What is Amazon Keyspaces?
Amazon Keyspaces (for Apache Cassandra) is a serverless, scalable, and highly available Cassandra-compatible database service. Keyspaces uses Cassandra Query Language (CQL) and is compatible with existing Cassandra drivers, allowing existing applications to migrate with minimal changes.
AWS manages all infrastructure: provisioning, patching, backups, encryption, and scaling. You only interact with your data via CQL. Keyspaces scales automatically based on workload without capacity planning or cluster resizing.
Amazon Keyspaces is available in EU regions for GDPR-compliant data processing. The service offers 99.99% availability SLA with automatic multi-AZ replication.
Core Features
Amazon Keyspaces provides enterprise features for Cassandra workloads:
CQL Compatibility: Keyspaces supports CQL 3.x. Existing Cassandra applications can connect with the same driver (DataStax Java Driver, Python Driver, etc.). Minimal code changes for migration.
Serverless Scaling: Keyspaces scales automatically based on traffic. On-demand mode for variable workloads, provisioned mode for predictable costs. No shard management like self-managed Cassandra.
Multi-AZ Replication: Data is automatically replicated across three availability zones. 99.99% availability SLA. No manual replication configuration required.
Encryption: Encryption at rest with AWS KMS (standard or customer managed keys). Encryption in transit via TLS. Full compliance for HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR.
Point-in-Time Recovery: Continuous backups enable restoration to any point within 35 days. Automatically activatable, no maintenance windows.
Typical Use Cases
IoT Data Platforms
IoT applications generate massive data volumes from sensors, devices, and vehicles. Keyspaces excels for time-series data with high write throughput. Partition keys by device, clustering by timestamp enable efficient queries.
Example: Fleet management system stores GPS positions, vehicle telemetry, and status messages. Millions of writes per second, queries by vehicle ID and time range. Keyspaces scales automatically with growing vehicle fleet.
Session Management
Web applications store session data in Keyspaces for fast read and write access. Low latency (<10ms), automatic TTL for session expiration. Better than Redis for larger session objects or when persistence is more important than extreme latency.
Integration with user authentication: Session ID as partition key, user metadata, preferences, and temporary states as columns. Point-in-time recovery for audit and compliance.
Cassandra Migration to AWS
Enterprises with existing Cassandra clusters migrate to Keyspaces for reduced ops effort. No cluster management, no patching, no capacity planning. Typical ops cost reduction: 60-80%.
Migration workflow: Schema export via cqlsh, adaptation for Keyspaces compatibility, data migration via Glue or cqlsh COPY, dual-write for zero-downtime, traffic switchover.
Event Logging and Audit Trails
Applications log events, transactions, and audit trails to Keyspaces. Write-optimized design for high throughput. Partitioning by entity ID enables efficient queries (“All events for user X in the last 30 days”).
Point-in-time recovery fulfills compliance requirements for audit logs. Encryption with customer managed keys for regulated industries (financial sector, healthcare).
Benefits
Amazon Keyspaces offers concrete benefits over self-managed Cassandra:
No Ops Overhead: AWS manages hardware, patching, backups, scaling. Teams focus on application development instead of cluster administration.
Automatic Scaling: Keyspaces automatically adjusts capacity to traffic. No over-provisioning costs at low load, no throttling during traffic spikes.
Enterprise-Grade Availability: 99.99% SLA through multi-AZ replication. No single points of failure, automatic failover.
Pay-per-Use: On-demand pricing model: Pay only for actual read and write operations. Ideal for variable workloads.
Easy Migration: CQL compatibility enables migration of existing Cassandra applications with minimal code changes.
Amazon Keyspaces Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with Amazon Keyspaces:
Architecture Design: We design your Keyspaces data models. Partition key design, clustering columns, denormalization for efficient queries. Best practices for time-series, IoT, and event logging.
Migration: Secure migration from self-managed Cassandra or DataStax to Keyspaces. Schema adaptation, data migration, dual-write strategies for zero-downtime. Typical migration duration: 2-4 weeks.
Performance Optimization: Query analysis, partition key optimization, provisioned vs. on-demand trade-off. Monitoring with CloudWatch for latency and throttling.
Cost Optimization: Analysis of your Keyspaces usage. Capacity mode selection, reserved capacity for predictable workloads. Typical savings: 30-40% compared to on-demand.
24/7 Support: Monitoring of read/write latency, throttling events, and capacity metrics. Alerting on performance degradation. Proactive optimization recommendations.
Contact us for a non-binding consultation on Amazon Keyspaces and NoSQL databases on AWS.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon Keyspaces?
Amazon Keyspaces is a serverless, Apache Cassandra-compatible database service. Keyspaces uses Cassandra Query Language (CQL) and is compatible with existing Cassandra drivers. AWS manages infrastructure, scaling, patching, and backups.
How much does Amazon Keyspaces cost?
On-Demand: $1.45 per million write request units, $0.29 per million read request units. Provisioned: $0.00065 per WCU-hour, $0.00013 per RCU-hour. Storage: $0.25 per GB-month. Point-in-time recovery: $0.20 per GB-month. Typical costs: $50-500/month.
How does Keyspaces differ from self-managed Cassandra?
Keyspaces is serverless: No cluster management, automatic scaling, integrated backups. Self-managed Cassandra requires capacity planning, node management, repairs, and upgrades. Keyspaces offers 99.99% SLA, reduces ops effort by 80%.
Which Cassandra features are not supported?
Keyspaces supports CQL 3.x but not all features: No Lightweight Transactions (LWT), no user-defined functions/aggregates, no materialized views, no secondary indexes (use GSI-like patterns instead). Batch operations limited to 30 statements maximum.
How do I migrate from Cassandra to Keyspaces?
Migration with cqlsh COPY for small datasets or AWS Glue for larger migrations. Dual-write pattern for zero-downtime migrations: Write to both systems, migrate historical data, switch reads. Keyspaces supports the same CQL drivers, minimal code changes.