Cassandra Production Checklist

Keyspaces use NetworkTopologyStrategy, not SimpleStrategy, even with one datacenter.

Replication factor is at least 3 per datacenter for data that must survive a node loss.

GossipingPropertyFileSnitch is configured, and cassandra-rackdc.properties is correct on every node.

Each datacenter has either one rack or exactly RF racks with equal node counts.

num_tokens is identical across all nodes in a datacenter, with token allocation configured for the replication factor.

Two or three seed nodes are listed per datacenter, and the seed list is identical on every node.

NTP or chrony runs on every node and clock offset is alerted on.