Automated Continuous Active Directory Replication to Apache Cassandra



Use CData Sync for automated, continuous, customizable Active Directory replication to Apache Cassandra.

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live Active Directory data into your Apache Cassandra instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Cassandra as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate Active Directory data to Apache Cassandra. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

  1. Click Add Connection.
  2. Select Apache Cassandra as a destination.
  3. Enter the necessary connection properties. CData Sync supports Basic authentication with login credentials and the additional authentication features of DataStax Enterprise (DSE) Cassandra. The following sections detail connection properties your authentication method may require.

    You need to set AuthScheme to the value corresponding to the authenticator configured for your system. You specify the authenticator in the authenticator property in the cassandra.yaml file. This file is typically found in /etc/dse/cassandra or through the DSE Unified Authenticator on DSE Cassandra.

    Basic Authentication

    Basic authentication is supported through Cassandra's built-in default PasswordAuthenticator.

    • Set the AuthScheme property to 'BASIC' and set the User and Password properties.
    • In the cassandra.yaml file, set the authenticator property to 'PasswordAuthenticator.'

    Kerberos Authentication

    Kerberos authentication is supported through DataStax Enterprise Unified Authentication.

    • Set the AuthScheme property to 'KERBEROS' and set the User and Password properties.
    • Set the KerberosKDC, KerberosRealm, and KerberosSPN properties.
    • In the cassandra.yaml file, set the authenticator property to "com.datastax.bdp.cassandra.auth.DseAuthenticator."
    • Modify the authentication_options section in the dse.yaml file, specifying the default_schema and other_schemas properties as 'kerberos.'
    • Modify the kerberos_options section in the dse.yaml file, specifying the keytab, service_principle, http_principle and qop properties.

    LDAP Authentication

    LDAP authentication is supported through DataStax Enterprise Unified Authentication.

    • Set the AuthScheme property to 'LDAP' and set the User and Password properties.
    • In the cassandra.yaml file, set the authenticator property to "com.datastax.bdp.cassandra.auth.DseAuthenticator."
    • Modify the authentication_options section in the dse.yaml file, specifying the default_schema and other_schemas properties as 'ldap.'
    • Modify the ldap_options section in the dse.yaml file, specifying the server_host, server_port, search_dn, search_password, user_search_base, and user_search_filter properties.

    Using PKI

    You can specify a client certificate to authenticate CData Sync with SSLClientCert, SSLClientCertType, SSLClientCertSubject, and SSLClientCertPassword.

  4. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
  5. Click Save Changes.

Configure the Active Directory Connection

You can configure a connection to Active Directory from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your Active Directory account, navigate to the Connections tab.

  1. Click Add Connection.
  2. Select a source (Active Directory).
  3. Configure the connection properties.

    To establish a connection, set the following properties:

    • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
    • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.
    • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

      Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

  4. Click Connect to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
  5. Click Save Changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, click Add Tables in the Tables section, choose the table(s) you wish to replicate, and click Add Selected Tables.

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication.

Schedule Your Replication

In the Schedule section, you can schedule a job to run automatically, configuring the job to run after specified intervals ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your Active Directory data to Apache Cassandra.

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