diff --git a/akka-core/src/main/scala/actor/Actor.scala b/akka-core/src/main/scala/actor/Actor.scala
index f8eb5e0347..732d3fabcd 100644
--- a/akka-core/src/main/scala/actor/Actor.scala
+++ b/akka-core/src/main/scala/actor/Actor.scala
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ object Actor extends Logging {
    */
   def actor(body: PartialFunction[Any, Unit]): Actor = new Actor() {
     start
-    def receive = body
+    def receive: PartialFunction[Any, Unit] = body
   }
 
   /**
@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@ object Actor extends Logging {
    * </pre>
    *
    */
-  def actor[A](body: => Unit) = {
-    def handler[A](body: => Unit) = new {
+  def actor(body: => Unit) = {
+    def handler(body: => Unit) = new {
       def receive(handler: PartialFunction[Any, Unit]) = new Actor() {
         start
         body
@@ -141,8 +141,7 @@ object Actor extends Logging {
       start
       send(Spawn)
       def receive = {
-        case Spawn => body
-        case _ => throw new IllegalArgumentException("Actors created with 'actor(body: => Unit)' do not respond to messages.")
+        case Spawn => body; stop
       }
     }
   }
@@ -537,19 +536,13 @@ trait Actor extends TransactionManagement {
    */
   def !![T](message: Any): Option[T] = !![T](message, timeout)
 
-
-  /*
- //FIXME 2.8 def !!!(message: Any)(implicit sender: AnyRef = None): FutureResult = {
-  def !!!(message: Any)(implicit sender: AnyRef): FutureResult = {
+  def !!!(message: Any): FutureResult = {
     if (_isKilled) throw new ActorKilledException("Actor [" + toString + "] has been killed, can't respond to messages")
     if (_isRunning) {
-      val from = if (sender != null && sender.isInstanceOf[Actor]) Some(sender.asInstanceOf[Actor])
-      else None
-      postMessageToMailboxAndCreateFutureResultWithTimeout(message, timeout, from)
+      postMessageToMailboxAndCreateFutureResultWithTimeout(message, timeout, None)
     } else throw new IllegalStateException(
       "Actor has not been started, you need to invoke 'actor.start' before using it")
   }
-  */
   
   /**
    * This method is evil and has been removed. Use '!!' with a timeout instead.
diff --git a/akka-core/src/main/scala/dispatch/Future.scala b/akka-core/src/main/scala/dispatch/Future.scala
index a18ac14372..c1e61695b8 100644
--- a/akka-core/src/main/scala/dispatch/Future.scala
+++ b/akka-core/src/main/scala/dispatch/Future.scala
@@ -8,10 +8,52 @@
 package se.scalablesolutions.akka.dispatch
 
 import java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock
-import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit
+
+import java.util.concurrent.{SynchronousQueue, TimeUnit}
 
 class FutureTimeoutException(message: String) extends RuntimeException(message)
 
+object Futures {
+  def awaitAll(futures: List[FutureResult]): Unit = futures.foreach(_.await)
+
+  def awaitOne(futures: List[FutureResult]): FutureResult = {
+    var future: Option[FutureResult] = None
+    do {
+      future = futures.find(_.isCompleted)
+    } while (future.isEmpty)
+    future.get
+  }
+
+  /*
+  def awaitEither(f1: FutureResult, f2: FutureResult): Option[Any] = {
+    import Actor.Sender.Self
+    import Actor.{spawn, actor}
+      
+    case class Result(res: Option[Any])
+    val handOff = new SynchronousQueue[Option[Any]]
+    spawn {
+      try {
+        println("f1 await")
+        f1.await
+        println("f1 offer")
+        handOff.offer(f1.result)
+      } catch {case _ => {}}
+    }
+    spawn {
+      try {
+        println("f2 await")
+        f2.await
+        println("f2 offer")
+        println("f2 offer: " + f2.result)
+        handOff.offer(f2.result)
+      } catch {case _ => {}}
+    }
+    Thread.sleep(100)
+    handOff.take
+  }
+*/
+}
+
 sealed trait FutureResult {
   def await
   def awaitBlocking
@@ -46,7 +88,7 @@ class DefaultCompletableFutureResult(timeout: Long) extends CompletableFutureRes
       var start = currentTimeInNanos
       try {
         wait = _signal.awaitNanos(wait)
-        if (wait <= 0) throw new FutureTimeoutException("Future timed out after [" + timeout + "] milliseconds") 
+        if (wait <= 0) throw new FutureTimeoutException("Futures timed out after [" + timeout + "] milliseconds")
       } catch {
         case e: InterruptedException =>
           wait = wait - (currentTimeInNanos - start)
