DataStax brings Apache Cassandra as a service to Google Cloud

At Google Cloud, we are committed to bringing open source technologies to our customers. For the last decade, Apache Cassandra has been an open source database of choice behind many of the largest internet applications.  

While Cassandra’s scale-out architecture can support applications with massive amounts of data, it can be complex to deploy, manage, and scale. This is why many enterprises, moving more of their workloads to the cloud, have been asking for an easier way to run Cassandra workloads on Google Cloud.

We are excited to announce the general availability of DataStax’s Cassandra as a Service, called Astra, on the Google Cloud Marketplace. This means you can now get a single, unified bill for all Google Cloud services as well as DataStax Astra. In addition, Datastax Astra is integrated into our console to provide a seamless user experience. Developers can now create Cassandra clusters on Google Cloud in minutes and build applications with Cassandra as a database as a service without the operational overhead of managing Cassandra. Datastax Astra on Google Cloud is available in seven regions across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, with a free tier in either South Carolina (US-EAST1) or Belgium (EUROPE-WEST1).

Astra deploys and manages your enterprise’s Cassandra databases directly on top of Google Cloud’s infrastructure so that your data sits in the same Google Cloud global infrastructure as your apps. This means users and enterprises can deliver a high-performance experience at a global scale. Astra users will find a consistent developer experience with open-source Cassandra tools and APIs, as well as REST and GraphQL endpoints and a browser-based CQL shell. Check out the DataStax documentation for additional details.

How enterprises are using Cassandra

Companies like Cisco and METRO see strong opportunities in scaling infrastructure and building efficiency with DataStax Astra on Google Cloud.   

Customers rely on Cisco technologies for networking, multi-cloud, and security. "Our team has been working for the past couple of years to ensure our infrastructure is set up to scale to meet unforeseen challenges," said Maniyarasan Selvaraj, lead Cisco engineer. "Cassandra is at the center of this with its reliability, resilience, and scalability. We are looking forward to the new release of DataStax Astra that could offer us an easier, better experience for Cassandra deployment and application development in the cloud."

METRO, a B2B wholesaler and retail specialist, relies on DataStax and Google Cloud for its digital transformation. “At METRO, we decided to become a digital player and to change the way we build and run software. We moved from on-premises, waterfall and commercial systems to cloud, agile and open source, working with DataStax and Cassandra,” says Arnd Hannemann, technical architect at METRONOM, the tech unit at METRO. “To take us to the next stage, teams will need more flexibility of what and how they use cloud infrastructure. Since most of our application teams are already using Cassandra as a main data store, the new DataStax Astra on Google Cloud promises to deliver this flexibility with very low effort and maintenance.”

Ready to start building Cassandra apps in the cloud? You can find Astra in the Google Cloud marketplace. Astra has a 10 GB free tier and billing is integrated within the Google Cloud experience. You can also take it for a test drive.