Final answer:
Cassandra is known for its scalable and highly available architecture, which is based on a peer-to-peer distributed system. In this model, all nodes are equal and interconnected without any designated master or slave roles.
Step-by-step explanation:
Cassandra is a type of database management system known for its scalable and highly available design without compromising performance. Popularized by its use with big data and real-time web applications, Cassandra employs a peer-to-peer distributed system architecture. Unlike master-slave or 3-tier systems, in a peer-to-peer architecture, there are no dedicated masters or slaves. All nodes are the same and can service any request. It's an approach that provides resilience and scalability, as each node in the cluster is independent and interconnected. This allows for failure of a node without affecting the availability of the system and data is replicated across multiple nodes for redundancy.