This book assumes you have access to a running Cassandra installation that's at least as new as release 1.2.x. Some features discussed will be applicable only to the 2.0.x series, and we will point these out when this applies. Users of versions older than 1.2.x can still gain a lot from the content, but there will be some portions that do not directly translate to those versions.

For Chapter 6, High Availability Features in the Native Java Client, coverage of the Java driver, you will need the Java Development Kit 1.7 and a suitable text editor to write Java code. All command-line examples assume a Linux environment since this is the only supported operating system for use with a production Cassandra system.