0.7.0
=====

Features
--------
    - Row keys are now bytes: keys stored by versions prior to 0.7.0 will be
      returned as UTF-8 encoded bytes. OrderPreservingPartitioner and
      CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner continue to expect that keys contain
      UTF-8 encoded strings, but RandomPartitioner no longer expects strings.
    - A new ByteOrderedPartitioner supports bytes keys with arbitrary content,
      and orders keys by their byte value. 

Configuraton
------------
    - Configuration file renamed to cassandra.yaml and log4j.properties to
      log4j-server.properties
    - Added 'bin/config-converter' to convert existing storage-conf.xml or
      cassandra.xml files to a cassandra.yaml file. When executed, it will
      create a cassandra.yaml file in any directory containing a matching
      xml file.
    - The ThriftAddress and ThriftPort directives have been renamed to
      RPCAddress and RPCPort respectively.
    - The keyspaces defined in cassandra.yaml are ignored on startup as a
      result of CASSANDRA-44.  A JMX method has been exposed in the 
      StorageServiceMBean to force a schema load from cassandra.yaml. It
      is a one-shot affair though and you should conduct it on a seed node
      before other nodes. Subsequent restarts will load the schema from the 
      system table and attempts to load the schema from YAML will be ignored.  
      You shoud only have to do this for one node since new nodes will receive
      schema updates on startup from the seed node you updated manually. 
    - EndPointSnitch was renamed to RackInferringSnitch.  A new SimpleSnitch
      has been added.

Thrift API
----------
    - Row keys are now 'bytes': see the Features list.
    - The return type for login() is now AccessLevel.
    - The get_string_property() method has been removed.
    - The get_string_list_property() method has been removed.


0.6.0
=====

Features
--------
    - row caching: configure with the RowsCached attribute in
      ColumnFamily definition
    - Hadoop map/reduce support: see contrib/word_count for an example
    - experimental authentication support, described under
      Authenticator in storage.conf

Configuraton
------------
    - MemtableSizeInMB has been replaced by MemtableThroughputInMB which
      triggers a memtable flush when the specified amount of data has 
      been written, including overwrites.
    - MemtableObjectCountInMillions has been replaced by the
      MemtableOperationsInMillions directive which causes a memtable flush
      to occur after the specified number of operations.
    - Like MemtableSizeInMB, BinaryMemtableSizeInMB has been replaced by
      BinaryMemtableThroughputInMB.
    - Replication factor is now per-keyspace, rather than global.
    - KeysCachedFraction is deprecated in favor of KeysCached
    - RowWarningThresholdInMB added, to warn before very large rows
      get big enough to threaten node stability

Thrift API
----------
    - removed deprecated get_key_range method
    - added batch_mutate meethod
    - deprecated multiget and batch_insert methods in favor of
      multiget_slice and batch_mutate, respectively
    - added ConsistencyLevel.ANY, for when you want write
      availability even when it may not be readable immediately.
      Unlike CL.ZERO, though, it will throw an exception if
      it cannot be written *somewhere*.

JMX metrics
-----------
    - read and write statistics are reported as lifetime totals,
      instead of averages over the last minute.  average-since-last
      requested are also available for convenience.
    - cache hit rate statistics are now available from JMX under
      org.apache.cassandra.db.Caches
    - compaction JMX metrics are moved to
      org.apache.cassandra.db.CompactionManager.  PendingTasks is now
      a much better estimate of compactions remaining, and the
      progress of the current compaction has been added.
    - commitlog JMX metrics are moved to org.apache.cassandra.db.Commitlog
    - progress of data streaming during bootstrap, loadbalance, or other
      data migration, is available under 
      org.apache.cassandra.streaming.StreamingService.
      See http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Streaming for details.

Installation/Upgrade
--------------------
    - 0.6 network traffic is not compatible with earlier versions.  You
      will need to shut down all your nodes at once, upgrade, then restart.



0.5.0
=====

0. The commitlog format has changed (but sstable format has not). 
   When upgrading from 0.4, empty the commitlog either by running 
   bin/nodeprobe flush on each machine and waiting for the flush to finish,
   or simply remove the commitlog directory if you only have test data.
   (If more writes come in after the flush command, starting 0.5 will error
   out; if that happens, just go back to 0.4 and flush again.)
   The format changed twice: from 0.4 to beta1, and from beta2 to RC1.

.5 The gossip protocol has changed, meaning 0.5 nodes cannot coexist
   in a cluster of 0.4 nodes or vice versa; you must upgrade your
   whole cluster at the same time.

1. Bootstrap, move, load balancing, and active repair have been added.
   See http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/Operations.  When upgrading
   from 0.4, leave autobootstrap set to false for the first restart
   of your old nodes.

2. Performance improvements across the board, especially on the write
   path (over 100% improvement in stress.py throughput).

3. Configuration:
     - Added "comment" field to ColumnFamily definition.
     - Added MemtableFlushAfterMinutes, a global replacement for the 
       old per-CF FlushPeriodInMinutes setting
     - Key cache settings

4. Thrift:
     - Added get_range_slice, deprecating get_key_range



0.4.2
=====

1. Improve default garbage collector options significantly --
   throughput will be 30% higher or more.



0.4.1
=====

1. SnapshotBeforeCompaction configuration option allows snapshotting
   before each compaction, which allows rolling back to any version
   of the data.



0.4.0
=====

1. On-disk data format has changed to allow billions of keys/rows per
   node instead of only millions.  The new format is incompatible with 0.3;
   see 0.3 notes below for how to import data from a 0.3 install.

2. Cassandra now supports multiple keyspaces.  Typically you will have
   one keyspace per application, allowing applications to be able to
   create and modify ColumnFamilies at will without worrying about
   collisions with others in the same cluster.

3. Many Thrift API changes and documentation.  See 
   http://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/API

4. Removed the web interface in favor of JMX and bin/nodeprobe, which
   has significantly enhanced functionality.

5. Renamed configuration "<Table>" to "<Keyspace>".

6. Added commitlog fsync; see "<CommitLogSync>" in configuration.



0.3.0
=====

1. With enough and large enough keys in a ColumnFamily, Cassandra will
   run out of memory trying to perform compactions (data file merges).
   The size of what is stored in memory is (S + 16) * (N + M) where S
   is the size of the key (usually 2 bytes per character), N is the
   number of keys and M, is the map overhead (which can be guestimated
   at around 32 bytes per key).
   So, if you have 10-character keys and 1GB of headroom in your heap
   space for compaction, you can expect to store about 17M keys
   before running into problems.
   See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-208

2. Because fixing #1 requires a data file format change, 0.4 will not
   be binary-compatible with 0.3 data files.  A client-side upgrade
   can be done relatively easily with the following algorithm:
     for key in old_client.get_key_range(everything):
         columns = old_client.get_slice or get_slice_super(key, all columns)
     new_client.batch_insert or batch_insert_super(key, columns)
   The inner loop can be trivially parallelized for speed.

3. Commitlog does not fsync before reporting a write successful.
   Using blocking writes mitigates this to some degree, since all
   nodes that were part of the write quorum would have to fail
   before sync for data to be lost.
   See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-182

Additionally, row size (that is, all the data associated with a single
key in a given ColumnFamily) is limited by available memory, because
compaction deserializes each row before merging.

See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-16