Does NetworkTopologyStrategy behave exactly as SimpleStrategy for single rack, single datacenter?

Question

I'm trying to understand NetworkTopologyStrategy. Does it behave exactly as SimpleStrategy for a single rack and a single datacenter?

Answer 1

Yes. SimpleStrategy finds the first replica using the primary key token, then places replicas on subsequent nodes in their order along the token ring. NetworkTopologyStrategy does the same thing, but also skips nodes while looking for unique racks within each datacenter. If it does not find enough, the replicas are placed on nodes in the order they were skipped. With a single rack this results in the same placement as SimpleStrategy.