2 Touring ScyllaDB

This chapter covers

Running ScyllaDB locally with Docker
Using nodetool to view operational details of the cluster at the command line
Creating a table and reading and writing data
Experimenting with failures and changing consistency levels

Users use a database to store data. Whether it’s blog posts or text messages or image metadata, the use case for every database begins with "I want to store data." Spending pages and pages discussing NoSQL, fault tolerance, and comparative benefits, while useful information, gets away from this goal. I’ve written a lot about ScyllaDB in theory, but here, it’s time delve into practice. In this chapter, you’ll launch your first ScyllaDB cluster, getting dirty with the database as you run your first queries and examine Scylla’s fault-tolerance guarantees.

2.1 Launching your first cluster

ScyllaDB is an application written to run on Linux. Unfortunately for people at home, there is no support for running it directly on Windows or MacOS. Do not despair though, for there is a solution. ScyllaDB provides a Docker container! Docker is an application that lets us run packaged applications called containers via a friendly interface to a virtual machine. If you are unfamiliar with Docker or need to set it up, you can learn more about it and get it installed in appendix A.

2.1.1 The first node

2.1.2 Your new friend nodetool

2.1.3 Building the cluster

2.2 Creating your first table

2.2.1 Keyspaces and tables

2.2.2 Creating a schema

2.3 Running your first queries

2.3.1 Inserting data

2.3.2 Reading data

2.3.3 Updating data

2.3.4 Deleting data

2.4 Handling failures

2.4.1 Shutting down a node

2.4.2 Experimenting with consistency

2.5 Summary