Preface

Welcome to the Hazelcast Reference Manual. This manual includes concepts, instructions and samples to guide you on how to use Hazelcast and build Hazelcast applications.

As the reader of this manual, you must be familiar with the Java programming language and you should have installed your preferred IDE.

Hazelcast Editions

This Reference Manual covers all editions of Hazelcast. Throughout this manual:

• Hazelcast refers to the open source edition of Hazelcast in-memory data grid middleware. It is also the name of the company providing the Hazelcast product.
• Hazelcast Enterprise - a commercially licensed edition of Hazelcast which provides high-value enterprise features in addition to Hazelcast.
• Hazelcast Enterprise HD - a commercially licensed edition of Hazelcast which provides High-Density (HD) Memory Store and Hot Restart Persistence features in addition to Hazelcast Enterprise.

Hazelcast Architecture

You can see the features for all Hazelcast editions in the following architecture diagram.

For more information on Hazelcast's Architecture, please see the whitepaper An Architect’s View of Hazelcast.

Licensing

Hazelcast and Hazelcast Reference Manual are free provided under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Hazelcast Enterprise is commercially licensed by Hazelcast, Inc.

For more detailed information on licensing, please see the License Questions appendix.

Trademarks

Hazelcast is a registered trademark of Hazelcast, Inc. All other trademarks in this manual are held by their respective owners.

Customer Support

Support for Hazelcast is provided via GitHub, Mail Group and StackOverflow

For information on the commercial support for Hazelcast and Hazelcast Enterprise, please see hazelcast.com.

Release Notes

Please refer to the Release Notes document for the new features, enhancements and fixes performed for each Hazelcast release. You can also find information on upgrading Hazelcast from previous releases in the Release Notes document.

Contributing to Hazelcast

You can contribute to the Hazelcast code, report a bug or request an enhancement. Please see the following resources.

• Developing with Git: Document that explains the branch mechanism of Hazelcast and how to request changes.
• Hazelcast Contributor Agreement form: Form that each contributing developer needs to fill and send back to Hazelcast.
• Hazelcast on GitHub: Hazelcast repository where the code is developed, issues and pull requests are managed.

Phone Home

Hazelcast uses phone home data to learn about usage of Hazelcast.

Hazelcast member instances call our phone home server initially when they are started and then for every 24 hours. This applies to all the instances joined to the cluster.

What is sent in?

The following information is sent in a phone home:

• Hazelcast version
• Local Hazelcast member UUID
• Download ID
• A hash value of the cluster ID
• Cluster size bands for 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 100, 150, 300, 600 and > 600
• Number of connected clients bands of 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 100, 150, 300, 600 and > 600
• Cluster uptime
• Member uptime
• Hazelcast Enterprise specific:
  • Number of clients by language (Java, C++, C#)
  • Flag for Hazelcast Enterprise
  • Hash value of license key
  • Native memory usage

Phone Home Code

The phone home code itself is open source. Please see here.

Disabling Phone Homes

Set the hazelcast.phone.home.enabled system property to false either in the config or on the Java command line. Please see the System Properties section for information on how to set a property.

Phone Home URLs

For versions 1.x and 2.x: http://www.hazelcast.com/version.jsp.

For versions 3.x up to 3.6: http://versioncheck.hazelcast.com/version.jsp.

For versions after 3.6: http://phonehome.hazelcast.com/ping.

Typographical Conventions

Below table shows the conventions used in this manual.

Convention	Description
bold font	- Indicates part of a sentence that require the reader's specific attention. - Also indicates property/parameter values.
italic font	- When italicized words are enclosed with "<" and ">", indicates a variable in command or code syntax that you must replace, e.g. hazelcast-<version>.jar. - Note and Related Information texts are in italics.
monospace	- Indicates files, folders, class and library names, code snippets, and inline code words in a sentence.
RELATED INFORMATION	- Indicates a resource that is relevant to the topic, usually with a link or cross-reference.
NOTE	Indicates information that is of special interest or importance, e.g. an additional action required only in certain circumstances.
element & attribute	Mostly used in the context of declarative configuration, i.e. configuration performed by the Hazelcast XML file. Element refers to an XML tag used to configure a Hazelcast feature. Attribute is a parameter owned by an element, contributing into the declaration of that element's configuration. Please see the following example. <port port-count="100">5701</port> In this example, port-count is an attribute of the port element.

Document Revision History

This chapter lists the changes made to this document from the previous release.

NOTE: Please refer to the Release Notes for the new features, enhancements and fixes performed for each Hazelcast release. You can also find information on upgrading Hazelcast from previous releases in the Release Notes document.

Chapter	Section	Description
Chapter 1 - Preface		Added Hazelcast Architecture as a new section. Renamed the section Product Naming as Hazelcast Editions and updated its content by adding the new edition "Hazelcast Enterprise HD".
Chapter 3 - Getting Started	Phone Home	Added as a new section to explain phone home data.
	Deploying using Docker	Added as a new section to describe how you can deploy your Hazelcast projects using the Docker platform.
	Using the Scripts in the Package	Added as a new section explaining the scripts you have when you download Hazelcast.
Chapter 5 - Hazelcast Clusters	Discovering Members with jclouds	Added as a new section to explain how you can enable Hazelcast to discover your members with jclouds®.
Chapter 6 - Distributed Data Structures	Map	Evicting Map Entries section updated by adding the definition for the min-eviction-check-millis property. The section Understanding Map Eviction added for a more clearer explanation of the eviction mechanism. Setting In Memory Format section updated by adding the information on how to configure Hazelcast Map to use High-Density Memory Store. Creating Near Cache for Map updated by adding a note related to enabling near caches on a lite member. Using High-Density Memory Store with Near Cache added as a new section. Required configuration changes when using NATIVE added as a new section. Using High-Density Memory Store with Map added as a new section. The section previously known as Continuous Query moved under the Map section with the name Listening to Map Entries with Predicates. Near Cache Invalidation added as a new section.
	Lock	Added the explanation for the method tryLock with lease.
	Replicated Map	Replicating instead of Partitioning updated by adding a note related to replicated map usage in a lite member.
Chapter 7 - Distributed Events		Whole chapter improved and new sections added explaining how to register listeners.
Chapter 8 - Distributed Computing	Selecting Members for Task Execution	Added a paragraph on how to select a lite member.
Chapter 9 - Distributed Query	Filtering with Paging Predicates	The note stating that the random page accessing is not supported removed, since it is now supported with this release.
Chapter 10 - Transactions	ONE_PHASE vs. TWO_PHASE	Added as a new section explaining the trade offs between these two transaction types.
	Creating a Transaction Interface	Replaced the transaction type name LOCAL with ONE_PHASE. Updated the definitions of transaction types.
Chapter 11 - Hazelcast JCache	ICache Partition Lost Listener	Added as a new section explaining how to listen when a partition is lost in a Hazelcast JCache implementation.
	JCache Split-Brain	Added as a new section.
Chapter 12 - Integrated Clustering	Web Session Replication	Marking Transient Attributes added as a new section.
	Spring Integration	Declarative Hazelcast JCache Based Caching Configuration added as a new section.
	Hibernate Second Level Cache	Added additional information related to Hibernate Native Client mode to the introduction paragraph of the Setting Client/Server for Hibernate section.
Chapter 13 - Storage	Hot Restart Persistence	Added as a new section to explain how Hazelcast's Hot Restart feature works and its design details.
Chapter 14 - Hazelcast Java Client	Hazelcast Clients Feature Comparison	Added as a new section.
	Client Network Configuration	Updated by adding the definition of the new IAM role configuration element.
Chapter 15 - Other Client Implementations	Windows C++ Client	Updated by adding static/dynamic library related flag information.
Chapter 16 - Serialization		Whole chapter reviewed after serialization improvements and Global Serializer added as a new section.
Chapter 17 - Management	Defining a Cluster Quorum	Added information on quorum support for caches. Added the definition of the new configuration element quorum-ref to ICache Configuration section.
	Management Center	A note on how to see the cache statistics on the Management Center added under the Caches section. Replicated Maps added as a new section. Added the information explaining the new e-mail notification mechanism to Creating Alerts. Monitoring WAN Replication added as a new section. Hot Restart added as a new section. Getting Started to Management Center added as a new section to explain the licensing mechanism, selecting clusters and how to create administrator user credentials.
	Monitoring with JMX	MBean Naming for Hazelcast Data Structures and Connecting to JMX Agent added as new sections.
	Enabling Lite Members	Added as a new section. Also Data Partitioning and Partition Table sections updated to include Lite Member related information.
	Using the Script cluster.sh	Added as a new section explaining this cluster management script that comes when you download Hazelcast.
	Using REST API for Cluster Management	Added as a new section explaining how you can use REST commands to manage your cluster.
Chapter 18 - Security	SSL	First paragraph updated to include the information that SSL is capable of securing socket level communication between Hazelcast members and clients too.
Chapter 21 - WAN		Whole chapter updated and new content added.
Chapter 22 - OSGI		Added as a new chapter.
Chapter 23 - Hazelcast Configuration		Improved by adding missing configuration elements and attributes. Added Quorum Configuration section.
	Network Configuration	Join section updated by adding the explanation for discovery-strategies element.
	System Properties	Added/updated system properties: hazelcast.unsafe.mode, hazelcast.io.input.thread.count, hazelcast.io.output.thread.count, hazelcast.query.optimizer.type, hazelcast.io.thread.count, hazelcast.discovery.public.ip.enabled.
Chapter 24 - Extending Hazelcast		This title added as a chapter to include the section previously present as "User Defined Services".
	Discovery SPI	Added as a new section.
	Config Properties SPI	Added as a new section.
Chapter 28 - FAQ		Added new questions/answers.
Chapter 29 - Glossary		Added new glossary items.

Getting Started

This chapter explains how to install Hazelcast and start a Hazelcast member and client. It describes the executable files in the download package and also provides the fundamentals for configuring Hazelcast and its deployment options.

Installation

The following sections explains the installation of Hazelcast and Hazelcast Enterprise.

Hazelcast

You can find Hazelcast in standard Maven repositories. If your project uses Maven, you do not need to add additional repositories to your pom.xml or add hazelcast-<version>.jar file into your classpath (Maven does that for you). Just add the following lines to your pom.xml:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
        <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
        <version>3.6</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

As an alternative, you can download and install Hazelcast yourself. You only need to:

• Download the package hazelcast-<version>.zip or hazelcast-<version>.tar.gz from hazelcast.org.

• Extract the downloaded hazelcast-<version>.zip or hazelcast-<version>.tar.gz.

• Add the file hazelcast-<version>.jar to your classpath.

Hazelcast Enterprise

There are two Maven repositories defined for Hazelcast Enterprise:

<repository>
       <id>Hazelcast Private Snapshot Repository</id>
       <url>https://repository-hazelcast-l337.forge.cloudbees.com/snapshot/</url>
</repository>
<repository>
        <id>Hazelcast Private Release Repository</id>
        <url>https://repository-hazelcast-l337.forge.cloudbees.com/release/</url>
</repository>

Hazelcast Enterprise customers may also define dependencies, a sample of which is shown below.

<dependency>
     <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
     <artifactId>hazelcast-enterprise-tomcat6</artifactId>
     <version>${project.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
     <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
     <artifactId>hazelcast-enterprise-tomcat7</artifactId>
     <version>${project.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
      <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
      <artifactId>hazelcast-enterprise</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
      <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
      <artifactId>hazelcast-enterprise-all</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
</dependency>

Setting the License Key

Hazelcast Enterprise offers you two types of licenses: Enterprise and Enterprise HD. The supported features differ in your Hazelcast setup according to the license type you own.

• Enterprise license: In addition to the open source edition of Hazelcast, Enterprise features are the following:
  • Security
  • WAN Replication
  • Continuous Query Cache
  • Clustered REST
  • Clustered JMX
  • Web Sessions
    
    
• Enterprise HD license: In addition to the Enterprise features, Enterprise HD features are the following:
  • High-Density Memory Store
  • Hot Restart Persistence

To use Hazelcast Enterprise, you need to set the provided license key using one of the configuration methods shown below.