diff --git a/akka-core/src/test/scala/FutureTest.scala b/akka-core/src/test/scala/FutureTest.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d073a92557
--- /dev/null
+++ b/akka-core/src/test/scala/FutureTest.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+package se.scalablesolutions.akka.actor
+
+import org.scalatest.junit.JUnitSuite
+import org.junit.Test
+import se.scalablesolutions.akka.dispatch.Futures
+
+class FutureTest extends JUnitSuite {
+  class TestActor extends Actor {
+    def receive = {
+      case "Hello" =>
+        reply("World")
+      case "NoReply" => {}
+      case "Failure" =>
+        throw new RuntimeException("expected")
+    }
+  }
+
+  @Test def shouldActorReplyResultThroughExplicitFuture = {
+    val actor = new TestActor
+    actor.start
+    val future = actor !!! "Hello"
+    future.await
+    assert(future.result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === future.result.get)
+    actor.stop
+  }
+
+  @Test def shouldActorReplyExceptionThroughExplicitFuture = {
+    val actor = new TestActor
+    actor.start
+    val future = actor !!! "Failure"
+    future.await
+    assert(future.exception.isDefined)
+    assert("expected" === future.exception.get._2.getMessage)
+    actor.stop
+  }
+
+  /*
+  @Test def shouldFutureAwaitEitherLeft = {
+    val actor1 = new TestActor
+    actor1.start
+    val actor2 = new TestActor
+    actor2.start
+    val future1 = actor1 !!! "Hello"
+    val future2 = actor2 !!! "NoReply"
+    val result = Futures.awaitEither(future1, future2)
+    assert(result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === result.get)
+    actor1.stop
+    actor2.stop
+  }
+
+  @Test def shouldFutureAwaitEitherRight = {
+    val actor1 = new TestActor
+    actor1.start
+    val actor2 = new TestActor
+    actor2.start
+    val future1 = actor1 !!! "NoReply"
+    val future2 = actor2 !!! "Hello"
+    val result = Futures.awaitEither(future1, future2)
+    assert(result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === result.get)
+    actor1.stop
+    actor2.stop
+  }
+  */
+  @Test def shouldFutureAwaitOneLeft = {
+    val actor1 = new TestActor
+    actor1.start
+    val actor2 = new TestActor
+    actor2.start
+    val future1 = actor1 !!! "NoReply"
+    val future2 = actor2 !!! "Hello"
+    val result = Futures.awaitOne(List(future1, future2))
+    assert(result.result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === result.result.get)
+    actor1.stop
+    actor2.stop
+  }
+
+  @Test def shouldFutureAwaitOneRight = {
+    val actor1 = new TestActor
+    actor1.start
+    val actor2 = new TestActor
+    actor2.start
+    val future1 = actor1 !!! "Hello"
+    val future2 = actor2 !!! "NoReply"
+    val result = Futures.awaitOne(List(future1, future2))
+    assert(result.result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === result.result.get)
+    actor1.stop
+    actor2.stop
+  }
+
+  @Test def shouldFutureAwaitAll = {
+    val actor1 = new TestActor
+    actor1.start
+    val actor2 = new TestActor
+    actor2.start
+    val future1 = actor1 !!! "Hello"
+    val future2 = actor2 !!! "Hello"
+    Futures.awaitAll(List(future1, future2))
+    assert(future1.result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === future1.result.get)
+    assert(future2.result.isDefined)
+    assert("World" === future2.result.get)
+    actor1.stop
+    actor2.stop
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/akka-patterns/src/main/scala/Patterns.scala b/akka-patterns/src/main/scala/Patterns.scala
index cc2825145a..b967c07df7 100644
--- a/akka-patterns/src/main/scala/Patterns.scala
+++ b/akka-patterns/src/main/scala/Patterns.scala
@@ -28,11 +28,6 @@ object Patterns {
     val seq = actors
   }
 
-  //FIXME 2.8, use default params with CyclicIterator
-  /*def loadBalancerActor(actors : () => List[Actor]) : Actor = loadBalancerActor(
-    new CyclicIterator(actors())
-  ) */
-
   def dispatcherActor(routing : PF[Any,Actor], msgTransformer : (Any) => Any) : Actor = new Actor with Dispatcher {
         override def transform(msg : Any) = msgTransformer(msg)
     def routes = routing
@@ -81,21 +76,4 @@ class CyclicIterator[T](items : List[T]) extends InfiniteIterator[T] {
     current = nc.tail
     nc.head
   }
-}
-
-//Agent
-/*
-val a = agent(startValue)
-a.set(_ + 5)
-a.get
-a.foreach println(_)
-*/
-object Agent {
-  sealed trait AgentMessage
-  case class FunMessage[T](f : (T) => T) extends AgentMessage
-  case class ProcMessage[T](f : (T) => Unit) extends AgentMessage
