Reference Manual 3.9-SNAPSHOT

Distributed Data Structures Map Setting In Memory Format

IMap (and a few other Hazelcast data structures, such as ICache) has an in-memory-format configuration option. By default, Hazelcast stores data into memory in binary (serialized) format. Sometimes it can be efficient to store the entries in their object form, especially in cases of local processing, such as entry processor and queries.

To set how the data will be stored in memory, set in-memory-format in the configuration. You have the following format options:

  • BINARY (default). The data (both the key and value) will be stored in serialized binary format. You can use this option if you mostly perform regular map operations, such as put and get.

  • OBJECT. The data will be stored in deserialized form. This configuration is good for maps where entry processing and queries form the majority of all operations and the objects are complex, making the serialization cost comparatively high. By storing objects, entry processing will not contain the deserialization cost. Note that when you use OBJECT as the in-memory format, the key will still be stored in binary format, and the value will be stored in object format.

  • NATIVE: (Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise HD) This format behaves the same as BINARY, however, instead of heap memory, key and value will be stored in the off-heap memory.

Regular operations like get rely on the object instance. When the OBJECT format is used and a get is performed, the map does not return the stored instance, but creates a clone. Therefore, this whole get operation first includes a serialization on the member owning the instance, and then a deserialization on the member calling the instance. When the BINARY format is used, only a deserialization is required; BINARY is faster.

Similarly, a put operation is faster when the BINARY format is used. If the format was OBJECT, the map would create a clone of the instance, and there would first be a serialization and then a deserialization. When BINARY is used, only a deserialization is needed.

image NOTE: If a value is stored in OBJECT format, a change on a returned value does not affect the stored instance. In this case, the returned instance is not the actual one but a clone. Therefore, changes made on an object after it is returned will not reflect on the actual stored data. Similarly, when a value is written to a map and the value is stored in OBJECT format, it will be a copy of the put value. Therefore, changes made on the object after it is stored will not reflect on the stored data.