[dvirsky]

I do believe Cassandra requires a much more intimate knowledge of its internals if you want to do anything serious with it - more so than any other database I've worked with.

[threeseed]

I have to agree. But with the clarification that it isn't significantly more. Spend a few days and you will be an expert.

And I think it's worth noting that the "serious" things you would do on Cassandra more often than not you couldn't do on most other databases.

[robusto]

I agree as well. However, it seems a common mistake to assume you can just "deploy", especially coming from traditional RDBMS.

Great power, great responsibility.