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cassandragarbage-collectiong1gc

Do all Apache Cassandra nodes need to use the same Garbage Collector?

I have recently upgraded our Cassandra cluster from 3.11 to 4.0 with the long term goal to also upgrade the Java version. I did not want to do both of these things at once for obvious reasons, however we have been upgraded on C4 for just over two weeks now and I'm looking to upgrade the Java version from jdk8 to jdk11, and also move from CMS Garbage Collector to G1GC.

We wanted to get an idea of what the impact of moving to G1GC would be before going big bang across all nodes.

Is it safe to use a different Garbage collector on different nodes? or should this be something setup in a test environment to monitor?

Thanks in advance.

Solution

  • Yes! That is actually the recommended practice when changing/testing new GC types, assuming that you cannot fully simulate production workloads in a lower environment.

    I'd advise making the switch on one or two nodes, and then monitor their performance relative to the CMS nodes.