Declarative Configuration:

Add the below line to any place you like in the file hazelcast.xml. This XML file offers you a declarative way to configure your Hazelcast. It is included in the Hazelcast download package. When you extract the downloaded package, you will see the file hazelcast.xml under the /bin directory.

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <license-key>Your Enterprise License Key</license-key>
  ...
</hazelcast>

Client Declarative Configuration:

Native client distributions (Java, C++, .NET) of Hazelcast are open source. However, there are some Hazelcast Enterprise features which can be used with the Java Client such as SSL, Socket Interceptors, High-Density backed Near Cache, etc. In that case, you also need to have a Hazelcast Enterprise license and you should include this license in the file hazelcast-client-full.xml which is located under the directory src/main/resources of your hazelcast-client package, as shown below.

<hazelcast-client>
  ...
  <license-key>Your Enterprise License Key</license-key>
  ...
</hazelcast-client>

Programmatic Configuration:

Alternatively, you can set your license key programmatically as shown below.

Config config = new Config();
config.setLicenseKey( "Your Enterprise License Key" );

Spring XML Configuration:

If you are using Spring with Hazelcast, then you can set the license key using the Spring XML schema, as shown below.

<hz:config>
  ...
  <hz:license-key>Your Enterprise License Key</hz:license-key>
  ...
</hz:config>

JVM System Property:

As another option, you can set your license key using the below command (the "-D" command line option).

-Dhazelcast.enterprise.license.key=Your Enterprise License Key

Starting the Member and Client

Having installed Hazelcast, you can get started.

In this short tutorial, you perform the following activities.

1. Create a simple Java application using the Hazelcast distributed map and queue.
2. Run our application twice to have a cluster with two members (JVMs).
3. Connect to our cluster from another Java application by using the Hazelcast Native Java Client API.

Let's begin.

• The following code starts the first Hazelcast member and creates and uses the customers map and queue.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Queue;

public class GettingStarted {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    Map<Integer, String> customers = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "customers" );
    customers.put( 1, "Joe" );
    customers.put( 2, "Ali" );
    customers.put( 3, "Avi" );

    System.out.println( "Customer with key 1: " + customers.get(1) );
    System.out.println( "Map Size:" + customers.size() );

    Queue<String> queueCustomers = hazelcastInstance.getQueue( "customers" );
    queueCustomers.offer( "Tom" );
    queueCustomers.offer( "Mary" );
    queueCustomers.offer( "Jane" );
    System.out.println( "First customer: " + queueCustomers.poll() );
    System.out.println( "Second customer: "+ queueCustomers.peek() );
    System.out.println( "Queue size: " + queueCustomers.size() );
  }
}

• Run this GettingStarted class a second time to get the second member started. The members form a cluster and the output is similar to the following.

Members [2] {
  Member [127.0.0.1:5701]
  Member [127.0.0.1:5702] this
}

• Now, add the hazelcast-client-<version>.jar library to your classpath. This is required to use a Hazelcast client.

• The following code starts a Hazelcast Client, connects to our cluster, and prints the size of the customers map.

package com.hazelcast.test;

import com.hazelcast.client.config.ClientConfig;
import com.hazelcast.client.HazelcastClient;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.IMap;

public class GettingStartedClient {
    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
        HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient( clientConfig );
        IMap map = client.getMap( "customers" );
        System.out.println( "Map Size:" + map.size() );
    }
}

• When you run it, you see the client properly connecting to the cluster and printing the map size as 3.

Hazelcast also offers a tool, Management Center, that enables you to monitor your cluster. To use it, deploy the mancenter-<version>.war included in the ZIP file to your web server. You can use it to monitor your maps, queues, and other distributed data structures and members. Please see the Management Center section for usage explanations.

By default, Hazelcast uses Multicast to discover other members that can form a cluster. If you are working with other Hazelcast developers on the same network, you may find yourself joining their clusters under the default settings. Hazelcast provides a way to segregate clusters within the same network when using Multicast. Please see the Creating Cluster Groups for more information. Alternatively, if you do not wish to use the default Multicast mechanism, you can provide a fixed list of IP addresses that are allowed to join. Please see the Join Configuration section for more information.

RELATED INFORMATION

You can also check the video tutorials here.

Using the Scripts In The Package

When you download and extract the Hazelcast ZIP or TAR.GZ package, you will see 3 scripts under the /bin folder which provide basic functionalities for member and cluster management.

The following are the names and descriptions of each script:

• start.sh / start.bat: Starts a Hazelcast member with default configuration in the working directory*.
• stop.sh / stop.bat: Stops the Hazelcast member that was started in the current working directory.
• cluster.sh: Provides basic functionalities for cluster management such as getting and changing the cluster state, shutting down the cluster or forcing the cluster to clean its persisted data and make a fresh start.

NOTE: start.sh / start.bat scripts lets you start one Hazelcast instance per folder. To start a new instance, please unzip Hazelcast ZIP or TAR.GZ package in a new folder.

Please refer to the Using the Script cluster.sh section to learn the usage of this script.

Configuring Hazelcast

When Hazelcast starts up, it checks for the configuration as follows:

• First, it looks for the hazelcast.config system property. If it is set, its value is used as the path. This is useful if you want to be able to change your Hazelcast configuration: you can do this because it is not embedded within the application. You can set the config option with the following command:

  - Dhazelcast.config=<path to the hazelcast.xml>.

  The path can be a normal one or a classpath reference with the prefix classpath:.

• If the above system property is not set, Hazelcast then checks whether there is a hazelcast.xml file in the working directory.
• If not, then it checks whether hazelcast.xml exists on the classpath.
• If none of the above works, Hazelcast loads the default configuration, i.e. hazelcast-default.xml that comes with hazelcast.jar.

When you download and unzip hazelcast-<version>.zip, you will see a hazelcast.xml in the /bin folder. This is the declarative configuration file for Hazelcast. Part of this XML file is shown below.

<hazelcast xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config hazelcast-config-3.5.xsd"
           xmlns="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config"
           xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <group>
        <name>dev</name>
        <password>dev-pass</password>
    </group>
    <management-center enabled="false">http://localhost:8080/mancenter</management-center>
    <network>
        <port auto-increment="true" port-count="100">5701</port>
        <outbound-ports>
            <!--
            Allowed port range when connecting to other nodes.
            0 or * means use system provided port.
            -->
            <ports>0</ports>
        </outbound-ports>
        <join>
            <multicast enabled="true">
                <multicast-group>224.2.2.3</multicast-group>
                <multicast-port>54327</multicast-port>
            </multicast>
            <tcp-ip enabled="false">

For most users, default configuration should be fine. If not, you can tailor this XML file according to your needs by adding/removing/modifying properties.

Besides declarative configuration, you can configure your cluster programmatically. Just instantiate a Config object and add/remove/modify properties.

You can also use wildcards while configuring Hazelcast. Please refer to the Using Wildcard section for details.

Hazelcast also offers System Properties to tune some aspects of it. Please refer to the System Properties section for details.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Hazelcast Configuration chapter for more information.

Deploying On Amazon EC2

You can deploy your Hazelcast project onto Amazon EC2 environment using Third Party tools such as Vagrant and Chef.

You can find a sample deployment project (amazon-ec2-vagrant-chef) with step by step instructions in the hazelcast-integration folder of the hazelcast-code-samples package which you can download at hazelcast.org. Please refer to this sample project for more information.

Deploying using Docker

You can deploy your Hazelcast projects using the Docker containers. Hazelcast has three images on Docker:

• Hazelcast
• Hazelcast Enterprise
• Hazelcast Management Center

After you pull an image from the Docker registry, you can run your image to start the management center or a Hazelcast instance with Hazelcast's default configuration. All repositories provide the latest stable releases but you can pull a specific release too. You can also specify environment variables when running the image.

If you want to start a customized Hazelcast instance, you can extend the Hazelcast image by providing your own configuration file.

Please refer to https://hub.docker.com/u/hazelcast/ for more information on each repository and the procedures to run a Hazelcast image.

Hazelcast Overview

Hazelcast is an open source In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG). It provides elastically scalable distributed In-Memory computing, widely recognized as the fastest and most scalable approach to application performance. Hazelcast does this in open source. More importantly, Hazelcast makes distributed computing simple by offering distributed implementations of many developer friendly interfaces from Java such as Map, Queue, ExecutorService, Lock, and JCache. For example, the Map interface provides an In-Memory Key Value store which confers many of the advantages of NoSQL in terms of developer friendliness and developer productivity.

In addition to distributing data In-Memory, Hazelcast provides a convenient set of APIs to access the CPUs in your cluster for maximum processing speed. Hazelcast is designed to be lightweight and easy to use. Since Hazelcast is delivered as a compact library (JAR) and since it has no external dependencies other than Java, it easily plugs into your software solution and provides distributed data structures and distributed computing utilities.

Hazelcast is highly scalable and available (100% operational, never failing). Distributed applications can use Hazelcast for distributed caching, synchronization, clustering, processing, pub/sub messaging, etc. Hazelcast is implemented in Java and has clients for Java, C/C++, .NET and REST. Hazelcast also speaks memcache protocol. It plugs into Hibernate and can easily be used with any existing database system.

If you are looking for In-Memory speed, elastic scalability, and the developer friendliness of NoSQL, Hazelcast is a great choice.

Hazelcast is simple

Hazelcast is written in Java with no other dependencies. It exposes the same API from the familiar Java util package, exposing the same interfaces. Just add hazelcast.jar to your classpath, and you can quickly enjoy JVMs clustering and you can start building scalable applications.

Hazelcast is Peer-to-Peer

Unlike many NoSQL solutions, Hazelcast is peer-to-peer. There is no master and slave; there is no single point of failure. All nodes store equal amounts of data and do equal amounts of processing. You can embed Hazelcast in your existing application or use it in client and server mode where your application is a client to Hazelcast nodes.

Hazelcast is scalable

Hazelcast is designed to scale up to hundreds and thousands of nodes. Simply add new nodes and they will automatically discover the cluster and will linearly increase both memory and processing capacity. The nodes maintain a TCP connection between each other and all communication is performed through this layer.

Hazelcast is fast

Hazelcast stores everything in-memory. It is designed to perform very fast reads and updates.

Hazelcast is redundant

Hazelcast keeps the backup of each data entry on multiple nodes. On a node failure, the data is restored from the backup and the cluster will continue to operate without downtime.

Sharding in Hazelcast

Hazelcast shards are called Partitions. By default, Hazelcast has 271 partitions. Given a key, we serialize, hash and mode it with the number of partitions to find the partition which the key belongs to. The partitions themselves are distributed equally among the members of the cluster. Hazelcast also creates the backups of partitions and distributes them among nodes for redundancy.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Data Partitioning section for more information on how Hazelcast partitions your data.

Hazelcast Topology

You can deploy a Hazelcast cluster in two ways: Embedded or Client/Server.

If you have an application whose main focal point is asynchronous or high performance computing and lots of task executions, then Embedded deployment is useful. In this type, members include both the application and Hazelcast data and services. The advantage of the Embedded deployment is having a low-latency data access.

See the below illustration.

In the Client/Server deployment, Hazelcast data and services are centralized in one or more server members and they are accessed by the application through clients. You can have a cluster of server members that can be independently created and scaled. Your clients communicate with these members to reach to Hazelcast data and services on them. Hazelcast provides native clients (Java, .NET and C++), Memcache clients and REST clients. See the below illustration.

Client/Server deployment has advantages including more predictable and reliable Hazelcast performance, easier identification of problem causes, and most importantly, better scalability. When you need to scale in this deployment type, just add more Hazelcast server members. You can address client and server scalability concerns separately.

If you want low-latency data access, as it is in the Embedded deployment, and you also want the scalability advantages of the Client/Server deployment, you can consider to define near caches for your clients. This enables the frequently used data to be kept in the client's local memory. Please refer to Configuring Client Near Cache.

Why Hazelcast?

A Glance at Traditional Data Persistence

Data is at the core of software systems. In conventional architectures, a relational database persists and provides access to data. Applications are talking directly with a database which has its backup as another machine. To increase performance, tuning or a faster machine is required. This can cost a large amount of money or effort.

