Liquibase Cassandra support summary

Liquibase 5.0+ provides native support for Apache Cassandra databases within the Liquibase database change management framework. This integrated functionality allows you to manage Cassandra schema changes using standard Liquibase changesets with Cassandra-specific adaptations.

Supported Change Types

• createTable

• addColumn

• dropColumn

• renameColumn

• setTableRemarks

• dropTable

• dropIndex

• mergeColumns

• sql

• sqlFile

• modifySql

Supported Commands

• Update Commands

• Rollback Commands

• Change Tracking Commands

• Utility Commands

• Flow Commands

• Policy Checks Commands

Data Types

Liquibase Secure 5.0+ supports native Cassandra data types:

Text and String Types

Numeric Types

Date and Time Types

Other Types

Collection Types

Cassandra collections can be used in their native form:

• list<type> - Ordered collection

• set<type> - Unordered unique collection

• map<keytype, valuetype> - Key-value pairs

Cassandra-Specific Behaviors

No NOT NULL Constraints

Cassandra does not support NOT NULL constraints. Liquibase Secure 5.0+ automatically removes these constraints during SQL generation.

<!-- This constraint is ignored -->

<column name="email" type="varchar">

    <constraints nullable="false"/>

</column>

Primary Keys Required

All Cassandra tables must have at least one primary key column. Liquibase Secure 5.0+ does not validate this, but Cassandra will reject tables without primary keys.

Auto-Commit Always Enabled

Cassandra operates in auto-commit mode. Transaction control methods are no-ops. JAVA: // These methods have no effect in Cassandra

database.setAutoCommit(false); // Does nothing

Case Sensitivity

Cassandra is case-sensitive for identifiers. Use quotes to preserve case:

SQL: -- Different identifiers

CREATE TABLE MyTable (...)  -- stored as mytable

CREATE TABLE "MyTable" (...) -- stored as MyTable

No Sequences Support

Cassandra does not support sequences. Use UUIDs or application-level ID generation instead.

No Foreign Keys

Cassandra does not support foreign key constraints. Liquibase Secure 5.0+ ignores foreign key definitions.

No Tablespaces

Cassandra does not support tablespaces. Tablespace attributes are ignored.

Index Naming

Unlike traditional databases, Cassandra index names do not include the keyspace prefix in DROP INDEX statements.

Snapshot Support

Snapshots are not supported as of Liquibase Secure 5.0.3. 

Limitations

Not Supported

The following Liquibase Secure features are not supported for Cassandra:

• Sequences - Use UUIDs or application-level generation

• Foreign Keys - Cassandra is schema-less for relationships

• NOT NULL Constraints - Automatically stripped from changesets

• Unique Constraints (except primary keys)

• Default Values - Not enforced at database level

• Auto-increment Columns - Use UUIDs instead

• Views - Cassandra materialized views have different semantics

• Stored Procedures/Functions - Use User Defined Functions (UDFs) via raw SQL

• Triggers - Not supported in Cassandra

• Tablespaces - Different storage architecture

• Schemas - Use keyspaces instead

• Drop Table Cascade - No constraint cascading

• Database Inspection Commands - snapshot, generate-changleog, diff-changelog, diff

• DATABASECHANGELOGHISTORY - not supported

• Stored Logic - not applicable

Partial Support

• Alter Column - Limited to renaming; type changes not supported

• Comments - Only table-level comments via setTableRemarks

• Indexes - Limited customization; use raw SQL for custom index options