-  case class ValMessage[T](t : T) extends AgentMessage
-}
-sealed private[akka] class Agent[T] {
-
 }
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/pom.xml b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/pom.xml
index 4bca9ffbac..d8490382d5 100644
--- a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/pom.xml
+++ b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/pom.xml
@@ -18,6 +18,12 @@
       <artifactId>akka-persistence-common</artifactId>
       <groupId>${project.groupId}</groupId>
       <version>${project.version}</version>
+      <exclusions>
+          <exclusion>
+            <groupId>com.google.code.google-collections</groupId>
+            <artifactId>google-collect</artifactId>
+          </exclusion>
+      </exclusions>
     </dependency>
 
     <!-- For Cassandra -->
@@ -26,6 +32,50 @@
       <artifactId>cassandra</artifactId>
       <version>0.5.0</version>
     </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+        <groupId>org.apache.cassandra</groupId>
+        <artifactId>high-scale-lib</artifactId>
+        <version>0.5.0</version>
+        <scope>test</scope>
+      </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+        <groupId>org.apache.cassandra</groupId>
+        <artifactId>clhm-production</artifactId>
+        <version>0.5.0</version>
+        <scope>test</scope>
+      </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+          <groupId>com.google.collections</groupId>
+          <artifactId>google-collections</artifactId>
+          <version>1.0-rc1</version>
+          <scope>test</scope>
+     </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+          <groupId>commons-collections</groupId>
+          <artifactId>commons-collections</artifactId>
+          <version>3.2.1</version>
+          <scope>test</scope>
+     </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+          <groupId>commons-lang</groupId>
+          <artifactId>commons-lang</artifactId>
+          <version>2.4</version>
+          <scope>test</scope>
+     </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+          <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
+          <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
+          <version>1.5.8</version>
+          <scope>test</scope>
+     </dependency>
+      <dependency>
+          <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
+          <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
+          <version>1.5.8</version>
+          <scope>test</scope>
+     </dependency>
+
+
      <dependency>
       <groupId>log4j</groupId>
       <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
diff --git a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/main/scala/CassandraSession.scala b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/main/scala/CassandraSession.scala
index 0cbf9fa04b..0b0c5ca43a 100644
--- a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/main/scala/CassandraSession.scala
+++ b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/main/scala/CassandraSession.scala
@@ -104,6 +104,42 @@ trait CassandraSession extends Closeable with Flushable {
   // ====================================
   // ====== Java-style API names
   // ====================================
+
+  def getSlice(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent, start: Array[Byte], end: Array[Byte], ascending: Boolean, count: Int) = / (key, columnParent, start, end, ascending, count, consistencyLevel)
+
+  def getSlice(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent, start: Array[Byte], end: Array[Byte], ascending: Boolean, count: Int, consistencyLevel: Int) = / (key, columnParent, start, end, ascending, count, consistencyLevel)
+
+  def getSlice(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent, slicePredicate: SlicePredicate) = / (key, columnParent, slicePredicate)
+
+  def getSlice(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent, slicePredicate: SlicePredicate, consistencyLevel: Int) = / (key, columnParent, slicePredicate, consistencyLevel)
+
+
+  def get(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath) = |(key, colPath)
+
+  def get(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath, consistencyLevel: Int) = |(key, colPath, consistencyLevel)
+
+  def getCount(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent)= |#(key, columnParent)
+
