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From: Apache Wiki <wikidiffs@apache.org>
To: cassandra-commits@incubator.apache.org
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:58:57 -0000
Message-ID: <20090831205857.24685.86239@eos.apache.org>
Subject: [Cassandra Wiki] Update of "CassandraLimitations" by JonathanEllis

Dear Wiki user,

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The following page has been changed by JonathanEllis:
http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/CassandraLimitations

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  = Limitations =
  
- From easiest to fix to hardest:
+ == Inherent in the design ==
+ 
+ The main limitation on column and supercolumn size is that all data for a single key and column must fit (on disk) on a single machine in the cluster. Because keys alone are used to determine the nodes responsible for replicating their data, the amount of data associated with a single key has this upper bound. This is an inherent limitation of the distribution model.
+ 
+ == Artifacts of the current code base ==
  
   * Cassandra's compaction code currently deserializes an entire row (per columnfamily) at a time.  So all the data from a given columnfamily/key pair must fit in memory.  Fixing this is relatively easy since columns are stored in-order on disk so there is really no reason you have to deserialize row-at-a-time except that that is easier with the current encapsulation of functionality.
   * Cassandra has two levels of indexes: key and column.  But in super columnfamilies there is a third level of subcolumns; these are not indexed, and any request for a subcolumn deserializes _all_ the subcolumns in that supercolumn.  So you want to avoid a data model that requires large numbers of subcolumns.  This can be fixed; the core classes involved are SuperColumn and SequenceFile.