New gRPC API for Apache Cassandra Boosts Performance for Multi-Cloud, Microservices Applications

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — November 16, 2021 — DataStax today announced general availability of the open source gRPC API for Astra DB, the company’s serverless cloud database built on Apache Cassandra - the NoSQL database standard. With the gRPC API developers can easily create highly performant microservices applications to query Cassandra. The API is available alongside JSON, REST, and GraphQL APIs in the Stargate open source data gateway, built to make Cassandra developer-ready for interacting with data at scale.

According to IDC, by 2024, net-new production-grade cloud-native apps will increase to 70 percent of all apps because of the adoption of technologies such as microservices, containers, dynamic orchestration, and DevOps. The scalability and maintainability of microservices is dampened when multiple languages are used, and HTTP APIs and native database drivers introduce latency and add networking overhead. DataStax leveraged the open source Remote Procedure Call (gRPC) framework created by Google to deliver the first gRPC API for Apache Cassandra, boosting performance and making it easier to support multilingual microservices on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

“With Stargate, it’s never been easier to leverage the power of Apache Cassandra for microservices-based applications with ultimate scalability and performance,” said Ed Anuff, chief product officer, DataStax. “Our gRPC API modernizes microservices communication to efficiently connect services across multiple clouds for increased application performance and agility. Through our open stack and Stargate APIs, DataStax is committed to helping developers and enterprises easily connect all their real-time data.”

For application developers working in cloud native environments, gRPC clients leverage advanced features of HTTP/2 for improved performance while supporting a cloud native design pattern that is not supported by native drivers.

Key Benefits

• Increase performance of microservices applications in cloud native environments
• DataStax supported clients for Go, Rust, Node.js and Java
• Leverage multilingual microservices while eliminating native drivers
• Use advanced features of HTTP/2 across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud

The gRPC API is available as a standard feature of Stargate API Gateway within Astra DB, the only Cassandra-based database-as-a-service (DBaaS) that supports gRPC multi-cloud, and as an open source download for Apache Cassandra and DataStax Enterprise users at Stargate.io.

With the new gRPC API for Cassandra, new capabilities in open source GraphQL API and its new change data capture (CDC) for Cassandra, DataStax is extending its commitment to helping developers and enterprises connect all their real-time data - the data that runs the business. 

Resources

• NoSQL bench, performance measuring tool for gRPC and other APIs
• Stargate gRPC Go client
• Stargate gRPC Rust client
• Stargate gRPC Node client
• Stargate gRPC Java client

About Stargate

The modern applications we build need data APIs that integrate with our toolset and work with native data shapes like JSON, REST, GraphQL and others. With Stargate, an open-source API framework for data, application developers can work with any shape of data to accelerate deployment in support of new business requirements. Whatever a developer’s preferred API for data interactions, Stargate offers a single gateway to support that API. 

About DataStax

DataStax delivers an open, multi-cloud data stack built on Apache Cassandra®, the world’s most scalable database. The company’s marquee offering is Astra DB, the industry’s first open, multi-cloud serverless database. Built on a modern, Kubernetes®-based architecture, Astra DB provides an unprecedented combination of pay-as-you-go data, simplified operations, and the freedom of multi-cloud and open-source. DataStax also offers Astra Streaming, a multi-cloud messaging and event streaming platform built on Apache Pulsar™.

With DataStax, any developer or enterprise can now deploy data at massive scale, with 100 percent uptime, for lower cost. Today, nearly 500 of the world’s most demanding enterprises and half of the Fortune 100 rely on DataStax to power modern data apps, including The Home Depot, T-Mobile, and Intuit.

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