There is also the idea of keeping copies of data next to the database, which is performed using technologies like external key-value stores or second level caching. This helps to offload the database. However, when the database is saturated or the applications perform mostly "put" operations (writes), this approach is of no use because it insulates the database only from the "get" loads (reads). Even if the applications are read-intensive, there can be consistency problems: when data changes, what happens to the cache, and how are the changes handled? This is when concepts like time-to-live (TTL) or write-through come in.

However, in the case of TTL, if the access is less frequent then the TTL, the result will always be a cache miss. On the other hand, in the case of write-through caches; if there are more than one of these caches in a cluster, then we again have consistency issues. This can be avoided by having the nodes communicating with each other so that entry invalidations can be propagated.

We can conclude that an ideal cache would combine TTL and write-through features. And, there are several cache servers and in-memory database solutions in this field. However, those are stand-alone single instances with a distribution mechanism to an extent provided by other technologies. This brings us back to square one: we would experience saturation or capacity issues if the product is a single instance or if consistency is not provided by the distribution.

And, there is Hazelcast

Hazelcast, a brand new approach to data, is designed around the concept of distribution. Hazelcast shares data around the cluster for flexibility and performance. It is an in-memory data grid for clustering and highly scalable data distribution.

One of the main features of Hazelcast is not having a master node. Each node in the cluster is configured to be the same in terms of functionality. The oldest node (the first node created in the node cluster) manages the cluster members, i.e. automatically performs the data assignment to nodes. If the oldest node dies, the second oldest node will manage the cluster members.

Another main feature is the data being held entirely in-memory. This is fast. In the case of a failure, such as a node crash, no data will be lost since Hazelcast distributes copies of data across all the nodes of cluster.

As shown in the feature list in the Hazelcast Overview, Hazelcast supports a number of distributed data structures and distributed computing utilities. This provides powerful ways of accessing distributed clustered memory and accessing CPUs for true distributed computing.

Hazelcast's Distinctive Strengths

• It is open source.
• It is a small JAR file. You do not need to install software.
• It is a library, it does not impose an architecture on Hazelcast users.
• It provides out of the box distributed data structures (i.e. Map, Queue, MultiMap, Topic, Lock, Executor, etc.).
• There is no "master", so no single point of failure in Hazelcast cluster; each node in the cluster is configured to be functionally the same.
• When the size of your memory and compute requirement increases, new nodes can be dynamically joined to the cluster to scale elastically.
• Data is resilient to node failure. Data backups are distributed across the cluster. This is a big benefit when a node in the cluster crashes: data will not be lost.
• Nodes are always aware of each other: they communicate, unlike traditional key-value caching solutions.
• You can build your own custom distributed data structures using the Service Programming Interface (SPI) if you are not happy with the data structures provided.

Finally, Hazelcast has a vibrant open source community enabling it to be continuously developed.

Hazelcast is a fit when you need:

• analytic applications requiring big data processing by partitioning the data,
• to retain frequently accessed data in the grid,
• a cache, particularly an open source JCache provider with elastic distributed scalability,
• a primary data store for applications with utmost performance, scalability and low-latency requirements,
• an In-Memory NoSQL Key Value Store,
• publish/subscribe communication at highest speed and scalability between applications,
• applications that need to scale elastically in distributed and cloud environments,
• a highly available distributed cache for applications,
• an alternative to Coherence, Gemfire and Terracotta.

Data Partitioning

As you read in the Sharding in Hazelcast section, Hazelcast shards are called Partitions. Partitions are memory segments, where each of those segments can contain hundreds or thousands of data entries, depending on the memory capacity of your system.

By default, Hazelcast offers 271 partitions. When you start a cluster member, it starts with these 271 partitions. The following illustration shows the partitions in a Hazelcast cluster with single member.

When you start a second node on that cluster (creating a Hazelcast cluster with 2 members), the partitions are distributed as shown in the following illustration.

In the illustration, the partitions with black text are primary partitions, and the partitions with blue text are replica partitions (backups). The first member has 135 primary partitions (black), and each of these partitions are backed up in the second member (blue). At the same time, the first member also has the replica partitions of the second member's primary partitions.

As you add more members, Hazelcast one-by-one moves some of the primary and replica partitions to the new members, making all members equal and redundant. Only the minimum amount of partitions will be moved to scale out Hazelcast. The following is an illustration of the partition distributions in a Hazelcast cluster with 4 members.

Hazelcast distributes the partitions equally among the members of the cluster. Hazelcast creates the backups of partitions and distributes them among the members for redundancy.

Partition distributions in the above illustrations are for your convenience and for a more clearer description. Normally, the partitions are not distributed in an order (as they are shown in these illustrations), they are distributed randomly. The important point here is that Hazelcast equally distributes the partitions and their backups among the members.

With Hazelcast 3.6, lite members are introduced. Lite members are a new type of members that do not own any partition. Lite members are intended for use in computationally-heavy task executions and listener registrations. Although they do not own any partitions, they can access partitions that are owned by other members in the cluster.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Enabling Lite Members section.

How the Data is Partitioned

Hazelcast distributes data entries into the partitions using a hashing algorithm. Given an object key (for example, for a map) or an object name (for example, for a topic or list):

• the key or name is serialized (converted into a byte array),
• this byte array is hashed, and
• the result of the hash is mod by the number of partitions.

The result of this modulo - MOD(hash result, partition count) - gives the partition in which the data will be stored, i.e. the partition ID. For ALL the members you have in your cluster, the partition ID for a given key will always be the same.

Partition Table

When you start a member, a partition table is created within it. This table stores the partition IDs and the cluster members they belong. The purpose of this table is to make all members (including lite members) in the cluster aware of this information, making sure that each member knows where the data is.

The oldest member in the cluster (the one that started first) periodically sends the partition table to all members. In this way, each member in the cluster is informed about any changes to the partition ownership. The ownerships may be changed when, for example, a new member joins the cluster, or when a member leaves the cluster.

NOTE: If the oldest member goes down, the next oldest member sends the partition table information to the other ones.

You can configure the frequency (how often) that the member sends the partition table the information by using the hazelcast.partition.table.send.interval system property. The property is set to every 15 seconds by default.

Repartitioning

Repartitioning is the process of redistribution of partition ownerships. Hazelcast performs the repartitioning in the following cases:

• When a member joins to the cluster.
• When a member leaves the cluster.

In these cases, the partition table in the oldest member is updated with the new partition ownerships.

Note that if a lite member joins or leaves a cluster, repartitioning is not triggered since lite members do not own any partitions.

Use Cases

Some example usages are listed below. Hazelcast can be used:

• To share server configuration/information to see how a cluster performs,

• To cluster highly changing data with event notifications (e.g. user based events) and to queue and distribute background tasks,

• As a simple Memcache with near cache,

• As a cloud-wide scheduler of certain processes that need to be performed on some nodes,

• To share information (user information, queues, maps, etc.) on the fly with multiple nodes in different installations under OSGI environments,

• To share thousands of keys in a cluster where there is a web service interface on an application server and some validation,

• As a distributed topic (publish/subscribe server) to build scalable chat servers for smartphones,

• As a front layer for a Cassandra back-end,

• To distribute user object states across the cluster, to pass messages between objects and to share system data structures (static initialization state, mirrored objects, object identity generators),

• As a multi-tenancy cache where each tenant has its own map,

• To share datasets (e.g. table-like data structure) to be used by applications,

• To distribute the load and collect status from Amazon EC2 servers where front-end is developed using, for example, Spring framework,

• As a real time streamer for performance detection,

• As storage for session data in web applications (enables horizontal scalability of the web application).

Resources

• Hazelcast source code can be found at Github/Hazelcast.
• Hazelcast API can be found at Hazelcast.org/docs/Javadoc.
• Code samples can be downloaded from Hazelcast.org/download.
• More use cases and resources can be found at Hazelcast.com.
• Questions and discussions can be posted at Hazelcast mail group.

Hazelcast Clusters

This chapter describes Hazelcast clusters and the ways cluster members use to form a Hazelcast cluster.

Discovering Cluster Members

A Hazelcast cluster is a network of cluster members that run Hazelcast. Cluster members (also called nodes) automatically join together to form a cluster. This automatic joining takes place with various discovery mechanisms that the cluster members use to find each other. Hazelcast uses the following discovery mechanisms.

• Multicast
• TCP
• EC2 Cloud
• jclouds®

Each discovery mechanism is explained in the following sections.

NOTE: After a cluster is formed, communication between cluster members is always via TCP/IP, regardless of the discovery mechanism used.

Discovering Members by Multicast

With the multicast auto-discovery mechanism, Hazelcast allows cluster members to find each other using multicast communication. The cluster members do not need to know the concrete addresses of the other members, they just multicast to all the other members for listening. It depends on your environment if multicast is possible or allowed.

To set your Hazelcast to multicast auto-discovery, set the following configuration elements. Please refer to the multicast element section for the full description of the multicast discovery configuration elements.

• Set the enabled attribute of the multicast element to "true".
• Set multicast-group, multicast-port, multicast-time-to-live, etc. to your multicast values.
• Set the enabled attribute of both tcp-ip and aws elements to "false".

The following is an example declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ...
  <network>
    ...
        <join>
            <multicast enabled="true">
                <multicast-group>224.2.2.3</multicast-group>
                <multicast-port>54327</multicast-port>
                <multicast-time-to-live>32</multicast-time-to-live>
                <multicast-timeout-seconds>2</multicast-timeout-seconds>
                <trusted-interfaces>
                   <interface>192.168.1.102</interface>
                </trusted-interfaces>   
            </multicast>
            <tcp-ip enabled="false">
            </tcp-ip>
            <aws enabled="false">
            </aws>
        </join>
  <network>

Pay attention to the multicast-timeout-seconds element. multicast-timeout-seconds specifies the time in seconds that a node should wait for a valid multicast response from another node running in the network before declaring itself as the leader node (the first node joined to the cluster) and creating its own cluster. This only applies to the startup of nodes where no leader has been assigned yet. If you specify a high value to multicast-timeout-seconds, such as 60 seconds, it means that until a leader is selected, each node will wait 60 seconds before moving on. Be careful when providing a high value. Also be careful not to set the value too low, or the nodes might give up too early and create their own cluster.

Discovering Members by TCP

If multicast is not the preferred way of discovery for your environment, then you can configure Hazelcast to be a full TCP/IP cluster. When you configure Hazelcast to discover members by TCP/IP, you must list all or a subset of the members' hostnames and/or IP addresses as cluster members. You do not have to list all of these cluster members, but at least one of the listed members has to be active in the cluster when a new member joins.

To set your Hazelcast to be a full TCP/IP cluster, set the following configuration elements. Please refer to the tcp-ip element section for the full description of the TCP/IP discovery configuration elements.

• Set the enabled attribute of the multicast element to "false".
• Set the enabled attribute of the aws element to "false".
• Set the enabled attribute of the tcp-ip element to "true".
• Set your member elements within the tcp-ip element.

The following is an example declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ...
  <network>
    ...
    <join>
      <multicast enabled="false">
      </multicast>
      <tcp-ip enabled="true">
        <member>machine1</member>
        <member>machine2</member>
        <member>machine3:5799</member>
        <member>192.168.1.0-7</member>
        <member>192.168.1.21</member>
      </tcp-ip>
      ...
    </join>
    ...
  </network>
  ...
</hazelcast>

As shown above, you can provide IP addresses or hostnames for member elements. You can also give a range of IP addresses, such as 192.168.1.0-7.

Instead of providing members line by line as shown above, you also have the option to use the members element and write comma-separated IP addresses, as shown below.

<members>192.168.1.0-7,192.168.1.21</members>

If you do not provide ports for the members, Hazelcast automatically tries the ports 5701, 5702, and so on.

By default, Hazelcast binds to all local network interfaces to accept incoming traffic. You can change this behavior using the system property hazelcast.socket.bind.any. If you set this property to false, Hazelcast uses the interfaces specified in the interfaces element (please refer to the Interfaces Configuration section). If no interfaces are provided, then it will try to resolve one interface to bind from the member elements.

Discovering Members within EC2 Cloud

Hazelcast supports EC2 Auto Discovery. It is useful when you do not want to provide or you cannot provide the list of possible IP addresses.

To configure your cluster to use EC2 Auto Discovery, set the following configuration elements. Please refer to the aws element section for the full description of the EC2 Auto Discovery configuration elements.

