AWS Cassandra 2025: Cassandra 5.0, NUMA, and Graviton4 Performance Guide
What’s New in 2025
Key Updates and Changes
- Graviton4 Processors: Up to 40% faster than Graviton3 for databases, 192 cores at 2.8 GHz
- NUMA Evolution: Two-socket NUMA memory clustering on Graviton4 for improved performance
- Cassandra 5.0: Enhanced NUMA awareness with improved memory management
- Instance Types: New R8g, X8g, C8g, M8g, I8g instances with better NUMA support
- Performance Gains: 30-40% improvement over x86 for Cassandra workloads
Major Architecture Changes
- Single NUMA Domain: Graviton3 maintains single NUMA domain simplicity
- Dual NUMA Support: Graviton4 introduces two-socket NUMA clustering
- Memory Bandwidth: Improved memory controller performance across generations
- Core Density: Up to 192 physical cores per instance (R8g.48xlarge)
- ARM Optimization: Better Java performance on ARM architecture
AWS Cassandra 2025 and NUMA Architecture
In 2025, AWS has significantly evolved its NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) support with Graviton4 processors. Understanding NUMA is crucial for optimizing Cassandra 5.0 performance on modern EC2 instances.