Hi everyone, I've been putting together a monthly Cassandra Community Update for my internal team. It highlights key conversations from mailing lists and summarizes technical discussions that I believe are valuable for anyone following Cassandra's evolution. I’m wondering if folks in the broader community would also find this useful. Below is a sample from the May/June timeframe. I’d love your feedback — is this something you'd want to receive monthly on this list? If so, I’m happy to start sharing future updates here. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Cassandra Community Update – May/June 2025 [Developer List Archive Link<https://lists.apache.org/list?dev@cassandra.apache.org:2025-7>] Here’s a quick roundup of recent discussions in the Cassandra community. If you're looking to stay informed or contribute, these are great threads to dig into — lots of thoughtful technical debate and new ideas this month. ________________________________ 1. [DISCUSS] Seeking Guidance on Next Task and Areas to Contribute [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/7rjwq49r6frbmntpn8zqz9lmv00g53ty>] A helpful thread full of suggestions for new contributors. If you're looking for ways to engage with the Cassandra project, this is must-read. 2. A Roadmap to Cassandra Analytics 1.0 [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/r29nskkc3j183fl0k1sd91tp7z051zwt>] This post outlines a vision for evolving Cassandra Analytics from 0.1 to 1.0. Lots of actionable suggestions here — great entry points for contributors looking to get involved in analytics work. 3. [DISCUSS] CEP-48: First-Class Materialized View Support [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/wbn1kvz8yshcf1z0ozjf7wpsgmvmkwvj>] A lively and sometimes contentious discussion. The proposal aims to create “Materialized Views v2” to address performance issues in the current version. There’s still active debate around its interaction with repairs. Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in design tradeoffs and constructive disagreement. 4. [DISCUSS] CEP-50: Authentication Negotiation [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/cdx4fttq72j4dz7cyhxp14pt7k6rd6bc>] This proposal introduces a new, backward-compatible authentication negotiation mechanism. It’s now formally published as a CEP and is seeking feedback. 5. [VOTE] Clarifying Our JDK Support Policy [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/7640gzjlwo07kjmoyjpt8gq80qk5qhn9>] The community agreed to align GA branches with current JDK LTS releases. Older JDK-based branches will be deprecated moving forward — a step toward cleaner support and modernization. 6. [DISCUSS] Improving Operational Safety for Major Version Upgrades [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/gx69h26nvol5027lfrozr27hh9dxcjtl>] Initial proposal suggested tracking upgrade intent inside Cassandra, but community consensus leaned toward implementing it in the sidecar, which is viewed as Cassandra’s control plane of the future. 7. [DISCUSS] CEP-49: Hardware-Accelerated Compression [Link<https://lists.apache.org/thread/t766stj07rb9vgrg2cyyd5s7n3g2zdgt>] Proposes using Intel-specific hardware acceleration. While there’s interest, the community prefers to keep the core compression interface pluggable and house vendor-specific logic outside the main repo. ________________________________ Reply if you’d like to see future updates! Best, Himanshu