+  def getCount(key: String, columnParent: ColumnParent, consistencyLevel: Int) = |#(key, columnParent, consistencyLevel)
+
+
+  def insert(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath, value: Array[Byte]): Unit = ++|(key, colPath, value)
+
+  def insert(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath, value: Array[Byte], consistencyLevel: Int): Unit = ++|(key, colPath, value, consistencyLevel)
+
+  def insert(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath, value: Array[Byte], timestamp: Long): Unit = ++|(key, colPath, value, timestamp)
+
+  def insert(key: String, colPath: ColumnPath, value: Array[Byte], timestamp: Long, consistencyLevel: Int) = ++|(key, colPath, value, timestamp, consistencyLevel)
+
+
+  def insert(key: String, batch: Map[String, List[ColumnOrSuperColumn]]): Unit = ++|(key, batch)
+
+  def insert(key: String, batch: Map[String, List[ColumnOrSuperColumn]], consistencyLevel: Int): Unit = ++|(key, batch, consistencyLevel)
+
+  def remove(key: String, columnPath: ColumnPath, timestamp: Long): Unit = --(key, columnPath, timestamp)
+
+  def remove(key: String, columnPath: ColumnPath, timestamp: Long, consistencyLevel: Int): Unit = --(key, columnPath, timestamp, consistencyLevel)
+
 }
 
 class CassandraSessionPool[T <: TTransport](
diff --git a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/log4j.properties b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/log4j.properties
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3c8738fdc3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/log4j.properties
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+
+log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG,R
+
+# rolling log file ("system.log
+log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
+log4j.appender.R.DatePattern='.'yyyy-MM-dd-HH
+log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
+log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%5p [%t] %d{ISO8601} %F (line %L) %m%n
+log4j.appender.R.File=target/logs/system.log
diff --git a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/storage-conf.xml b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/storage-conf.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..13df178689
--- /dev/null
+++ b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/resources/storage-conf.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,337 @@
+<!--
+ ~ Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ ~ or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ ~ distributed with this work for additional information
+ ~ regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ ~ to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ ~ "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ ~ with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ ~
+ ~    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ ~
+ ~ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ ~ software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ ~ "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ ~ KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ ~ specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ ~ under the License.
+-->
+<Storage>
+  <!--======================================================================-->
+  <!-- Basic Configuration                                                  -->
+  <!--======================================================================-->
+
+  <!-- 
+   ~ The name of this cluster.  This is mainly used to prevent machines in
+   ~ one logical cluster from joining another.
+  -->
+  <ClusterName>akka</ClusterName>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Turn on to make new [non-seed] nodes automatically migrate the right data 
+   ~ to themselves.  (If no InitialToken is specified, they will pick one 
+   ~ such that they will get half the range of the most-loaded node.)
+   ~ If a node starts up without bootstrapping, it will mark itself bootstrapped
+   ~ so that you can't subsequently accidently bootstrap a node with
+   ~ data on it.  (You can reset this by wiping your data and commitlog
+   ~ directories.)
+   ~
+   ~ Off by default so that new clusters and upgraders from 0.4 don't
+   ~ bootstrap immediately.  You should turn this on when you start adding
+   ~ new nodes to a cluster that already has data on it.  (If you are upgrading
+   ~ from 0.4, start your cluster with it off once before changing it to true.
