> With thanks to Somraj Chakrabarty, Solution Architect

Ericsson is a multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a global leader in providing networking and telecommunications equipment and services. With a history dating back to 1876, Ericsson has played a vital role in shaping the telecommunications industry and driving technological advancements. The company offers a wide range of products and solutions, including mobile networks, broadband, cloud services, and IoT platforms, catering to customers worldwide.

Cassandra is widely used in several parts of Ericcson. One use case stores call detail records (CDR) that is the foundation of operational and business support systems (OSS and BSS) in the telecommunications industry.

CDRs are the metadata of phone calls that go through phone exchanges and other telephony equipment. They include details such as the time of call, duration, source and destination numbers, and call completion status. These call details are critical for telephone service providers to generate revenue as well as law enforcement investigating possible crime.

CDR data is used for billing customers so Cassandra’s high availability and always-on capability is critical not just for the application but also the upstream and downstream systems relying on it.