoSQL database at global-scale.

Hear What Developers, Enterprises, and Partners Have to Say:

• Founded in 1856, Burberry is a global luxury brand. "We are passionate about driving advancements in digital innovation and we brought this mindset to our technical partnership with DataStax when co-designing Stargate. Through open collaboration we have harnessed our collective technical strengths and insights to realise new possibilities and we are proud of what we have achieved together to enhance our customer’s experience online.” — Rajeev Aikkara, VP IT Digital, Omnichannel and Marketing, Burberry
• Macquarie is a global financial services group operating in 31 markets in asset management, retail and business banking, wealth management, leasing and asset financing, market access, commodity trading, renewables development, investment banking, and principal investment. "Our team is focused on implementing technology that empowers our customers to innovate and invest for a better future. Currently, it is hard to lift and shift our older driver versions in our data infrastructure. Using Stargate's REST API platform would simplify this and allow us to build modern apps with ease. We are excited to see how we can modernize our architecture with Stargate in Astra." — Jon Lau, Cassandra DB Platform Owner,  Engineer, Macquarie Group
• Netflix is the world's leading streaming entertainment service with over 195 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. “The ability to quickly and easily integrate data in Apache Cassandra with other apps is a major achievement. The GraphQL API in Stargate takes the complexity out of accessing and stitching data together across the organization and services. Stargate in Cassandra will break API boundaries, data silos, and, ultimately, help unify all developers to work better together." — Vinay Chella, Apache Cassandra Committer, Engineer and Cloud Data Architect, Netflix
• Standard Chartered offers international banking services, working across some of the world's most dynamic markets including Asia, Africa and the Middle East. “We are building a new global digital banking platform and are excited to use Stargate as a gateway for polyglot data stores to facilitate agility and speed to market. This abstracted data fabric will reduce complexity and create consistency in our architecture thereby helping us focus on building a world class banking as a service offering.” —  Suresh Khatri, Head of Engineering, Nexus, Standard Chartered Bank
• USAA is the military community’s provider of choice for insurance, banking, financial products and advice. "It's great to see that Apache Cassandra is now primed for all developers. We're very excited about the new JSON capability in Astra and Stargate. It's truly the best of both worlds. Developers can now leverage the proven, NoSQL Cassandra database with the ease of use of JSON. The value is in streamlining the data modeling and spending less time normalizing data structures." —  Glen Kim, Team Lead and Infrastructure Engineer, USAA
• Yelp connects people with great local businesses. "At Yelp, we are excited about Stargate's vision to be an open-source and cloud-native data access API gateway. We already heavily rely on the reliability and resilience of Cassandra to handle big workloads with zero downtime. Therefore, the ability to abstract Cassandra-specific concepts entirely from app developers and support different API options — like REST, GraphQL and gRPC — will go a long way in removing barriers of entry for new software developers at Yelp." — Sirisha Vanteru, Engineering Manager, Yelp
• “The ability to start with a document model is great for prototyping new data solutions, as it lowers one of the largest barriers to entry with Cassandra.” —  Aaron Ploetz, NoSQL Engineering Lead and Apache Cassandra Contributor
• "The future is declarative. Developers want data and an efficient system to query it. I am building React and GraphQL applications with Stargate to solve just that. Today, developers are acting like human compilers, constantly searching through pointers, which may or may not reference actual data, to optimize queries. I am betting on a technology like Stargate to make this process declarative and free the developers from chasing pointers." — Jean-Baptiste Musso, Senior Full-Stack Developer and Stargate Community member
• Ippon Technologies USA consults on and implements the latest and greatest within Full Stack Development, Cloud/DevOps, Data, Agile Coaching, and Product Transformation. “Getting Stargate up and running locally with GraphQL and connected to my React app was very painless and took me less than 30 mins to get developing." — Brandon Landfried, Technical Lead, Ippon Technologies USA

Get Started Today:

• DataStax Astra + Stargate, with free serverless data storage is available today here.
• Join the React \w/ Cassandra Dev Day to hear from Charity Majors, Chief Technology Officer at honeycomb, Ania Kubów, Software Developer & YouTube Creator, and Matt Biilmann, Co-founder and CEO Netlify. 

Click-to-Tweet: Breaking down the walls! Schemaless JSON, GraphQL, and REST APIs now available for your next app w/ @DataStax. 🤯  https://dtsx.io/3gp7SYN

Resources:
DataStax Blog: Announcing: Stargate 1.0 in Astra; REST, GraphQL, & Schemaless JSON for Your Cassandra Development
DataStax Blog: Stargate in Astra: Bringing Modern Data APIs to Access Cassandra-as-a-Service
Stargate Blog: Announcing: Stargate 1.0 GA; REST, GraphQL, & Schemaless JSON for Your Cassandra Development 
Video: Stargate: The First Open-Source Data Gateway for Modern Applications
Developer Day: React \w/ Cassandra
DataStax Blog: Astra Goes Serverless: Apache Cassandra That Scales Effortlessly and Affordably
Astra Serverless: A Fully Managed Cloud Database that Scales Effortlessly and Affordably
/Dev Document API: Accessing Cassandra with Document API
/Dev REST API: Accessing Cassandra with REST API
/Dev GraphQL API: Accessing Cassandra with GraphQL
K8ssandra: GitHub
K8ssandra: Docs
K8ssandra Press Release: DataStax Releases K8ssandra, Cloud-Native Data for Kubernetes
Stargate: Github
Stargate Docs: Stargate Quickstarts
Stargate Blog: Hello GraphQL; meet Cassandra

About DataStax
DataStax is the company behind the massively scalable, highly available, cloud-native NoSQL data platform built on Apache Cassandra®. DataStax gives developers and enterprises the freedom to run data in any cloud, Kubernetes, hybrid or bare metal at global scale with zero downtime and zero lock-in. More than 450 of the world’s leading enterprises including Capital One, Cisco, Comcast, Delta Airlines, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Safeway, Sony, and Walmart use DataStax to build transformational data architectures for real-world outcomes. For more, visit DataStax.com and @DataStax.

© 2020 DataStax, All Rights Reserved. DataStax, Titan, and TitanDB are registered trademarks of DataStax, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries.

Apache, Apache Cassandra, and Cassandra are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation or its subsidiaries in Canada, the United States, and/or other countries.