+   ~ Otherwise, no data will be lost but you will incur a lot of unnecessary
+   ~ I/O before your cluster starts up.)
+  -->
+  <AutoBootstrap>false</AutoBootstrap>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Keyspaces and ColumnFamilies:
+   ~ A ColumnFamily is the Cassandra concept closest to a relational
+   ~ table.  Keyspaces are separate groups of ColumnFamilies.  Except in
+   ~ very unusual circumstances you will have one Keyspace per application.
+
+   ~ There is an implicit keyspace named 'system' for Cassandra internals.
+  -->
+  <Keyspaces>
+    <Keyspace Name="akka">
+      <!-- The fraction of keys per sstable whose locations we
+           keep in memory in "mostly LRU" order.  (JUST the key
+           locations, NOT any column values.)
+
+           The amount of memory used by the default setting of
+           0.01 is comparable to the amount used by the internal
+           per-sstable key index. Consider increasing this is
+           fine if you have fewer, wider rows.  Set to 0 to
+           disable entirely.
+      -->
+      <KeysCachedFraction>0.01</KeysCachedFraction>
+      <!--
+           The CompareWith attribute tells Cassandra how to sort the columns
+           for slicing operations.  For backwards compatibility, the default
+           is to use AsciiType, which is probably NOT what you want.
+           Other options are BytesType, UTF8Type, LexicalUUIDType, TimeUUIDType, and LongType.
+           You can also specify the fully-qualified class name to a class
+           of your choice implementing org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.IType.
+
+           SuperColumns have a similar CompareSubcolumnsWith attribute.
+
+           ByteType: simple sort by byte value.  No validation is performed.
+           AsciiType: like BytesType, but validates that the input can be parsed as US-ASCII.
+           UTF8Type: A string encoded as UTF8
+           LongType: A 64bit long
+           LexicalUUIDType: a 128bit UUID, compared lexically (by byte value)
+           TimeUUIDType: a 128bit version 1 UUID, compared by timestamp
+
+           (To get the closest approximation to 0.3-style supercolumns,
+           you would use CompareWith=UTF8Type CompareSubcolumnsWith=LongType.)
+
+           if FlushPeriodInMinutes is configured and positive, it will be
+           flushed to disk with that period whether it is dirty or not.
+           This is intended for lightly-used columnfamilies so that they
+           do not prevent commitlog segments from being purged.
+
+      -->
+      <ColumnFamily CompareWith="UTF8Type" Name="map"/>
+      <!-- FIXME: change vector to a super column -->
+      <ColumnFamily CompareWith="UTF8Type" Name="vector"/>
+      <ColumnFamily CompareWith="UTF8Type" Name="ref"/>
+
+      <!--ColumnFamily CompareWith="UTF8Type" Name="Standard1" FlushPeriodInMinutes="60"/>
+      <ColumnFamily CompareWith="TimeUUIDType" Name="StandardByUUID1"/>
+      <ColumnFamily ColumnType="Super" CompareWith="UTF8Type" CompareSubcolumnsWith="UTF8Type" Name="Super1"/-->
+    </Keyspace>
+  </Keyspaces>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Partitioner: any IPartitioner may be used, including your own as long
+   ~ as it is on the classpath.  Out of the box, Cassandra provides
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.dht.RandomPartitioner,
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.dht.OrderPreservingPartitioner, and
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.dht.CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner.
+   ~ (CollatingOPP colates according to EN,US rules, not naive byte
+   ~ ordering.  Use this as an example if you need locale-aware collation.)
+   ~ Range queries require using an order-preserving partitioner.
+   ~
+   ~ Achtung!  Changing this parameter requires wiping your data
+   ~ directories, since the partitioner can modify the sstable on-disk
+   ~ format.
+  -->
+  <Partitioner>org.apache.cassandra.dht.RandomPartitioner</Partitioner>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ If you are using an order-preserving partitioner and you know your key
+   ~ distribution, you can specify the token for this node to use. (Keys
+   ~ are sent to the node with the "closest" token, so distributing your
+   ~ tokens equally along the key distribution space will spread keys
+   ~ evenly across your cluster.)  This setting is only checked the first
+   ~ time a node is started. 
