Thank you for taking the time for writing this great feedback. I've commented in-line to yours.
Hayato On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 at 01:04, Rahul Singh <rahul.xavier.si...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nice.. Good to see the community producing tools around the Cassandra > product. > > Few pieces of feedback > > *Kudos* > 1. Glad that you are doing it > Thanks! We're having fun doing it. > 2. Looks great > Thanks, there's more to come :-) > 3. Willing to try it out if you find this guy called "Free Time" for me :) > I'm still looking for this guy. > > *Criticism* > 1. It mimics a lot of stack components that are out there.. Though I agree > with you that the prometheus/grafana/etc stack is difficult to get running, > I look at > https://docs.scylladb.com/operating-scylla/monitoring/monitoring_stack/ > and give them kudos for just making a simple tool to leverage what's there. > Even DSE is now drinking the prometheus coolaid > https://www.datastax.com/2018/12/improved-performance-diagnostics-with-datastax-metrics-collector > > We definitely took inspiration from the tooling stack that we have been using, including Grafana. In terms of drinking the Prometheus cool aid, our server API provides Prometheus query API. This is currently undocumented but we are intending to add a section to our docs. It means you can point your Grafana to AxonOps server API and integrate with your existing dashboards. The way Prometheus "scrapes" metrics was where we wanted to be different with AxonOps. Prometheus servers must co-exist in the same private network as Cassandra servers in order to scrape the agent HTTP endpoints. There is Prometheus Push Gateway but that is yet another component to add to our monitoring stack. AxonOps agent initiates the connection to server using HTTPS/WebSocket, meaning AxonOps server can reside in an entirely different network. Just to experiment how far we can take this, we tested the agent connecting through an outbound web proxy -> internet -> Cloudflare edge load balancer -> AWS load balancer -> VPC -> nginx (F5!!) -> AxonOps server. It worked very well with this setup. This single socket HTTPS/WebSocket connection between the server and the agent provides a bi-directional communication, where repair/backup/config update commands traverse back the same connection as the metrics/logs etc. If you have a multi-cloud/hybrid Cassandra deployment, you can theoretically have a Cassandra cluster spanning across GCP, on-premises, and AWS, it is entirely feasible to have the AxonOps server hosted in Azure without having VPN connections to GCP/AWS/on-premises. > 2. Given a choice of making something on my own (1), using a "stack" > approach similar to Scylla (2), buying something that DSE produces (3), or > buying AxonOps (4), the challenge for a practioner will be whether the cost > offsets the effective pains of options 1 (more time),2( less time),3 (money) > > You can install it from our APT/YUM repos without charge, with each server instance supporting up to 6 Cassandra nodes. We believe those people with production clusters of this size, of which there are many, will find this tool useful. > > "It is not the critic who counts; not *the man* who points out how the > strong *man* stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them > better. ... It is the man in the arena" - Teddy Roosevelt > > Keep play in the Arena and looking forward to updates! > > > > > > On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 10:15 AM AxonOps <axon...@digitalis.io> wrote: > >> Hi Kenneth, >> >> We using AxonOps with on a number of production clusters already, but >> we're continuously improving it, so we've got a good level of comfort and >> confidence with the product with our own customers. >> >> In terms of our recommendations on the upper bounds of the cluster size, >> we do not know yet. The biggest resource user is with Elasticsearch that >> stores all the data. The free version available supports up to 6 nodes and >> AxonOps can easily support this. >> >> You can already install the product from our APT or YUM repos. The >> installation instructions are available here - https://docs.axonops.com >> >> Hayato >> >> >> On Tue, 5 Mar 2019 at 20:44, Kenneth Brotman <kenbrot...@yahoo.com.invalid> >> wrote: >> >>> Hayato, >>> >>> >>> >>> I agree with what you are addressing as I’ve always thought the big >>> elephant in the room regarding Cassandra was that you had to use all these >>> other tools, each of which requires updating, configuring changes, and that >>> too much attention had to be paid to all those other tools instead of what >>> your trying to accomplish; when instead if addressed it all could be >>> centralized, internalized, or something but clearly it was quite doable. >>> >>> >>> >>> Questions regarding where things are at: >>> >>> >>> >>> Are you using AxonOps in any of your clients Apache Cassandra production >>> clusters? >>> >>> >>> >>> What is the largest Cassandra cluster in which you use it? >>> >>> >>> >>> Would you recommend NOT using AxonOps on production clusters for now or >>> do you consider it safe to do so? >>> >>> >>> >>> What is the largest Cassandra cluster you would recommend using AxonOps >>> on? >>> >>> >>> >>> Can it handle multi-cloud clusters? >>> >>> >>> >>> Which clouds does it play nice with? >>> >>> >>> >>> Is it good for use for on-prem nodes (or cloud only)? >>> >>> >>> >>> Which versions of Cassandra does it play nice with? >>> >>> >>> >>> Any rough idea when a download will be available? >>> >>> >>> >>> Your blog post at >>> https://digitalis.io/blog/apache-cassandra-management-tool/ provides a >>> lot of answers already! Really very promising! >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> >>> >>> Kenneth Brotman >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* AxonOps [mailto:axon...