• Add the hazelcast-cloud.jar dependency to your project. Note that it is also bundled inside hazelcast-all.jar. The Hazelcast cloud module does not depend on any other third party modules.
• Disable join over multicast and TCP/IP: set the enabled attribute of the multicast element to "false", and set the enabled attribute of the tcp-ip element to "false".
• Set the enabled attribute of the aws element to "true".
• Within the aws element, provide your credentials (access and secret key), your region, etc.

The following is an example declarative configuration.

 <hazelcast>
   ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ...
  <network>
    ...
    <join>
      <multicast enabled="false"></multicast>
      <tcp-ip enabled="false"></tcp-ip>
      <aws enabled="true">
        <access-key>my-access-key</access-key>
        <secret-key>my-secret-key</secret-key>
        <region>us-west-1</region>
        <host-header>ec2.amazonaws.com</host-header>
        <security-group-name>hazelcast-sg</security-group-name>
        <tag-key>type</tag-key>
        <tag-value>hz-nodes</tag-value>
      </aws>
    </join>

Debugging

When needed, Hazelcast can log the events for the instances that exist in a region. To see what has happened or to trace the activities while forming the cluster, change the log level in your logging mechanism to FINEST or DEBUG. After this change, you can also see in the generated log whether the instances are accepted or rejected, and the reason the instances were rejected. Note that changing the log level in this way may affect the performance of the cluster. Please see the Logging Configuration section for information on logging mechanisms.

RELATED INFORMATION

You can download the white paper "Hazelcast on AWS: Best Practices for Deployment" from Hazelcast.com.

Discovering Members with jclouds

Hazelcast members and native clients support jclouds® for discovery. It is useful when you do not want to provide or you cannot provide the list of possible IP addresses on various cloud providers. However currently, for AWS EC2 which is also based on jclouds, you still need to configure your cluster using the element as described in the above Discovering Members within EC2 Cloud section.

To configure your cluster to use jclouds Auto Discovery, follow these steps:

• Add the hazelcast-jclouds.jar dependency to your project. Note that this is also bundled inside hazelcast-all.jar. The Hazelcast jclouds module depends on jclouds; please make sure the necessary JARs for your provider are present on the classpath.
• Disable the multicast and TCP/IP join mechanisms. To do this, set the enabled attributes of the multicast and tcp-ip elements to false in your hazelcast.xml configuration file
• Set the enabled attribute of the hazelcast.discovery.enabled property to true.
• Within the discovery-providers element, provide your credentials (access and secret key), your region, etc.

The following is an example declarative configuration.

 ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ....
 <join>
    <multicast enabled="false">
    </multicast>
    <tcp-ip enabled="false">
    </tcp-ip>
    <discovery-strategies>
        <discovery-strategy class="com.hazelcast.jclouds.JCloudsDiscoveryStrategy" enabled="true">
          <properties>
           <property name="provider">google-compute-engine</property>
           <property name="identity">GCE_IDENTITY</property>
           <property name="credential">GCE_CREDENTIAL</property>
          </properties>
        </discovery-strategy>
    </discovery-strategies>
</join>
...

As stated in the first paragraph of this section, Hazelcast native clients also support jclouds for discovery. It means you can also configure your hazelcast-client.xml configuration file to include the element in the same way as it is with hazelcast.xml.

The table below lists the jclouds configuration properties with their descriptions.

Property Name	Type	Description
provider	String	String value which is used to identify ComputeService provider. For example, "google-compute-engine" is used for Google Cloud services. See the full provider list here.
identity	String	Cloud Provider identity, can be thought of as a user name for cloud services.
credential	String	Cloud Provider credential, can be thought of as a password for cloud services.
zones	String	Defines zone for a cloud service (optional). Can be used with comma separated values for multiple values.
regions	String	Defines region for a cloud service (optional). Can be used with comma separated values for multiple values.
tag-keys	String	Filters cloud instances with tags (optional). Can be used with comma separated values for multiple values.
tag-values	String	Filters cloud instances with tags (optional) Can be used with comma separated values for multiple values.
group	String	Filters instance groups (optional). When used with AWS it maps to security group.
hz-port	Int	Port which the hazelcast instance service uses on the cluster member. Default value is 5701. (optional)
role-name*	String	Used for IAM role support specific to AWS (optional, but if defined, no identity or credential should be defined in the configuration).
credentialPath*	String	Used for cloud providers which require an extra JSON or P12 key file. This denotes the path of that file. Only tested with google compute engine. (Required if google-compute engine is used.)

Configuring Dependencies for jclouds via Maven

jclouds depends on many libraries internally and hazelcast-jclouds.jar does not contain any of them. If you want to use jclouds, the recommended way is to use its dependency management tool. The following is a simple maven dependency configuration which uses maven assembly plugin to create an uber JAR with the necessary jclouds properties.

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>group-id</groupId>
    <artifactId>artifact-id </artifactId>
    <version>version</version>
    <name>compute-basics</name>

    <properties>
        <jclouds.version>latest-version</jclouds.version>
        <hazelcast.version>latest-version</hazelcast.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
            <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
            <version>${hazelcast.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
            <artifactId>hazelcast-jclouds</artifactId>
            <version>${hazelcast.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.jclouds</groupId>
            <artifactId>jclouds-compute</artifactId>
            <version>${jclouds.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.jclouds</groupId>
            <artifactId>jclouds-allcompute</artifactId>
            <version>${jclouds.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.jclouds.labs</groupId>
            <artifactId>google-compute-engine</artifactId>
            <version>${jclouds.version}</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            ...
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <phase>package</phase>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>single</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
                <configuration>
                    <descriptorRefs>
                        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
                    </descriptorRefs>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            ...
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

Configuring IAM Roles for AWS

IAM roles are used to make secure requests from your clients. You can provide the name of your IAM role that you created previously on your AWS console to the jclouds configuration. IAM roles only work in AWS and when a role name is provided, the other credentials properties should be empty.

 ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ....
 <join>
    <multicast enabled="false">
    </multicast>
    <tcp-ip enabled="false">
    </tcp-ip>
    <discovery-providers>
        <discovery-provider class="com.hazelcast.jclouds.JCloudsDiscoveryStrategy" enabled="true">
          <properties>
                  <property name="provider">aws-ec2</property>
                  <property name="role-name">i-am-role-for-member</property>
                  <property name="credential">AWS_CREDENTIAL</property>
          </properties>
        </discovery-provider>
    </discovery-providers>
</join>
...

Discovering Members on Different Regions

You can define multiple regions in your jclouds configuration. By default, Hazelcast Discovery SPI uses private IP addresses for member connection. If you want the members to find each other over a different region, you must set the system property hazelcast.discovery.public.ip.enabled to true. In this way, the members on different regions can connect to each other by using public IPs.

 ...
  <properties>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.enabled">true</property>
    <property name="hazelcast.discovery.public.ip.enabled">true</property>
  </properties>
   ....
 <join>
    <multicast enabled="false">
    </multicast>
    <tcp-ip enabled="false">
    </tcp-ip>
    <discovery-providers>
        <discovery-provider class="com.hazelcast.jclouds.JCloudsDiscoveryStrategy" enabled="true">
          <properties>
           <property name="provider">aws-ec2</property>
           <property name="identity">AWS_IDENTITY</property>
           <property name="credential">AWS_CREDENTIAL</property>
          </properties>
        </discovery-provider>
    </discovery-providers>
</join>
...

Creating Cluster Groups

You can create cluster groups. To do this, use the group configuration element.

By specifying a group name and group password, you can separate your clusters in a simple way. Example groupings can be by development, production, test, app, etc. The following is an example declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
  <group>
    <name>app1</name>
    <password>app1-pass</password>
  </group>
  ...
</hazelcast>

You can also define the cluster groups using the programmatic configuration. A JVM can host multiple Hazelcast instances. Each Hazelcast instance can only participate in one group. Each Hazelcast instance only joins to its own group, it does not mess with other groups. The following code example creates three separate Hazelcast instances: h1 belongs to the app1 cluster, while h2 and h3 belong to the app2 cluster.

Config configApp1 = new Config();
configApp1.getGroupConfig().setName( "app1" ).setPassword( "app1-pass" );

Config configApp2 = new Config();
configApp2.getGroupConfig().setName( "app2" ).setPassword( "app2-pass" );

HazelcastInstance h1 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( configApp1 );
HazelcastInstance h2 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( configApp2 );
HazelcastInstance h3 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( configApp2 );

Distributed Data Structures

As mentioned in the Overview section, Hazelcast offers distributed implementations of Java interfaces. Below is the Java interface list with links to each section in this manual.

• Standard utility collections:

  • Map: The distributed implementation of java.util.Map lets you read from and write to a Hazelcast map with methods like get and put.
  • Queue: The distributed queue is an implementation of java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue. You can add an item in one machine and remove it from another one.
  • Ringuffer: The distributed Ringbuffer is implemented for reliable eventing system.
  • Set: The distributed and concurrent implementation of java.util.Set. It does not allow duplicate elements and does not preserve their order.
  • List: Very similar to Hazelcast Set, except that it allows duplicate elements and preserves their order.
  • MultiMap: This is a specialized Hazelcast map. It is distributed, where multiple values under a single key can be stored.
  • ReplicatedMap: This does not partition data, i.e. it does not spread data to different cluster members. Instead, it replicates the data to all nodes.
• Topic: Distributed mechanism for publishing messages that are delivered to multiple subscribers; this is also known as a publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging model. Please see the Topic section for more information. There is also the Reliable Topic data structure which uses the same Hazelcast Topic interface. As a difference, it is backed up by the Ringbuffer data structure. Please see the Reliable Topic section.
• Concurrency utilities:
  • Lock: Distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.locks.Lock. When you lock using Hazelcast Lock, the critical section that it guards is guaranteed to be executed by only one thread in the entire cluster.
  • Semaphore: Distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.Semaphore. When performing concurrent activities, semaphores offer permits to control the thread counts.
  • AtomicLong: Distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong. Most of AtomicLong's operations are available. However, these operations involve remote calls and hence their performances differ from AtomicLong, due to being distributed.
  • AtomicReference: When you need to deal with a reference in a distributed environment, you can use Hazelcast AtomicReference. This is the distributed version of java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference.
  • IdGenerator: You use Hazelcast IdGenerator to generate cluster-wide unique identifiers. ID generation occurs almost at the speed of AtomicLong.incrementAndGet().
  • CountdownLatch: Distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch. Hazelcast CountDownLatch is a gate keeper for concurrent activities, enabling the threads to wait for other threads to complete their operations.

Common Features of all Hazelcast Data Structures:

• If a member goes down, its backup replica (which holds the same data) will dynamically redistribute the data, including the ownership and locks on them, to the remaining live nodes. As a result, no data will be lost.
• There is no single cluster master that can cause single point of failure. Every node in the cluster has equal rights and responsibilities. No single node is superior. There is no dependency on an external 'server' or 'master'.

Here is an example of how you can retrieve existing data structure instances (map, queue, set, lock, topic, etc.) and how you can listen for instance events, such as an instance being created or destroyed.

import java.util.Collection;
import com.hazelcast.config.Config;
import com.hazelcast.core.*;

public class Sample implements DistributedObjectListener {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Sample sample = new Sample();

    Config config = new Config();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);
    hazelcastInstance.addDistributedObjectListener(sample);

    Collection<DistributedObject> distributedObjects = hazelcastInstance.getDistributedObjects();
    for (DistributedObject distributedObject : distributedObjects) {
      System.out.println(distributedObject.getName() + "," + distributedObject.getId());
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void distributedObjectCreated(DistributedObjectEvent event) {
    DistributedObject instance = event.getDistributedObject();
    System.out.println("Created " + instance.getName() + "," + instance.getId());
  }

  @Override
  public void distributedObjectDestroyed(DistributedObjectEvent event) {
    DistributedObject instance = event.getDistributedObject();
    System.out.println("Destroyed " + instance.getName() + "," + instance.getId());
  }
}

Map

Hazelcast Map (IMap) extends the interface java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap and hence java.util.Map. It is the distributed implementation of Java map. You can perform operations like reading and writing from/to a Hazelcast map with the well known get and put methods.

