> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Apache Cassandra audit profile, Vortex IQ

> What the Vortex IQ Apache Cassandra health audit checks: Apache Cassandra: Node State, Latency, Compaction Backlog, Replication Convergence & Backup Recency

**[Nerve Centre KPIs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cassandra) · [Audit Profile](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cassandra/audit) · [Sentiment Settings](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cassandra/sentiment)**

The questions every Cassandra operator asks at 9am on Monday: are all nodes UN (Up/Normal) or is anything DN / gossip-flapping, are coordinator read and write latency percentiles drifting up on the hot keyspaces, is the compaction + pending-task backlog growing while tombstones pile up, are replicas converging (hinted handoffs draining, repairs inside gc\_grace), and how stale is the last snapshot. Cross-references ecommerce platforms - a slow CQL read or write timeout co-occurring with a checkout drop, a write spike with no matching order spike, or product-table row-count drift vs the ecom catalog, each indicates a database bottleneck or sync gap costing revenue.

## What this audit checks

### Authentication & access

* Monitoring role authenticates over the native CQL protocol (TLS enforced where configured) without error
* Role has SELECT on system, system\_views and the monitored keyspaces - virtual-table + system.local queries return rows, not Unauthorized errors
* JMX / nodetool reachable on the management port where virtual tables are unavailable (pre-4.0 or JMX-only clusters)
* DataStax Astra: secure-connect bundle + client-id / client-secret token valid (managed clusters have no host+password path)

### Cluster & node state

* Any endpoint not UN in nodetool status (DN = down, UJ/UL = joining/leaving) - reduced replica availability
* Gossip marks a peer DOWN or the node is flapping between UP/DOWN (network partition or GC pause)
* Schema disagreement across nodes (multiple schema versions in system.peers - migration stuck)
* Node count below expected for the keyspace replication factor in any datacenter

### Query latency & tombstones

* Coordinator read latency p95 >200ms OR p99 >500ms sustained 15m (ClientRequest Read percentiles)
* Coordinator write latency p99 climbing >baseline (commitlog / GC pressure, not normal for Cassandra writes)
* Tombstones scanned per read above tombstone\_warn\_threshold (default 1000) - reads approaching the 100k failure threshold
* SSTables-per-read average climbing >4 (compaction falling behind, read amplification rising)

### Compaction, capacity & memory

* Pending compactions >100 sustained (nodetool compactionstats - SSTables stacking up)
* Native-Transport-Requests pending queue saturated OR connection saturation >90% (login / request timeouts imminent)
* JVM heap >75% sustained OR long GC pause time growing (node instability precursor)
* Disk / data-directory usage >90% (Load column vs capacity - compaction needs free headroom)

### Replication, repair & backup

* Hinted handoffs pending >0 sustained 10m (a replica is down/slow; data not yet converged)
* Dropped mutations >0 in 24h (coordinator shed a write under load - data-loss risk if hints also dropped)
* Last repair older than gc\_grace\_seconds (default 10d) on any keyspace - zombie data / resurrected-delete risk
* Last snapshot / Medusa backup older than 72h (gated on snapshot directory or Medusa visibility)

### Cross-channel: database vs ecommerce reconciliation

* Slow CQL read or read timeout co-occurs with an ecom checkout drop in the same 5-min window (sibling = bigcommerce.checkout / shopify.checkout)
* Write rate spikes with no matching ecom order spike (= bot / scraper / runaway job, sibling = bigcommerce.order / shopify.order)
* Native-Transport-Requests saturation >90% during an ecom traffic burst (app gets request / connection timeouts)
* Product-table row count drifts vs ecom catalog product count (sync failure, sibling = bigcommerce.product / shopify.product)

## Data sources

* `GET SELECT * FROM system.local` - Cluster name, release version, host\_id, datacenter, rack
* `GET SELECT * FROM system.peers` - Peer endpoints, host\_ids, schema versions - node count + schema agreement
* `GET SELECT * FROM system_views.thread_pools` - Native-Transport-Requests + compaction pool active/pending/blocked, dropped counts
* `GET SELECT * FROM system_views.clients` - Connected client count + driver name (connection origin)
* `GET SELECT * FROM system_views.local_read_latency` - Local + coordinator read/write latency percentiles (4.0+ virtual tables)
* `GET nodetool status` - Per-node UN/DN/UJ/UL state, Load (disk usage), ownership per datacenter
* `GET nodetool tpstats` - Thread-pool active/pending/blocked + dropped messages (mutations, reads)
* `GET nodetool compactionstats` - Pending compactions + active compaction progress
* `GET nodetool netstats` - Hinted-handoff backlog + streaming state per peer
* `GET nodetool tablestats` - Per-table SSTable count, tombstone histograms, read/write counts, row count
* `GET nodetool gossipinfo` - Gossip state per endpoint - UP/DOWN, generation, heartbeat (flapping detection)