+
+   ~ This can also be useful with RandomPartitioner to force equal spacing
+   ~ of tokens around the hash space, especially for clusters with a small
+   ~ number of nodes.
+  -->
+  <InitialToken></InitialToken>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ EndPointSnitch: Setting this to the class that implements
+   ~ IEndPointSnitch which will see if two endpoints are in the same data
+   ~ center or on the same rack. Out of the box, Cassandra provides
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.locator.EndPointSnitch
+  -->
+  <EndPointSnitch>org.apache.cassandra.locator.EndPointSnitch</EndPointSnitch>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Strategy: Setting this to the class that implements
+   ~ IReplicaPlacementStrategy will change the way the node picker works.
+   ~ Out of the box, Cassandra provides
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.locator.RackUnawareStrategy and
+   ~ org.apache.cassandra.locator.RackAwareStrategy (place one replica in
+   ~ a different datacenter, and the others on different racks in the same
+   ~ one.)
+  -->
+  <ReplicaPlacementStrategy>org.apache.cassandra.locator.RackUnawareStrategy</ReplicaPlacementStrategy>
+
+  <!-- Number of replicas of the data -->
+  <ReplicationFactor>1</ReplicationFactor>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Directories: Specify where Cassandra should store different data on
+   ~ disk.  Keep the data disks and the CommitLog disks separate for best
+   ~ performance
+  -->
+  <CommitLogDirectory>target/cassandra/commitlog</CommitLogDirectory>
+  <DataFileDirectories>
+      <DataFileDirectory>target/cassandra/data</DataFileDirectory>
+  </DataFileDirectories>
+  <CalloutLocation>target/cassandra/callouts</CalloutLocation>
+  <StagingFileDirectory>target/cassandra/staging</StagingFileDirectory>
+
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Addresses of hosts that are deemed contact points. Cassandra nodes
+   ~ use this list of hosts to find each other and learn the topology of
+   ~ the ring. You must change this if you are running multiple nodes!
+  -->
+  <Seeds>
+      <Seed>127.0.0.1</Seed>
+  </Seeds>
+
+
+  <!-- Miscellaneous -->
+
+  <!-- Time to wait for a reply from other nodes before failing the command -->
+  <RpcTimeoutInMillis>5000</RpcTimeoutInMillis>
+  <!-- Size to allow commitlog to grow to before creating a new segment -->
+  <CommitLogRotationThresholdInMB>128</CommitLogRotationThresholdInMB>
+
+
+  <!-- Local hosts and ports -->
+
+  <!-- 
+   ~ Address to bind to and tell other nodes to connect to.  You _must_
+   ~ change this if you want multiple nodes to be able to communicate!  
+   ~
+   ~ Leaving it blank leaves it up to InetAddress.getLocalHost(). This
+   ~ will always do the Right Thing *if* the node is properly configured
+   ~ (hostname, name resolution, etc), and the Right Thing is to use the
+   ~ address associated with the hostname (it might not be).
+  -->
+  <ListenAddress>localhost</ListenAddress>
+  <!-- TCP port, for commands and data -->
+  <StoragePort>7000</StoragePort>
+  <!-- UDP port, for membership communications (gossip) -->
+  <ControlPort>7001</ControlPort>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ The address to bind the Thrift RPC service to. Unlike ListenAddress
+   ~ above, you *can* specify 0.0.0.0 here if you want Thrift to listen on
+   ~ all interfaces.
+   ~
+   ~ Leaving this blank has the same effect it does for ListenAddress,
+   ~ (i.e. it will be based on the configured hostname of the node).
+  -->
+  <ThriftAddress>localhost</ThriftAddress>
+  <!-- Thrift RPC port (the port clients connect to). -->
+  <ThriftPort>9160</ThriftPort>
+  <!-- 
+   ~ Whether or not to use a framed transport for Thrift. If this option
+   ~ is set to true then you must also use a framed transport on the 
+   ~ client-side, (framed and non-framed transports are not compatible).