Getting a Map and Putting an Entry

Hazelcast will partition your map entries and almost evenly distribute them onto all Hazelcast members. Each member carries approximately "(1/n * total-data) + backups", n being the number of members in the cluster. For example, if you have a member with 1000 objects to be stored in the cluster, and then you start a second member, each member will both store 500 objects and back up the 500 objects in the other member.

Let's create a Hazelcast instance and fill a map named Capitals with key-value pairs using the following code. Use the HazelcastInstance getMap method to get the map, then use the map put method to put an entry into the map.

public class FillMapMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) { 
    HazelcastInstance hzInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    Map<String, String> capitalcities = hzInstance.getMap( "capitals" ); 
    capitalcities.put( "1", "Tokyo" );
    capitalcities.put( "2", "Paris” );
    capitalcities.put( "3", "Washington" );
    capitalcities.put( "4", "Ankara" );
    capitalcities.put( "5", "Brussels" );
    capitalcities.put( "6", "Amsterdam" );
    capitalcities.put( "7", "New Delhi" );
    capitalcities.put( "8", "London" );
    capitalcities.put( "9", "Berlin" );
    capitalcities.put( "10", "Oslo" );
    capitalcities.put( "11", "Moscow" );
    ...
    ...
    capitalcities.put( "120", "Stockholm" )
  }
}

When you run this code, a cluster member is created with a map whose entries are distributed across the members's partitions. See the below illustration. For now, this is a single member cluster.

NOTE: Please note that some of the partitions will not contain any data entries since we only have 120 objects and the partition count is 271 by default. This count is configurable and can be changed using the system property hazelcast.partition.count. Please see the System Properties section.

Creating A Member for Map Backup

Now, let's create a second member by running the above code again. This will create a cluster with 2 members. This is also where backups of entries are created; remember the backup partitions mentioned in the Hazelcast Overview section. The following illustration shows two members and how the data and its backup is distributed.

As you see, when a new member joins the cluster, it takes ownership and loads some of the data in the cluster. Eventually, it will carry almost "(1/n * total-data) + backups" of the data, reducing the load on other nodes.

HazelcastInstance::getMap returns an instance of com.hazelcast.core.IMap which extends the java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap interface. Methods like ConcurrentMap.putIfAbsent(key,value) and ConcurrentMap.replace(key,value) can be used on the distributed map, as shown in the example below.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

Customer getCustomer( String id ) {
    ConcurrentMap<String, Customer> customers = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "customers" );
    Customer customer = customers.get( id );
    if (customer == null) {
        customer = new Customer( id );
        customer = customers.putIfAbsent( id, customer );
    }
    return customer;
}               

public boolean updateCustomer( Customer customer ) {
    ConcurrentMap<String, Customer> customers = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "customers" );
    return ( customers.replace( customer.getId(), customer ) != null );            
}

public boolean removeCustomer( Customer customer ) {
    ConcurrentMap<String, Customer> customers = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "customers" );
    return customers.remove( customer.getId(), customer );           
}

All ConcurrentMap operations such as put and remove might wait if the key is locked by another thread in the local or remote JVM. But, they will eventually return with success. ConcurrentMap operations never throw a java.util.ConcurrentModificationException.

Also see:

• Data Affinity section.
• Map Configuration with wildcards.
• Map Configuration section for a full description of Hazelcast Distributed Map configuration.

Backing Up Maps

Hazelcast distributes map entries onto multiple cluster members (JVMs). Each member holds some portion of the data.

Distributed maps have 1 backup by default. If a member goes down, you do not lose data. Backup operations are synchronous, so when a map.put(key, value) returns, it is guaranteed that the map entry is replicated to one other node. For the reads, it is also guaranteed that map.get(key) returns the latest value of the entry. Consistency is strictly enforced.

Creating Sync Backups

To provide data safety, Hazelcast allows you to specify the number of backup copies you want to have. That way, data on a cluster member will be copied onto other member(s).

To create synchronous backups, select the number of backup copies using the backup-count property.

<hazelcast>
  <map name="default">
    <backup-count>1</backup-count>
  </map>
</hazelcast>

When this count is 1, a map entry will have its backup on one other node in the cluster. If you set it to 2, then a map entry will have its backup on two other nodes. You can set it to 0 if you do not want your entries to be backed up, e.g. if performance is more important than backing up. The maximum value for the backup count is 6.

Hazelcast supports both synchronous and asynchronous backups. By default, backup operations are synchronous and configured with backup-count. In this case, backup operations block operations until backups are successfully copied to backup nodes (or deleted from backup nodes in case of remove) and acknowledgements are received. Therefore, backups are updated before a put operation is completed. Sync backup operations have a blocking cost which may lead to latency issues.

Creating Async Backups

Asynchronous backups, on the other hand, do not block operations. They are fire & forget and do not require acknowledgements; the backup operations are performed at some point in time.

To create asynchronous backups, select the number of async backups with the async-backup-count property. An example is shown below.

<hazelcast>
  <map name="default">
    <backup-count>0</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>1</async-backup-count>
  </map>
</hazelcast>

NOTE: Backups increase memory usage since they are also kept in memory.

NOTE: A map can have both sync and aysnc backups at the same time.

Enabling Backup Reads

By default, Hazelcast has one sync backup copy. If backup-count is set to more than 1, then each member will carry both owned entries and backup copies of other members. So for the map.get(key) call, it is possible that the calling member has a backup copy of that key. By default, map.get(key) will always read the value from the actual owner of the key for consistency.

To enable backup reads (read local backup entries), set the value of the read-backup-data property to true. Its default value is false for strong consistency. Enabling backup reads can improve performance.

<hazelcast>
  <map name="default">
    <backup-count>0</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>1</async-backup-count>
    <read-backup-data>true</read-backup-data>
  </map>
</hazelcast>

This feature is available when there is at least 1 sync or async backup.

Please note that, if you are performing a read from a backup, you should take into account that your hits to the keys in the backups are not reflected as hits to the original keys on the primary members; this has an impact on IMap's maximum idle seconds or time-to-live seconds expiration. Therefore, even though there is a hit on a key in backups, your original key on the primary member may expire.

Evicting Map Entries

Unless you delete the map entries manually or use an eviction policy, they will remain in the map. Hazelcast supports policy based eviction for distributed maps. Currently supported policies are LRU (Least Recently Used) and LFU (Least Frequently Used).

Map eviction works based on the size of a partition. For example, once you specify a size using the PER_NODE attribute for max-size (please see Configuring Map Eviction), Hazelcast internally calculates the maximum size for every partition. The eviction process starts according to this calculated per-partition maximum size when you try to put an entry. The section below gives an example scenario.

Understanding Map Eviction

Assume that you have the following figures:

• Partition count: 200
• Entry count for each partition: 100
• max-size (PER_NODE): 20000
• eviction-percentage (please see Configuring Map Eviction): 10%

The total number of entries here is 20000 (partition count * entry count for each partition). This means you are at the eviction threshold since you set the max-size to 20000. When you try to put an entry:

1. The entry goes to the relevant partition.
2. The partition checks whether the eviction threshold is reached (max-size).
3. If reached, approximately 10 (100 * 10%) entries are evicted from that particular partition.

As a result of this eviction process, when you check the size of your map, it is ~19990 (20000 - ~10). After this eviction, subsequent put operations will not trigger the next eviction until the map size is again close to the max-size.

NOTE: The above scenario is just an example to describe how the eviction process works. Hazelcast finds the most optimum number of entries to be evicted according to your cluster size and selected policy.

Configuring Map Eviction

The following is an example declarative configuration for map eviction.

<hazelcast>
  <map name="default">
    ...
    <time-to-live-seconds>0</time-to-live-seconds>
    <max-idle-seconds>0</max-idle-seconds>
    <eviction-policy>LRU</eviction-policy>
    <max-size policy="PER_NODE">5000</max-size>
    <eviction-percentage>25</eviction-percentage>
    <min-eviction-check-millis>100</min-eviction-check-millis>
    ...
  </map>
</hazelcast>

Let's describe each element.

• time-to-live: Maximum time in seconds for each entry to stay in the map. If it is not 0, entries that are older than this time and not updated for this time are evicted automatically. Valid values are integers between 0 and Integer.MAX VALUE. Default value is 0, which means infinite. If it is not 0, entries are evicted regardless of the set eviction-policy.
• max-idle-seconds: Maximum time in seconds for each entry to stay idle in the map. Entries that are idle for more than this time are evicted automatically. An entry is idle if no get, put, EntryProcessor.process or containsKey is called. Valid values are integers between 0 and Integer.MAX VALUE. Default value is 0, which means infinite.

• eviction-policy: Valid values are described below.

  • NONE: Default policy. If set, no items will be evicted and the property max-size will be ignored. You still can combine it with time-to-live-seconds and max-idle-seconds.
  • LRU: Least Recently Used.
  • LFU: Least Frequently Used.

• max-size: Maximum size of the map. When maximum size is reached, the map is evicted based on the policy defined. Valid values are integers between 0 and Integer.MAX VALUE. Default value is 0. If you want max-size to work, set the eviction-policy property to a value other than NONE. Its attributes are described below.

  • PER_NODE: Maximum number of map entries in each cluster member. This is the default policy. If you use this option, please note that you cannot set the max-size to a value lower than the partition count (which is 271 by default).

    <max-size policy="PER_NODE">5000</max-size>

  • PER_PARTITION: Maximum number of map entries within each partition. Storage size depends on the partition count in a cluster member. This attribute should not be used often. Avoid using this attribute with a small cluster: if the cluster is small it will be hosting more partitions, and therefore map entries, than that of a larger cluster. Thus, for a small cluster, eviction of the entries will decrease performance (the number of entries is large).

    <max-size policy="PER_PARTITION">27100</max-size>

  • USED_HEAP_SIZE: Maximum used heap size in megabytes per map for each Hazelcast instance. Please note that this policy does not work when in-memory format is set to OBJECT, since the memory footprint cannot be determined when data is put as OBJECT.

    <max-size policy="USED_HEAP_SIZE">4096</max-size>

  • USED_HEAP_PERCENTAGE: Maximum used heap size percentage per map for each Hazelcast instance. If, for example, JVM is configured to have 1000 MB and this value is 10, then the map entries will be evicted when used heap size exceeds 100 MB. Please note that this policy does not work when in-memory format is set to OBJECT, since the memory footprint cannot be determined when data is put as OBJECT.

    <max-size policy="USED_HEAP_PERCENTAGE">10</max-size>

  • FREE_HEAP_SIZE: Minimum free heap size in megabytes for each JVM.

    <max-size policy="FREE_HEAP_SIZE">512</max-size>

  • FREE_HEAP_PERCENTAGE: Minimum free heap size percentage for each JVM. If, for example, JVM is configured to have 1000 MB and this value is 10, then the map entries will be evicted when free heap size is below 100 MB.

    <max-size policy="FREE_HEAP_PERCENTAGE">10</max-size>

  • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: (Hazelcast Enterprise HD) Maximum used native memory size in megabytes per map for each Hazelcast instance.

    <max-size policy="USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE">1024</max-size>

  • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: (Hazelcast Enterprise HD) Maximum used native memory size percentage per map for each Hazelcast instance.

    <max-size policy="USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE">65</max-size>

  • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: (Hazelcast Enterprise HD) Minimum free native memory size in megabytes for each Hazelcast instance.

    <max-size policy="FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE">256</max-size>

  • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: (Hazelcast Enterprise HD) Minimum free native memory size percentage for each Hazelcast instance.

    <max-size policy="FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE">5</max-size>

• eviction-percentage: When max-size is reached, the specified percentage of the map will be evicted. For example, if set to 25, 25% of the entries will be evicted. Setting this property to a smaller value will cause eviction of a smaller number of map entries. Therefore, if map entries are inserted frequently, smaller percentage values may lead to overheads. Valid values are integers between 0 and 100. The default value is 25.
• min-eviction-check-millis: Minimum time in milliseconds which should elapse before checking whether a partition of the map is evictable or not. In other terms, this property specifies the frequency of the eviction process. The default value is 100. Setting it to 0 (zero) makes the eviction process run for every put operation.

NOTE: When map entries are inserted frequently, the property min-eviction-check-millis should be set to a number lower than the insertion period in order not to let any entry escape from the eviction.

