There are a few things to note in this description. First is that we are running the ```kubernetes/cassandra``` image. This is a standard Cassandra installation on top of Debian. However it also adds a custom [```SeedProvider```](https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/cassandra/trunk/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/locator/SeedProvider.java) to Cassandra. In Cassandra, a ```SeedProvider``` bootstraps the gossip protocol that Cassandra uses to find other nodes. The ```KubernetesSeedProvider``` discovers the Kubernetes API Server using the built in Kubernetes discovery service, and then uses the Kubernetes API to find new nodes (more on this later)
You may also note that we are setting some Cassandra parameters (```MAX_HEAP_SIZE``` and ```HEAP_NEWSIZE```). We also tell Kubernetes that the container exposes both the ```CQL``` and ```Thrift``` API ports. Finally, we tell the cluster manager that we need 0.5 cpu (0.5 core).
You may also note that we are setting some Cassandra parameters (```MAX_HEAP_SIZE``` and ```HEAP_NEWSIZE```) and adding information about the [namespace](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/blob/master/docs/namespaces.md). We also tell Kubernetes that the container exposes both the ```CQL``` and ```Thrift``` API ports. Finally, we tell the cluster manager that we need 0.5 cpu (0.5 core).
In theory could create a single Cassandra pod right now but since `KubernetesSeedProvider` needs to learn what nodes are in the Cassandra deployment we need to create a service first.