+  -->
+  <ThriftFramedTransport>false</ThriftFramedTransport>
+
+
+  <!--======================================================================-->
+  <!-- Memory, Disk, and Performance                                        -->
+  <!--======================================================================-->
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Buffer size to use when performing contiguous column slices. Increase
+   ~ this to the size of the column slices you typically perform. 
+   ~ (Name-based queries are performed with a buffer size of 
+   ~ ColumnIndexSizeInKB.)
+  -->
+  <SlicedBufferSizeInKB>64</SlicedBufferSizeInKB>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Buffer size to use when flushing memtables to disk. (Only one 
+   ~ memtable is ever flushed at a time.) Increase (decrease) the index
+   ~ buffer size relative to the data buffer if you have few (many) 
+   ~ columns per key.  Bigger is only better _if_ your memtables get large
+   ~ enough to use the space. (Check in your data directory after your
+   ~ app has been running long enough.) -->
+  <FlushDataBufferSizeInMB>32</FlushDataBufferSizeInMB>
+  <FlushIndexBufferSizeInMB>8</FlushIndexBufferSizeInMB>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Add column indexes to a row after its contents reach this size.
+   ~ Increase if your column values are large, or if you have a very large
+   ~ number of columns.  The competing causes are, Cassandra has to
+   ~ deserialize this much of the row to read a single column, so you want
+   ~ it to be small - at least if you do many partial-row reads - but all
+   ~ the index data is read for each access, so you don't want to generate
+   ~ that wastefully either.
+  -->
+  <ColumnIndexSizeInKB>64</ColumnIndexSizeInKB>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ The maximum amount of data to store in memory per ColumnFamily before
+   ~ flushing to disk.  Note: There is one memtable per column family, and 
+   ~ this threshold is based solely on the amount of data stored, not
+   ~ actual heap memory usage (there is some overhead in indexing the
+   ~ columns).
+  -->
+  <MemtableSizeInMB>64</MemtableSizeInMB>
+  <!--
+   ~ The maximum number of columns in millions to store in memory per
+   ~ ColumnFamily before flushing to disk.  This is also a per-memtable
+   ~ setting.  Use with MemtableSizeInMB to tune memory usage.
+  -->
+  <MemtableObjectCountInMillions>0.1</MemtableObjectCountInMillions>
+  <!--
+   ~ The maximum time to leave a dirty memtable unflushed.
+   ~ (While any affected columnfamilies have unflushed data from a
+   ~ commit log segment, that segment cannot be deleted.)
+   ~ This needs to be large enough that it won't cause a flush storm
+   ~ of all your memtables flushing at once because none has hit
+   ~ the size or count thresholds yet.  For production, a larger
+   ~ value such as 1440 is recommended.
+  -->
+  <MemtableFlushAfterMinutes>60</MemtableFlushAfterMinutes>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Unlike most systems, in Cassandra writes are faster than reads, so
+   ~ you can afford more of those in parallel.  A good rule of thumb is 2
+   ~ concurrent reads per processor core.  Increase ConcurrentWrites to
+   ~ the number of clients writing at once if you enable CommitLogSync +
+   ~ CommitLogSyncDelay. -->
+  <ConcurrentReads>8</ConcurrentReads>
+  <ConcurrentWrites>32</ConcurrentWrites>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ CommitLogSync may be either "periodic" or "batch."  When in batch
+   ~ mode, Cassandra won't ack writes until the commit log has been
+   ~ fsynced to disk.  It will wait up to CommitLogSyncBatchWindowInMS
+   ~ milliseconds for other writes, before performing the sync.
+
+   ~ This is less necessary in Cassandra than in traditional databases
+   ~ since replication reduces the odds of losing data from a failure
+   ~ after writing the log entry but before it actually reaches the disk.
+   ~ So the other option is "timed," where writes may be acked immediately
+   ~ and the CommitLog is simply synced every CommitLogSyncPeriodInMS
+   ~ milliseconds.