Example Eviction Configurations

<map name="documents">
  <max-size policy="PER_NODE">10000</max-size>
  <eviction-policy>LRU</eviction-policy>
  <max-idle-seconds>60</max-idle-seconds>
</map>

In the above example, documents map starts to evict its entries from a member when the map size exceeds 10000 in that member. Then, the entries least recently used will be evicted. The entries not used for more than 60 seconds will be evicted as well.

And the following is an example eviction configuration for a map having NATIVE as the in-memory format:

<map name="nativeMap*">
    <in-memory-format>NATIVE</in-memory-format>
    <eviction-policy>LFU</eviction-policy>
    <max-size policy="USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE">99</max-size>
</map>

Evicting Specific Entries

The eviction policies and configurations explained above apply to all the entries of a map. The entries that meet the specified eviction conditions are evicted.

But you may want to evict some specific map entries. In this case, you can use the ttl and timeunit parameters of the method map.put(). An example code line is given below.

myMap.put( "1", "John", 50, TimeUnit.SECONDS )

The map entry with the key "1" will be evicted 50 seconds after it is put into myMap.

Evicting All Entries

To evict all keys from the map except the locked ones, use the method evictAll(). If a MapStore is defined for the map, deleteAll is not called by evictAll. If you want to call the method deleteAll, use clear().

An example is given below.

public class EvictAll {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        final int numberOfKeysToLock = 4;
        final int numberOfEntriesToAdd = 1000;

        HazelcastInstance node1 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        HazelcastInstance node2 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

        IMap<Integer, Integer> map = node1.getMap(EvictAll.class.getCanonicalName());
        for (int i = 0; i < numberOfEntriesToAdd; i++) {
            map.put(i, i);
        }

        for (int i = 0; i < numberOfKeysToLock; i++) {
            map.lock(i);
        }

        // should keep locked keys and evict all others.
        map.evictAll();

        System.out.printf("# After calling evictAll...\n");
        System.out.printf("# Expected map size\t: %d\n", numberOfKeysToLock);
        System.out.printf("# Actual map size\t: %d\n", map.size());

    }
}

NOTE: Only EVICT_ALL event is fired for any registered listeners.

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. But 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): This is the default option. The data 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 respectively high. By storing objects, entry processing will not contain the deserialization cost.

• NATIVE: (Hazelcast Enterprise HD) This option is used to enable the map to use Hazelcast's High-Density Memory Store. Please refer to the Using High-Density Memory Store with Map section.

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, 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.

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.

Using High-Density Memory Store with Map

Hazelcast Enterprise HD

In the BINARY and OBJECT in-memory formats, Hazelcast stores your distributed data into Java heap which is subject to garbage collection (GC). As your heap gets bigger, garbage collection might cause your application to pause for tens of seconds, badly affecting your application performance and response times. Even if you have terabytes of cache in-memory with lots of updates, GC will have almost no effect; this results in more predictable latency and throughput.

To overcome this challenge, Hazelcast offers High-Density Memory Store for your maps. You can enable your map to use the High-Density Memory Store by simply setting the in-memory format to NATIVE. The following snippet is the declarative configuration example.

<map name="nativeMap*">
   <in-memory-format>NATIVE</in-memory-format>
</map>

Keep in mind that you should have already enabled the High-Density Memory Store usage for your cluster. Please see the Configuring High-Density Memory Store section.

Required configuration changes when using NATIVE

Beware that eviction mechanism is different for NATIVE in-memory format. The new eviction algorithm is described here.

• Eviction percentage has no effect.

  <map name="nativeMap*">
    <in-memory-format>NATIVE</in-memory-format>
    <eviction-percentage>25</eviction-percentage> <-- NO IMPACT with NATIVE
  </map>
  

• These IMap eviction policies for max-size cannot be used: FREE_HEAP_PERCENTAGE, FREE_HEAP_SIZE, USED_HEAP_PERCENTAGE, USED_HEAP_SIZE.

• Near cache eviction configuration should also be changed when the in-memory format is NATIVE.

  Existing configuration for a map's near cache when the in-memory format is BINARY:

      <map name="nativeMap*">
  
        <near-cache>
          <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
          <max-size>10000</max-size> <-- NO IMPACT with NATIVE
          <eviction-policy>LFU</eviction-policy> <-- NO IMPACT with NATIVE
        </near-cache>
  
      </map>
  

  If it is NATIVE, then the proper near cache configuration should be as follows:

       <map name="nativeMap*">
  
         <near-cache>
           <in-memory-format>NATIVE</in-memory-format>
           <eviction size="10000" eviction-policy="LFU" max-size-policy="USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE"/>   <-- Correct configuration with NATIVE
         </near-cache>
  
       </map>
  

• Near cache eviction policy ENTRY_COUNT cannot be used for max-size-policy.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the High-Density Memory Store section for more information.

Loading and Storing Persistent Data

Hazelcast allows you to load and store the distributed map entries from/to a persistent data store such as a relational database. To do this, you can use Hazelcast's MapStore and MapLoader interfaces.

When you provide a MapLoader implementation and request an entry (IMap.get()) that does not exist in memory, MapLoader's load or loadAll methods will load that entry from the data store. This loaded entry is placed into the map and will stay there until it is removed or evicted.

When a MapStore implementation is provided, an entry is also put into a user defined data store.

NOTE: Data store needs to be a centralized system that is accessible from all Hazelcast members. Persistence to local file system is not supported.

NOTE: Also note that, the MapStore interface extends the MapLoader interface as you can see in the interface code.

Following is a MapStore example.

public class PersonMapStore implements MapStore<Long, Person> {
    private final Connection con;

    public PersonMapStore() {
        try {
            con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:hsqldb:mydatabase", "SA", "");
            con.createStatement().executeUpdate(
                    "create table if not exists person (id bigint, name varchar(45))");
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

    public synchronized void delete(Long key) {
        System.out.println("Delete:" + key);
        try {
            con.createStatement().executeUpdate(
                    format("delete from person where id = %s", key));
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

    public synchronized void store(Long key, Person value) {
        try {
            con.createStatement().executeUpdate(
                    format("insert into person values(%s,'%s')", key, value.name));
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

    public synchronized void storeAll(Map<Long, Person> map) {
        for (Map.Entry<Long, Person> entry : map.entrySet())
            store(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue());
    }

    public synchronized void deleteAll(Collection<Long> keys) {
        for (Long key : keys) delete(key);
    }

    public synchronized Person load(Long key) {
        try {
            ResultSet resultSet = con.createStatement().executeQuery(
                    format("select name from person where id =%s", key));
            try {
                if (!resultSet.next()) return null;
                String name = resultSet.getString(1);
                return new Person(name);
            } finally {
                resultSet.close();
            }
        } catch (SQLException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

    public synchronized Map<Long, Person> loadAll(Collection<Long> keys) {
        Map<Long, Person> result = new HashMap<Long, Person>();
        for (Long key : keys) result.put(key, load(key));
        return result;
    }

    public Iterable<Long> loadAllKeys() {
        return null;
    }
}

NOTE: During the initial loading process, MapStore uses a thread different than the partition threads that is used by the ExecutorService. After the initialization is completed, the map.get method looks up any inexistent value from the database in a partition thread or the map.put method looks up the database to return the previously associated value for a key also in a partition thread.

RELATED INFORMATION

For more MapStore/MapLoader code samples please see here.

Hazelcast supports read-through, write-through, and write-behind persistence modes which are explained in the subsections below.

Using Read-Through Persistence

If an entry does not exist in the memory when an application asks for it, Hazelcast asks your loader implementation to load that entry from the data store. If the entry exists there, the loader implementation gets it, hands it to Hazelcast, and Hazelcast puts it into the memory. This is read-through persistence mode.

Setting Write-Through Persistence

MapStore can be configured to be write-through by setting the write-delay-seconds property to 0. This means the entries will be put to the data store synchronously.

In this mode, when the map.put(key,value) call returns:

• MapStore.store(key,value) is successfully called so the entry is persisted.
• In-Memory entry is updated.
• In-Memory backup copies are successfully created on other cluster members (if backup-count is greater than 0).

The same behavior goes for a map.remove(key) call. The only difference is that MapStore.delete(key) is called when the entry will be deleted.

If MapStore throws an exception, then the exception will be propagated back to the original put or remove call in the form of RuntimeException.

Setting Write-Behind Persistence

You can configure MapStore as write-behind by setting the write-delay-seconds property to a value bigger than 0. This means the modified entries will be put to the data store asynchronously after a configured delay.

NOTE: In write-behind mode, by default Hazelcast coalesces updates on a specific key, i.e. applies only the last update on it. However, you can set MapStoreConfig#setWriteCoalescing to FALSE and you can store all updates performed on a key to the data store.

NOTE: When you set MapStoreConfig#setWriteCoalescing to FALSE, after you reached per-node maximum write-behind-queue capacity, subsequent put operations will fail with ReachedMaxSizeException. This exception will be thrown to prevent uncontrolled grow of write-behind queues. You can set per node maximum capacity using the system property hazelcast.map.write.behind.queue.capacity. Please refer to the System Properties section for information on this property and how to set the system properties.

In write-behind mode, when the map.put(key,value) call returns:

• In-Memory entry is updated.
• In-Memory backup copies are successfully created on other cluster members (if backup-count is greater than 0).
• The entry is marked as dirty so that after write-delay-seconds, it can be persisted with MapStore.store(key,value) call.
• For fault tolerance, dirty entries are stored in a queue on the primary member and also on a back-up member.

The same behavior goes for the map.remove(key), the only difference is that MapStore.delete(key) is called when the entry will be deleted.

If MapStore throws an exception, then Hazelcast tries to store the entry again. If the entry still cannot be stored, a log message is printed and the entry is re-queued.

For batch write operations, which are only allowed in write-behind mode, Hazelcast will call MapStore.storeAll(map) and MapStore.deleteAll(collection) to do all writes in a single call.

NOTE: If a map entry is marked as dirty, i.e. it is waiting to be persisted to the MapStore in a write-behind scenario, the eviction process forces the entry to be stored. By this way, you will have control on the number of entries waiting to be stored, and thus you can prevent a possible OutOfMemory exception.

NOTE: MapStore or MapLoader implementations should not use Hazelcast Map/Queue/MultiMap/List/Set operations. Your implementation should only work with your data store. Otherwise, you may get into deadlock situations.

Here is a sample configuration:

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <map name="default">
    ...
    <map-store enabled="true">
      <class-name>com.hazelcast.examples.DummyStore</class-name>
      <write-delay-seconds>60</write-delay-seconds>
      <write-batch-size>1000</write-batch-size>
      <write-coalescing>true</write-coalescing>
    </map-store>
  </map>
</hazelcast>

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Map Store section for the full Map Store configuration description.

Storing Entries to Multiple Maps

A configuration can be applied to more than one map using wildcards (see Using Wildcard), meaning that the configuration is shared among the maps. But MapStore does not know which entries to store when there is one configuration applied to multiple maps.

To store entries when there is one configuration applied to multiple maps, use Hazelcast's MapStoreFactory interface. Using the MapStoreFactory interface, MapStores for each map can be created when a wildcard configuration is used. Example code is shown below.

Config config = new Config();
MapConfig mapConfig = config.getMapConfig( "*" );
MapStoreConfig mapStoreConfig = mapConfig.getMapStoreConfig();
mapStoreConfig.setFactoryImplementation( new MapStoreFactory<Object, Object>() {
  @Override
  public MapLoader<Object, Object> newMapStore( String mapName, Properties properties ) {
    return null;
  }
});

To initialize the MapLoader implementation with the given map name, configuration properties, and the Hazelcast instance, implement the MapLoaderLifecycleSupport interface. See the following example code.

public interface MapLoaderLifecycleSupport {

  /**
   * Initializes this MapLoader implementation. Hazelcast will call
   * this method when the map is first used on the
   * HazelcastInstance. Implementation can
   * initialize required resources for implementing
   * MapLoader such as reading a configuration file and/or creating
   * a database connection.
   */
  void init( HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance, Properties properties, String mapName );

  /**
   * Hazelcast will call this method before shutting down.
   * This method can be overridden to cleanup the resources
   * held by this MapLoader implementation, such as closing the
   * database connections, etc.
   */
  void destroy();
}

Initializing Map on Startup

To pre-populate the in-memory map when the map is first touched/used, use the MapLoader.loadAllKeys API.

