I don't know if it's better or worse, but another option would be to only have the hints for the node endpoint. Then the client (Emo in this case) can use the Ostrich ServicePool's executeOnAll method to get data from each Priam instance. The only downside I see to that is if there are Cassandra nodes in the ring where Priam isn't running, or hasn't registered with Ostrich. In that case you would have no idea you didn't check those nodes, whereas with the current implementation you would have those in an ERROR state.