DataStax Astra, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) for Apache Cassandra applications, is now available. According to DataStax, the DBaaS reduces deployment time from weeks to minutes thus removing the biggest obstacle to using Cassandra, which is behind many of the most heavily used applications in the world.

“Astra represents a breakthrough for anyone who wants to use Cassandra in the cloud,” said Ed Anuff, chief product officer at DataStax. “We’ve been delivering products built on Cassandra to enterprises that deploy global scale data for over a decade. Our enterprises and users have been asking for Cassandra-as-a-Service in the cloud. We’re happy to offer Astra as that experience.”

On GCP, Astra deploys and manages enterprise clusters powered by Cassandra directly on top of GCP’s infrastructure, so that data sits in the same Google global infrastructure as applications. This means users and enterprises can deliver a high-performance experience with one of the most scalable databases on GCP.

Astra users will find a consistent developer experience with open-source Cassandra tools and APIs, as well as REST and GraphQL endpoints and a browser-based CQL shell.

DataStax Astra is available now via astra.datastax.com and on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Astra is also available on AWS with support for Azure expected to follow.