If MapLoader.loadAllKeys returns NULL, then nothing will be loaded. Your MapLoader.loadAllKeys implementation can return all or some of the keys. For example, you may select and return only the hot keys. MapLoader.loadAllKeys is the fastest way of pre-populating the map since Hazelcast will optimize the loading process by having each cluster member load its owned portion of the entries.

The InitialLoadMode configuration parameter in the class MapStoreConfig has two values: LAZY and EAGER. If InitialLoadMode is set to LAZY, data is not loaded during the map creation. If it is set to EAGER, the whole data is loaded while the map is created and everything becomes ready to use. Also, if you add indices to your map with the MapIndexConfig class or the addIndex method, then InitialLoadMode is overridden and MapStoreConfig behaves as if EAGER mode is on.

Here is the MapLoader initialization flow:

1. When getMap() is first called from any member, initialization will start depending on the value of InitialLoadMode. If it is set to EAGER, initialization starts. If it is set to LAZY, initialization does not start but data is loaded each time a partition loading completes.
2. Hazelcast will call MapLoader.loadAllKeys() to get all your keys on one of the members.
3. That member will distribute keys to all other members in batches.
4. Each member will load values of all its owned keys by calling MapLoader.loadAll(keys).
5. Each member puts its owned entries into the map by calling IMap.putTransient(key,value).

NOTE: If the load mode is LAZY and when the clear() method is called (which triggers MapStore.deleteAll()), Hazelcast will remove ONLY the loaded entries from your map and datastore. Since the whole data is not loaded for this case (LAZY mode), please note that there may be still entries in your datastore.

NOTE: The return type of loadAllKeys() is changed from Set to Iterable with the release of Hazelcast 3.5. MapLoader implementations from previous releases are also supported and do not need to be adapted.

Loading Keys Incrementally

If the number of keys to load is large, it is more efficient to load them incrementally than loading them all at once. To support incremental loading, the MapLoader.loadAllKeys() method returns an Iterable which can be lazily populated with the results of a database query.

Hazelcast iterates over the Iterable and, while doing so, sends out the keys to their respective owner nodes. The Iterator obtained from MapLoader.loadAllKeys() may also implement the Closeable interface, in which case Iterator is closed once the iteration is over. This is intended for releasing resources such as closing a JDBC result set.

Forcing All Keys To Be Loaded

The method loadAll loads some or all keys into a data store in order to optimize the multiple load operations. The method has two signatures (i.e. the same method can take two different parameter lists). One signature loads the given keys and the other loads all keys. Please see the example code below.

public class LoadAll {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        final int numberOfEntriesToAdd = 1000;
        final String mapName = LoadAll.class.getCanonicalName();
        final Config config = createNewConfig(mapName);
        final HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);
        final IMap<Integer, Integer> map = node.getMap(mapName);

        populateMap(map, numberOfEntriesToAdd);
        System.out.printf("# Map store has %d elements\n", numberOfEntriesToAdd);

        map.evictAll();
        System.out.printf("# After evictAll map size\t: %d\n", map.size());

        map.loadAll(true);
        System.out.printf("# After loadAll map size\t: %d\n", map.size());
    }
}

Post-Processing Objects in Map Store

In some scenarios, you may need to modify the object after storing it into the map store. For example, you can get an ID or version auto-generated by your database and then you need to modify your object stored in the distributed map but not to break the synchronization between database and data grid.

To post-process an object in the map store, implement the PostProcessingMapStore interface to put the modified object into the distributed map. That causes an extra step of Serialization, so use it only when needed. (This is only valid when using the write-through map store configuration.)

Here is an example of post processing map store:

class ProcessingStore implements MapStore<Integer, Employee>, PostProcessingMapStore {
  @Override
  public void store( Integer key, Employee employee ) {
    EmployeeId id = saveEmployee();
    employee.setId( id.getId() );
  }
}

Note : Please be warned that if you are using a post processing map store in combination with entry processors, post-processed values will not be carried to backups.

Creating Near Cache for Map

Map entries in Hazelcast are partitioned across the cluster. Suppose you read the key k a number of times and k is owned by another member in your cluster. Each map.get(k) will be a remote operation, meaning lots of network trips. If you have a map that is read-mostly, then you should consider creating a near cache for the map so that reads can be much faster and consume less network traffic. These benefits do not come free; when using near cache, you should consider the following issues:

• Cluster members will have to hold extra cached data, which increases memory consumption.
• If invalidation is turned on and entries are updated frequently, then invalidations will be costly.
• Near cache breaks the strong consistency guarantees; you might be reading stale data.

Near cache is highly recommended for the maps that are read-mostly. Here is a near cache configuration for a map:

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <map name="my-read-mostly-map">
    ...
    <near-cache>

      <!--
         Storage type of near cache entries. Available values are BINARY, OBJECT and NATIVE.
         NATIVE is available only for Hazelcast Enterprise. Default value is BINARY.
      -->
       <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>

      <!--
        Maximum size of the near cache. When max-size is reached,
        cache is evicted based on the policy defined.
        Any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. 0 means
        Integer.MAX_VALUE. Default is 0.
      -->
      <max-size>5000</max-size>

      <!--
        Maximum number of seconds for each entry to stay in the near cache. Entries that are
        older than this period is automatically evicted from the near cache.
        Any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. 0 means infinite. Default is 0.
      -->
      <time-to-live-seconds>0</time-to-live-seconds>

      <!--
        Maximum number of seconds each entry can stay in the near cache as untouched (not read).
        Entries that are not read more than this period is removed
        from the near cache.
        Any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. 0 means
        Integer.MAX_VALUE. Default is 0.
      -->
      <max-idle-seconds>60</max-idle-seconds>

      <!--
        Valid values are:
        NONE (no extra eviction, <time-to-live-seconds> may still apply),
        LRU  (Least Recently Used),
        LFU  (Least Frequently Used).
        NONE is the default.
        Regardless of the eviction policy used, <time-to-live-seconds> will still apply.
      -->
      <eviction-policy>LRU</eviction-policy>

      <!--
        Should the cached entries are evicted if the entries are updated or removed.
        Values can be true of false. Default is true.
      -->
      <invalidate-on-change>true</invalidate-on-change>

      <!--
        You may also want local entries to be cached.
        This is useful when in memory format for near cache is different from
        the map's near cache.
        By default it is disabled (false).
      -->
      <cache-local-entries>false</cache-local-entries>

      <!--
        Note that you have to use this eviction config with NATIVE memory format.
      -->
       <eviction size="1000" max-size-policy="ENTRY_COUNT" eviction-policy="LFU"/>
    </near-cache>
  </map>
</hazelcast>

Programmatically, you configure near cache by using the class NearCacheConfig. This class is used both in the cluster members and clients. In a client/server system, you must enable the near cache separately on the client, without you needing to configure it on the member. For information on how to create a near cache on a client (native Java client), please see Configuring Client Near Cache. Please note that near cache configuration is specific to the member or client itself, a map in a member may not have near cache configured while the same map in a client may have near cache configured.

If you are using near cache, you should take into account that your hits to the keys in near cache are not reflected as hits to the original keys on the primary members; this has an impact on IMap's maximum idle seconds or time-to-live seconds expiration. Therefore, even though there is a hit on a key in near cache, your original key on the primary member may expire.

NOTE: Near cache works only when you access data via map.get(k) methods. Data returned using a predicate is not stored in the near cache.

NOTE: Even though lite members do not store any data for Hazelcast data structures, you can enable near cache on lite members for faster reads.

Near Cache Invalidation

When you enable invalidations on near cache, either programmatically via NearCacheConfig#setInvalidateOnChange or declaratively via <invalidate-on-change>true</invalidate-on-change>, when entires are updated or removed from an entry in the underlying IMap, corresponding entries are removed from near caches to prevent stale reads. This is called near cache invalidation.

Invalidation can be sent from members to client near caches or to member near caches, either individually or in batches. Default behavior is sending in batches. If there are lots of mutating operations such as put/remove on IMap, it is advised that you make invalidations in batches. This reduces the network traffic and keeps the eventing system less busy.

You can use the following system properties to configure the near cache invalidation:

• hazelcast.map.invalidation.batch.enabled: Enable or disable batching. Default value is true. When it is set to false, all invalidations are sent immediately.
• hazelcast.map.invalidation.batch.size: Maximum number of invalidations in a batch. Default value is 100.
• hazelcast.map.invalidation.batchfrequency.seconds: If we cannot reach the configured batch size, a background process sends invalidations periodically. Default value is 10 seconds.

If there are a lot of clients or many mutating operations, batching should remain enabled and the batch size should be configured with the hazelcast.map.invalidation.batch.size system property to a suitable value.

Using High-Density Memory Store with Near Cache

Hazelcast Enterprise HD

Hazelcast offers High-Density Memory Store for the near caches in your maps. You can enable your near cache to use the High-Density Memory Store by setting the in-memory format to NATIVE. The following snippet is the declarative configuration example.

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <map name="my-read-mostly-map">
    ...
    <near-cache>
       ...
       <in-memory-format>NATIVE</in-memory-format>
       ...
    </near-cache>
    ...  
  </map>
</hazelcast>

Keep in mind that you should have already enabled the High-Density Memory Store usage for your cluster. Please see the Configuring High-Density Memory Store section.

Note that a map and its near cache can independently use High-Density Memory Store. For example, while your map does not use High-Density Memory Store, its near cache can use it.

Locking Maps

Hazelcast Distributed Map (IMap) is thread-safe to meet your thread safety requirements. When these requirements increase or you want to have more control on the concurrency, consider the following Hazelcast solutions.

Let's work on a sample case as shown below.

public class RacyUpdateMember {
    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        IMap<String, Value> map = hz.getMap( "map" );
        String key = "1";
        map.put( key, new Value() );
        System.out.println( "Starting" );
        for ( int k = 0; k < 1000; k++ ) {
            if ( k % 100 == 0 ) System.out.println( "At: " + k );
            Value value = map.get( key );
            Thread.sleep( 10 );
            value.amount++;
            map.put( key, value );
        }
        System.out.println( "Finished! Result = " + map.get(key).amount );
    }

    static class Value implements Serializable {
        public int amount;
    }
}

If the above code is run by more than one cluster member simultaneously, there will be likely a race condition. You can solve this condition with Hazelcast using either of the following solutions.

Pessimistic Locking

One way to solve the race issue is using pessimistic locking: lock the map entry until you are finished with it.

To perform pessimistic locking, use the lock mechanism provided by Hazelcast distributed map, i.e. the map.lock and map.unlock methods. See the below example code.

public class PessimisticUpdateMember {
    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        IMap<String, Value> map = hz.getMap( "map" );
        String key = "1";
        map.put( key, new Value() );
        System.out.println( "Starting" );
        for ( int k = 0; k < 1000; k++ ) {
            map.lock( key );
            try {
                Value value = map.get( key );
                Thread.sleep( 10 );
                value.amount++;
                map.put( key, value );
            } finally {
                map.unlock( key );
            }
        }
        System.out.println( "Finished! Result = " + map.get( key ).amount );
    }

    static class Value implements Serializable {
        public int amount;
    }
}

The IMap lock will automatically be collected by the garbage collector when the lock is released and no other waiting conditions exist on the lock.

The IMap lock is reentrant, but it does not support fairness.

Another way to solve the race issue can be acquiring a predictable Lock object from Hazelcast. This way, every value in the map can be given a lock or you can create a stripe of locks.

Optimistic Locking

In Hazelcast, you can apply the optimistic locking strategy with the map's replace method. This method compares values in object or data forms depending on the in-memory format configuration. If the values are equal, it replaces the old value with the new one. If you want to use your defined equals method, in-memory-format should be OBJECT. Otherwise, Hazelcast serializes objects to BINARY forms and compares them.

