System configurations

Operating system configurations play a significant role in enhancing Cassandra performance. On a dedicated Cassandra server, resources must be tweaked to utilize the full potential of the machine.

Cassandra runs on a JVM, so it can be run on any system that has a JVM. It is recommended to use a Linux variant (CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, and so on) for Cassandra's production deployment. There are many reasons to it. Configuring system-level settings is easier. Most of the production servers rely on Linux-like systems for deployment. As of April 2013, 65 percent of servers use it. The best toolings are available on Linux: SSH and pSSH commands such as top, free, df, and ps to measure system performance and excellent filesystems such as ext4 and XFS. There are built-in mechanisms to watch the rolling log using tail, and there are excellent editors such as Vim and Emacs, and they're all free!

Note

More information on the usage share of operating systems is available...