@digitalis.io] >>> *Sent:* Sunday, March 03, 2019 7:51 AM >>> *To:* user@cassandra.apache.org >>> *Subject:* Re: AxonOps - Cassandra operational management tool >>> >>> >>> >>> Hi Kenneth, >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks for your great feedback! We're not trying to be secretive, but >>> just not amazing at promoting ourselves! >>> >>> >>> >>> AxonOps was built by digitalis.io (https://digitalis.io), a company >>> based in the UK providing consulting and managed services for Cassandra, >>> Kafka and Spark. digitalis.io was founded 3 years ago by 2 ex-DataStax >>> architects but their experience of Cassandra predates the tenure at >>> DataStax. >>> >>> >>> >>> We have been looking after a lot of Cassandra clusters for our >>> customers, but found ourselves spending more time maintaining monitoring >>> and operational tools than Cassandra clusters themselves. The motivation >>> was to build a management platform to make our lives easier. You can read >>> my blog here - >>> https://digitalis.io/blog/apache-cassandra-management-tool/ >>> >>> >>> >>> We have not yet created any videos but that's in our backlog so people >>> can see AxonOps in action. No testimonials yet either since the customer of >>> the product has been ourselves, and only just released it to the public as >>> beta few weeks ago. We've decided to share it for free to anybody using up >>> to 6 nodes, as we see a lot of clusters out there within this range. >>> >>> >>> >>> The only investment would be a minimum amount of your time to install >>> it. We have made the installation process as easy as possible. Hopefully >>> you will find it immensely quicker and easier than installing and >>> configuring ELK, Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, custom backups and repair >>> scheduling. It has certainly made our lives easier for sure. >>> >>> >>> >>> We are fully aware of the new features going into 4.0 and beyond. As >>> mentioned earlier, we built this for ourselves - a product that does >>> everything we want in one solution providing a single pane of glass. It's >>> free and we're sharing this with you. >>> >>> >>> >>> Enjoy! >>> >>> >>> >>> Hayato Shimizu >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 at 06:05, Kenneth Brotman >>> <kenbrot...@yahoo.com.invalid> wrote: >>> >>> Sorry, Nitan was only making a comment about this post but the comments >>> I’m making are to AxonOps. >>> >>> >>> >>> It appears we don’t have a name for anyone at AxonOps at all then! You >>> guys are going to need to be more open. >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Kenneth Brotman [mailto:kenbrot...@yahoo.com.INVALID] >>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 02, 2019 10:02 PM >>> *To:* user@cassandra.apache.org >>> *Subject:* RE: AxonOps - Cassandra operational management tool >>> >>> >>> >>> Nitan, >>> >>> >>> >>> A few thoughts: >>> >>> >>> Isn’t it a lot to expect folks to download, install and evaluate the >>> product considering, >>> >>> · You aren’t being very clear about who you are, >>> >>> · You don’t have any videos demonstrating the product, >>> >>> · You don’t provide any testimonials, >>> >>> · You have no case studies with repeatable results, ROI, etc. >>> All the normal stuff. >>> >>> · What about testing? No one knows how well tested it is. Why >>> would we download it? >>> >>> >>> >>> Don’t forget that the open source Cassandra community is already >>> addressing ways in which Cassandra itself will be able to do several of the >>> things that you listed. >>> >>> >>> >>> How much added value are you providing with this product? It’s up to >>> you to make the case. You’ll have to spend more time on the business side >>> of things if you want to do any business. >>> >>> >>> >>> Kenneth Brotman >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* AxonOps [mailto:axon...@digitalis.io] >>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 02, 2019 3:47 AM >>> *To:* user@cassandra.apache.org >>> *Subject:* Re: AxonOps - Cassandra operational management tool >>> >>> >>> >>> It's not an open source product but free up to 6 nodes for now. We're >>> actively adding more features to it but it currently supports the following >>> features: >>> >>> >>> >>> - Metrics collection and dashboards >>> >>> - Logs / events collection and dashboards >>> >>> - User configurable health checks >>> >>> - Alerts / notifications integrations to Slack, Email, PagerDuty (and >>> more to come) >>> >>> - Cassandra backups and scheduling against local filesystem, AWS S3, >>> Azure Storage, Google Cloud Storage (and we're adding more cloud vendors) >>> >>> - Cassandra Adaptive Repair - repair speed is dynamically controlled >>> based on the cluster performance >>> >>> >>> >>> We'll be adding more Cassandra operational features as well as security >>> enhancements. >>> >>> >>> >>> The installation instructions are available from >>> https://docs.axonops.com. >>> >>> >>> >>> Let us know what you think. >>> >>> >>> >>> AxonOps Team >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 18:52, Nitan Kainth <nitankai...@gmail.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> This is really cool! >>> >>> >>> >>> will it be open source or licensed in near future? >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:15 PM AxonOps <axon...@digitalis.io> wrote: >>> >>> Hi folks, >>> >>> >>> >>> We are excited to announce AxonOps, an operational management tool for >>> Apache Cassandra, is now ready for Beta testing. >>> >>> >>> >>> We'd be interested to hear you try this and let us know what you think! >>> >>> >>> >>> Please read the installation instructions on https://www.axonops.com >>> >>> >>> >>> AxonOps Team >>> >>>
