connect to local cassandra nodes using datastax java driver?

Question

I am using datastax java driver 3.1.0 to connect to cassandra cluster and my cassandra cluster version is 2.0.10.

Below is the singleton class I am using to connect to cassandra cluster.

public class CassUtil {
  private static final Logger LOGGER = Logger.getInstance(CassUtil.class);

  private Session session;
  private Cluster cluster;

  private static class Holder {
    private static final CassUtil INSTANCE = new CassUtil();
  }

  public static CassUtil getInstance() {
    return Holder.INSTANCE;
  }

  private CassUtil() {
    List<String> servers = TestUtils.HOSTNAMES;
    String username =
        TestUtils.loadCredentialFile().getProperty(TestUtils.USERNAME);
    String password =
        TestUtils.loadCredentialFile().getProperty(TestUtils.PASSWORD);

    // is this right setting?
    PoolingOptions poolingOptions = new PoolingOptions();
    poolingOptions.setConnectionsPerHost(HostDistance.LOCAL, 4, 10).setConnectionsPerHost(
        HostDistance.REMOTE, 2, 4);

    Builder builder = Cluster.builder();
    cluster =
        builder
            .addContactPoints(servers.toArray(new String[servers.size()]))
            .withRetryPolicy(DowngradingConsistencyRetryPolicy.INSTANCE)
            .withPoolingOptions(poolingOptions)
            .withReconnectionPolicy(new ConstantReconnectionPolicy(100L))
            .withLoadBalancingPolicy(
                DCAwareRoundRobinPolicy
                    .builder()
                    .withLocalDc(
                        !TestUtils.isProduction() ? "DC2" : TestUtils.getCurrentLocation()
                            .get().name().toLowerCase()).build())
            .withCredentials(username, password).build();

    try {
      session = cluster.connect("testkeyspace");
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      Set<Host> allHosts = cluster.getMetadata().getAllHosts();
      for (Host host : allHosts) {
        sb.append("[");
        sb.append(host.getDatacenter());
        sb.append(host.getRack());
        sb.append(host.getAddress());
        sb.append("]");
      }
      LOGGER.logInfo("connected: " + sb.toString());
    } catch (NoHostAvailableException ex) {
      LOGGER.logError("error= ", ExceptionUtils.getStackTrace(ex));
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      LOGGER.logError("error= " + ExceptionUtils.getStackTrace(ex));
    }
  }

  public void shutdown() {
    LOGGER.logInfo("Shutting down the whole cassandra cluster");
    if (null != session) {
      session.close();
    }
    if (null != cluster) {
      cluster.close();
    }
  }

  public Session getSession() {
    if (session == null) {
      throw new IllegalStateException("No connection initialized");
    }
    return session;
  }

  public Cluster getCluster() {
    return cluster;
  }
}

What is the settings I need to use to connect to local cassandra nodes first and if they are down, then only talk to remote nodes. Also my pooling configuration options is right here which I am using in the above code?

Answer 1

By default the datastax drivers will only connect to nodes in the local DC. If you do not use withLocalDc it will attempt to discern the local datacenter from the DC of the contact point it is able to connect to.

If you want the driver to fail over to host in remote data center(s) you should use withUsedHostsPerRemoteDc, i.e.:

cluster.builder()        
  .withLoadBalancingPolicy(DCAwareRoundRobinPolicy.builder()
    .withLocalDc("DC1")
    .withUsedHostsPerRemoteDc(3).build())

With this configuration, the driver will establish connections to 3 hosts in each remote DC, and only send queries to them if all hosts in the local datacenter is down.

There are other strategies for failover to remote data centers. For example, you could run your application clients in each same physical data center as your C* data centers, and then when a physical data center fails, you can fail over at a higher level (like your load balancer).

Also my pooling configuration options is right here which I am using in the above code?

I think what you have is fine. The defaults are fine too.