+  -->
+  <CommitLogSync>periodic</CommitLogSync>
+  <!--
+   ~ Interval at which to perform syncs of the CommitLog in periodic mode.
+   ~ Usually the default of 10000ms is fine; increase it if your i/o
+   ~ load is such that syncs are taking excessively long times.
+  -->
+  <CommitLogSyncPeriodInMS>10000</CommitLogSyncPeriodInMS>
+  <!--
+   ~ Delay (in milliseconds) during which additional commit log entries
+   ~ may be written before fsync in batch mode.  This will increase
+   ~ latency slightly, but can vastly improve throughput where there are
+   ~ many writers.  Set to zero to disable (each entry will be synced
+   ~ individually).  Reasonable values range from a minimal 0.1 to 10 or
+   ~ even more if throughput matters more than latency.
+  -->
+  <!-- <CommitLogSyncBatchWindowInMS>1</CommitLogSyncBatchWindowInMS> --> 
+
+  <!--
+   ~ Time to wait before garbage-collection deletion markers.  Set this to
+   ~ a large enough value that you are confident that the deletion marker
+   ~ will be propagated to all replicas by the time this many seconds has
+   ~ elapsed, even in the face of hardware failures.  The default value is
+   ~ ten days.
+  -->
+  <GCGraceSeconds>864000</GCGraceSeconds>
+
+  <!--
+   ~ The threshold size in megabytes the binary memtable must grow to,
+   ~ before it's submitted for flushing to disk.
+  -->
+  <BinaryMemtableSizeInMB>256</BinaryMemtableSizeInMB>
+
+</Storage>
diff --git a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/scala/CassandraPersistentActorSpec.scala b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/scala/CassandraPersistentActorSpec.scala
index 2142311f76..690c69625e 100644
--- a/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/scala/CassandraPersistentActorSpec.scala
+++ b/akka-persistence/akka-persistence-cassandra/src/test/scala/CassandraPersistentActorSpec.scala
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@ import junit.framework.TestCase
 
 import org.junit.Test
 import org.junit.Assert._
+import org.apache.cassandra.service.CassandraDaemon
+import org.junit.BeforeClass
+import org.junit.Before
 
 case class GetMapState(key: String)
 case object GetVectorState
@@ -70,7 +73,10 @@ class CassandraPersistentActor extends Actor {
   }
 }
 
-class CassandraPersistentActorSpec extends TestCase {
+class CassandraPersistentActorTest  {
+
+  @Before
+  def startCassandra = EmbeddedCassandraService.start
  
   @Test
   def testMapShouldNotRollbackStateForStatefulServerInCaseOfSuccess = {
@@ -144,4 +150,28 @@ class CassandraPersistentActorSpec extends TestCase {
     val result: Array[Byte] = (stateful !! GetRefState).get
     assertEquals("init",  new String(result, 0, result.length, "UTF-8")) // check that state is == init state
   }
+
 }
+
+import org.apache.cassandra.service.CassandraDaemon
+object EmbeddedCassandraService {
+
+  System.setProperty("storage-config", "src/test/resources");
+
+  val cassandra = new Runnable {
+
+    val cassandraDaemon = new CassandraDaemon
+    cassandraDaemon.init(null)
+
+    def run = cassandraDaemon.start
+
+  }
+
+  // spawn cassandra in a new thread
+  val t = new Thread(cassandra)
+  t.setDaemon(true)
+  t.start
+
+  def start: Unit = {}
+
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/embedded-repo/org/apache/cassandra/clhm-production/0.5.0/clhm-production-0.5.0.jar b/embedded-repo/org/apache/cassandra/clhm-production/0.5.0/clhm-production-0.5.0.jar
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index 0000000000..028f505bb9
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diff --git a/embedded-repo/org/apache/cassandra/high-scale-lib/0.5.0/high-scale-lib-0.5.0.jar b/embedded-repo/org/apache/cassandra/high-scale-lib/0.5.0/high-scale-lib-0.5.0.jar
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index 0000000000..421a436eed
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