There is a known issue for concurrent schema migrations https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-1391
Once they diverge the I think you can delete the schema by removing the necessary system files and leaving the data files in place, then re-creating the files. And yes, you should not be creating lots of column families they are not the same as tables. Aaron On 16 Apr 2011, at 09:13, Alejandro Perez wrote: > Thanks for the quick response!. I will reconsider the schema. > > However, the problem troubles me somehow. How are schema changes supposed to > be done? Should I serialize them, should I halt other cluster operations > while I do the schema change? Is this a known problem with cassandra? > > The other question, and I think the more important one for me now: how do I > repair the cluster without loosing data once the schemas diverge? Right now > the only way I have is erase all data and have the cluster start empty. > Should this problem ever happen in production, it's important there's a way > to recover the data. > > On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Dan Hendry <dan.hendry.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > Uh... don’t create a column family per user. Column families are meant to be > fairly static; conceptually equivalent to a table in a relational database. > Why do you need (or even want) a CF per user? Reconsider your data model, a > single column family with an inverted index for a ‘user’ column is probably > more what you are looking for. Operationally, the fewer CFs the better. > > > Dan > > > From: Alejandro Perez [mailto:sp...@indextank.com] > Sent: April-15-11 16:39 > To: user@cassandra.apache.org > Cc: Support > Subject: Schemas diverging while dynamically creating CF. > > > Hello, > > > We're testing cassandra for integration with indextank. In this first try, > we're creating one column family for each user. In practice, on the first run > and for the first few documents (a few 100s), a new CF is created, and a > document is immediately added to it. A few (up to 50) requests of this type > are issued in parallel (for different column families). > > > The end result, and quite repeatable, is having the cluster split with > different schema versions, and they never agree. > > > Any thoughts? > > > > Thanks, > > > Spike. > > > -- > > Alejandro Perez > IndexTank > > follow us @indextank | read our blog | subscribe our user mailing list > > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 9.0.894 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3574 - Release Date: 04/15/11 > 02:34:00 > > > > > -- > Alejandro Perez > IndexTank > > follow us @indextank | read our blog | subscribe our user mailing list > >