how to efficiently manage cassandra initial token?

Question

I'm new cassandra user. I know that there is initial token configuration and how to generate it. The question is if I have an existen cluster with x nodes and I want to add additional node (one or more) should I reconfigure all the nodes to the new tokens (according to new generated values)?

Or is there more efficient way to manage this?

Answer 1

If you're looking for what the best practices are for handling such tasks, take a look at this section of the Cassandra 1.0 docs dedicated to token strategy.

Shortened version of your options, from the documentation:

• Add capacity by doubling the cluster size -- [..] nodes can keep their existing token assignments, and new nodes are assigned tokens that bisect (or trisect) the existing token ranges.
• Recalculate new tokens for all nodes and move nodes -- [..] you will have to recalculate tokens for the entire cluster. Existing nodes will have to have their new tokens assigned using nodetool move.
• Add one node at a time and leave initial_token empty -- [..] splits the token range of the heaviest loaded node and places the new node into the ring at that position. [..] not result in a perfectly balanced ring, but it will alleviate hot spots. link

If you were seeking a management solution Priam (from Netflix) might be worth looking at. It's open source and Apache-licensed, but requires some amount of configuration and is probably only worth investing [time] in for larger clusters.