What is the Catalyst program?

The Cassandra Catalyst® Program is a prestigious initiative that recognizes individuals who are dedicated to the growth and success of the Apache Cassandra® community. German Eichberger, Principal Engineering Manager for Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra, is a Catalyst who has demonstrated a deep understanding of Cassandra through extensive experience with production deployments, educational material, conference talks, and other contributions. He is passionate about connecting and empowering others with Cassandra knowledge and strives to create a welcoming environment where everyone can thrive. Being part of the first batch of Catalysts is a great honor for German, and he is committed to continuing to invest in the growth of the Cassandra community and sharing his expertise with others.

German actively participates in the Cassandra community through mailing lists and Slack and has been recognized for his contributions. He spearheaded efforts to extend support for Cassandra version 3.11 and reviewed and helped design a new feature called Azure Snitch. Additionally, he advocates for Cassandra within Azure and with Azure customers and has tested the distributed transaction feature for Cassandra 5.1 based on ACCORD/TCM, finding and reporting bugs.

Presentations at various summits

German has given presentations at various summits that showcase his expertise in Cassandra and related technologies. At ApacheCon@Home, German presented on Cassandra Data Migration with Dual Write Proxy which explored how to migrate data from one Cassandra cluster to another while minimizing downtime. At ApacheCon NA 2022 in New Orleans, he discussed reducing client latency and timeouts when running Cassandra on Public Cloud, which is a common challenge for organizations using cloud infrastructure. At Community Over Code 2023 Halifax, he presented on Performance Measurement and Tuning of Cassandra 5.0 Transactions on Cloud Infrastructure, which covered best practices for optimizing the performance of Cassandra transactions in cloud environments. Finally, at Cassandra Summit 2023, he presented again on reducing client latency and timeouts when running Cassandra on Public Cloud to make it available to a wider audience. German is excited to share his insights with the Cassandra community. These presentations demonstrate his commitment to sharing his knowledge and experience with others in the community and helping organizations make the most of Apache Cassandra’s capabilities. In addition to participating in summits and giving presentations, German has also shared his expertise through various podcasts and blog posts. In the Cassandra Corner podcast, he had a conversation with Theo van Kraay and Aaron Ploetz about Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra and its use cases. He also appeared on the Apache Feather Cast podcast to discuss Cassandra 5.0, the Cassandra Summit, and what it means to be a Catalyst. Additionally, he has written a blog post for the Planet Cassandra Blog, where he shared best practices for achieving optimal performance in Cassandra. Through these various channels, German aims to share his knowledge and experience with the Cassandra community and help others improve their use of this powerful database technology.

What’s next for Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra

One of the most significant updates in our latest release is the support for Cassandra 5.0, which introduces a range of exciting new features and improvements. Perhaps the most notable of these is the integration of the DiskANN algorithm, developed at Microsoft Research, which enables vector search capabilities. Additionally, the introduction of Storage Attached Indices allows for faster data retrieval and, in some cases, can even replace additional text search systems like Elasticsearch. Another noteworthy feature is Dynamic Data Masking, inspired by Microsoft SQL Server, which provides enhanced data security and privacy. Alongside these major updates, there are also numerous performance and stability improvements, making this release one of the most significant yet.

More about Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra

Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra is a powerful solution that enables large customers to run mission-critical workloads with ease. As a trusted and experienced provider of support for this productGerman has had the privilege of working closely with these customers to ensure their success. Leveraging Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra enables organizations to realize ambitious goals and drive industry innovation. With its robust features and unmatched scalability, this product is quickly becoming the go-to choice for enterprises looking to harness the full power of Cassandra in the cloud. As a provider of support for Azure Managed Instances for Apache Cassandra German is committed to helping organizations of all sizes and industries unlock the full potential of this game-changing technology.

About Azure Cosmos DB

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