Apache Cassandra is a free and open-source, distributed, wide column store, NoSQL database management system. It is designed to handle large amounts of data across many commodity servers, providing high availability with no single point of failure.
A NoSQL database (sometimes called as Not Only SQL) is a database to store and retrieve data other than the tabular relations used in relational databases. These databases are schema-free, support easy replication, have simple API, eventually consistent, and can handle huge amounts of data.
The primary objective of a NoSQL database are
- the simplicity of design,
- horizontal scaling, and
- finer control over availability.