Bassam Chahine At Developer Week 2024

At Developer Week 2024 Bassam Chahine from Instaclustr, talked about the innovative realm of AI-powered semantic search using Cassandra and open search tools.

The core focus was on enhancing text search capabilities through the application of vector databases, offering insights into current and future possibilities in this technology domain. Chahine, with a decade's worth of experience with Cassandra, along with proficiency in Kafka and open search, shared his extensive background in database technology, tracing back to Oracle version six over 30 years ago.

The essence of semantic searches, as explained, lies in their ability to interpret and find matches based on the meaning and context of the words, rather than exact word matches. This is achieved through vector databases which store and manage data in a format that enables efficient nearest neighbor and proximity searches.

Chahine highlighted the progression from Cassandra 4, which permits vector data storage albeit in a less efficient manner, to the anticipated enhancements in Cassandra 5.

Cassandra 5, still in beta at the time of the talk, promises a dedicated vector data type along with functions for more precise and scalable semantic searches.

A significant part of the talk was dedicated to demonstrating practical implementations of these concepts. Chahine showcased the process of vectorizing documents and executing semantic searches in Cassandra 4 and then in an integrated environment using Cassandra for storage and open search for vector data handling. These examples illuminated the technical challenges and solutions in realizing AI-powered semantic search in current database systems.

The future, as pointed out, seems promising with the advent of Cassandra 5.

This upcoming version aims to streamline the process, offering a built-in vector data type and enhanced search capabilities directly within the database. This advancement is expected to significantly improve performance and scalability for applications requiring sophisticated search functionalities.

Do you have experience with Cassandra 4?