See the below example code.

public class OptimisticMember {
    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        IMap<String, Value> map = hz.getMap( "map" );
        String key = "1";
        map.put( key, new Value() );
        System.out.println( "Starting" );
        for ( int k = 0; k < 1000; k++ ) {
            if ( k % 10 == 0 ) System.out.println( "At: " + k );
            for (; ; ) {
                Value oldValue = map.get( key );
                Value newValue = new Value( oldValue );
                Thread.sleep( 10 );
                newValue.amount++;
                if ( map.replace( key, oldValue, newValue ) )
                    break;
            }
        }
        System.out.println( "Finished! Result = " + map.get( key ).amount );
    }

    static class Value implements Serializable {
        public int amount;

        public Value() {
        }

        public Value( Value that ) {
            this.amount = that.amount;
        }

        public boolean equals( Object o ) {
            if ( o == this ) return true;
            if ( !( o instanceof Value ) ) return false;
            Value that = ( Value ) o;
            return that.amount == this.amount;
        }
    }
}

NOTE: The above example code is intentionally broken.

Pessimistic vs. Optimistic Locking

Depending on your locking requirements, you can pick one locking strategy.

Optimistic locking is better for mostly read-only systems. It has a performance boost over pessimistic locking.

Pessimistic locking is good if there are lots of updates on the same key. It is more robust than optimistic locking from the perspective of data consistency.

In Hazelcast, use IExecutorService to submit a task to a key owner, or to a member or members. This is the recommended way to perform task executions, rather than using pessimistic or optimistic locking techniques. IExecutorService will have less network hops and less data over wire, and tasks will be executed very near to the data. Please refer to the Data Affinity section.

Solving the ABA Problem

The ABA problem occurs in environments when a shared resource is open to change by multiple threads. Even if one thread sees the same value for a particular key in consecutive reads, it does not mean that nothing has changed between the reads. Another thread may change the value, do work, and change the value back, while the first thread thinks that nothing has changed.

To prevent these kind of problems, one solution is to use a version number and to check it before any write to be sure that nothing has changed between consecutive reads. Although all the other fields will be equal, the version field will prevent objects from being seen as equal. This is the optimistic locking strategy, and it is used in environments which do not expect intensive concurrent changes on a specific key.

In Hazelcast, you can apply the optimistic locking strategy with the map replace method.

Accessing Entry Statistics

Hazelcast keeps statistics about each map entry, such as creation time, last update time, last access time, number of hits, and version. To access the map entry statistics, use an IMap.getEntryView(key) call. Here is an example.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.EntryView;

HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
EntryView entry = hz.getMap( "quotes" ).getEntryView( "1" );
System.out.println ( "size in memory  : " + entry.getCost() );
System.out.println ( "creationTime    : " + entry.getCreationTime() );
System.out.println ( "expirationTime  : " + entry.getExpirationTime() );
System.out.println ( "number of hits  : " + entry.getHits() );
System.out.println ( "lastAccessedTime: " + entry.getLastAccessTime() );
System.out.println ( "lastUpdateTime  : " + entry.getLastUpdateTime() );
System.out.println ( "version         : " + entry.getVersion() );
System.out.println ( "key             : " + entry.getKey() );
System.out.println ( "value           : " + entry.getValue() );

Map Listener

Please refer to the Listening for Map Events section.

Listening to Map Entries with Predicates

You can listen to the modifications performed on specific map entries. You can think of it as an entry listener with predicates. Please see the Listening for Map Events section for information on how to add entry listeners to a map.

As an example, let's listen to the changes made on an employee with the surname "Smith". First, let's create the Employee class.

import java.io.Serializable;

public class Employee implements Serializable {

    private final String surname;

    public Employee(String surname) {
        this.surname = surname;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Employee{" +
                "surname='" + surname + '\'' +
                '}';
    }
}

Then, let's create a continuous query by adding the entry listener with the surname predicate.

import com.hazelcast.core.*;
import com.hazelcast.query.SqlPredicate;

public class ContinuousQuery {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        IMap<String, String> map = hz.getMap("map");
        map.addEntryListener(new MyEntryListener(),
                new SqlPredicate("surname=smith"), true);
        System.out.println("Entry Listener registered");
    }

    static class MyEntryListener
            implements EntryListener<String, String> {
        @Override
        public void entryAdded(EntryEvent<String, String> event) {
            System.out.println("Entry Added:" + event);
        }

        @Override
        public void entryRemoved(EntryEvent<String, String> event) {
            System.out.println("Entry Removed:" + event);
        }

        @Override
        public void entryUpdated(EntryEvent<String, String> event) {
            System.out.println("Entry Updated:" + event);
        }

        @Override
        public void entryEvicted(EntryEvent<String, String> event) {
            System.out.println("Entry Evicted:" + event);
        }

        @Override
        public void mapEvicted(MapEvent event) {
            System.out.println("Map Evicted:" + event);

        }
    }
}

And now, let's play with the employee "smith" and see how that employee will be listened to.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.IMap;

public class Modify {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
        IMap<String, Employee> map = hz.getMap("map");

        map.put("1", new Employee("smith"));
        map.put("2", new Employee("jordan"));
        System.out.println("done");
        System.exit(0);
    }
}

When you first run the class ContinuousQuery and then run Modify, you will see output similar to the listing below.

entryAdded:EntryEvent {Address[192.168.178.10]:5702} key=1,oldValue=null,
value=Person{name= smith }, event=ADDED, by Member [192.168.178.10]:5702

Adding Interceptors

You can add intercept operations and then execute your own business logic synchronously blocking the operations. You can change the returned value from a get operation, change the value to be put, or cancel operations by throwing an exception.

Interceptors are different from listeners. With listeners, you take an action after the operation has been completed. Interceptor actions are synchronous and you can alter the behavior of operation, change the values, or totally cancel it.

Map interceptors are chained, so adding the same interceptor multiple times to the same map can result in duplicate effects. This can easily happen when the interceptor is added to the map at node initialization, so that each node adds the same interceptor. When you add the interceptor in this way, be sure to implement the hashCode() method to return the same value for every instance of the interceptor. It is not strictly necessary, but it is a good idea to also implement equals() as this will ensure that the map interceptor can be removed reliably.

The IMap API has two methods for adding and removing an interceptor to the map: addInterceptor and removeInterceptor.

/**
 * Adds an interceptor for the map. Added interceptor intercepts operations
 * and executes user defined methods and cancels operations if 
 * user defined methods throw exceptions. 
 *
 * @param interceptor map interceptor.
 * @return id of registered interceptor.
 */
String addInterceptor( MapInterceptor interceptor );

/**
 * Removes the given interceptor for this map. So it does not 
 * intercept operations anymore. 
 *
 * @param id registration ID of the map interceptor.
 */
void removeInterceptor( String id );

Here is the MapInterceptor interface:

public interface MapInterceptor extends Serializable {

  /**
   * Intercept the get operation before it returns a value.
   * Return another object to change the return value of get().
   * Returning null causes the get() operation to return the original value,
   * namely return null if you do not want to change anything.
   * 
   *
   * @param value the original value to be returned as the result of get() operation.
   * @return the new value that is returned by get() operation.
   */
  Object interceptGet( Object value );

  /**
   * Called after get() operation is completed.
   * 
   *
   * @param value the value returned as the result of get() operation.
   */
  void afterGet( Object value );

  /**
   * Intercept put operation before modifying map data.
   * Return the object to be put into the map.
   * Returning null causes the put() operation to operate as expected,
   * namely no interception. Throwing an exception cancels the put operation.
   * 
   *
   * @param oldValue the value currently existing in the map.
   * @param newValue the new value to be put.
   * @return new value after intercept operation.
   */
  Object interceptPut( Object oldValue, Object newValue );

  /**
   * Called after put() operation is completed.
   * 
   *
   * @param value the value returned as the result of put() operation.
   */
  void afterPut( Object value );

  /**
   * Intercept remove operation before removing the data.
   * Return the object to be returned as the result of remove operation.
   * Throwing an exception cancels the remove operation.
   * 
   *
   * @param removedValue the existing value to be removed.
   * @return the value to be returned as the result of remove operation.
   */
  Object interceptRemove( Object removedValue );

  /**
   * Called after remove() operation is completed.
   * 
   *
   * @param value the value returned as the result of remove(.) operation
   */
  void afterRemove( Object value );
}

Example Usage:

public class InterceptorTest {

  @Test
  public void testMapInterceptor() throws InterruptedException {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance1 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance2 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IMap<Object, Object> map = hazelcastInstance1.getMap( "testMapInterceptor" );
    SimpleInterceptor interceptor = new SimpleInterceptor();
    map.addInterceptor( interceptor );
    map.put( 1, "New York" );
    map.put( 2, "Istanbul" );
    map.put( 3, "Tokyo" );
    map.put( 4, "London" );
    map.put( 5, "Paris" );
    map.put( 6, "Cairo" );
    map.put( 7, "Hong Kong" );

    try {
      map.remove( 1 );
    } catch ( Exception ignore ) {
    }
    try {
      map.remove( 2 );
    } catch ( Exception ignore ) {
    }

    assertEquals( map.size(), 6) ;

    assertEquals( map.get( 1 ), null );
    assertEquals( map.get( 2 ), "ISTANBUL:" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 3 ), "TOKYO:" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 4 ), "LONDON:" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 5 ), "PARIS:" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 6 ), "CAIRO:" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 7 ), "HONG KONG:" );

    map.removeInterceptor( interceptor );
    map.put( 8, "Moscow" );

    assertEquals( map.get( 8 ), "Moscow" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 1 ), null );
    assertEquals( map.get( 2 ), "ISTANBUL" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 3 ), "TOKYO" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 4 ), "LONDON" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 5 ), "PARIS" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 6 ), "CAIRO" );
    assertEquals( map.get( 7 ), "HONG KONG" );
  }

  static class SimpleInterceptor implements MapInterceptor, Serializable {

    @Override
    public Object interceptGet( Object value ) {
      if (value == null)
        return null;
      return value + ":";
    }

    @Override
    public void afterGet( Object value ) {
    }

    @Override
    public Object interceptPut( Object oldValue, Object newValue ) {
      return newValue.toString().toUpperCase();
    }

    @Override
    public void afterPut( Object value ) {
    }

    @Override
    public Object interceptRemove( Object removedValue ) {
      if(removedValue.equals( "ISTANBUL" ))
        throw new RuntimeException( "you can not remove this" );
      return removedValue;
    }

    @Override
    public void afterRemove( Object value ) {
      // do something
    }
  }
}

Preventing Out of Memory Exceptions

It is very easy to trigger an out of memory exception (OOME) with query based map methods, especially with large clusters or heap sizes. For example, on a 5 node cluster with 10 GB of data and 25 GB heap size per node, a single call of IMap.entrySet() fetches 50 GB of data and crashes the calling instance.

A call of IMap.values() may return too much data for a single node. This can also happen with a real query and an unlucky choice of predicates, especially when the parameters are chosen by a user of your application.

To prevent this, you can configure a maximum result size limit for query based operations. This is not a limit like SELECT * FROM map LIMIT 100, which you can achieve by a Paging Predicate. A maximum result size limit for query based operations is meant to be a last line of defense to prevent your nodes from retrieving more data than they can handle.

The Hazelcast component which calculates this limit is the QueryResultSizeLimiter.

Setting Query Result Size Limit

If the QueryResultSizeLimiter is activated, it calculates a result size limit per partition. Each QueryOperation runs on all partitions of a node, so it collects result entries as long as the node limit is not exceeded. If that happens, a QueryResultSizeExceededException is thrown and propagated to the calling instance.

This feature depends on an equal distribution of the data on the cluster nodes to calculate the result size limit per node. Therefore, there is a minimum value defined in QueryResultSizeLimiter.MINIMUM_MAX_RESULT_LIMIT. Configured values below the minimum will be increased to the minimum.

Local Pre-check

In addition to the distributed result size check in the QueryOperations, there is a local pre-check on the calling instance. If you call the method from a client, the pre-check is executed on the member which invokes the QueryOperations.

Since the local pre-check can increase the latency of a QueryOperation you can configure how many local partitions should be considered for the pre-check or you can deactivate the feature completely.

Scope of Result Size Limit

Besides the designated query operations, there are other operations which use predicates internally. Those method calls will throw the QueryResultSizeExceededException as well. Please see the following matrix to see the methods that are covered by the query result size limit.

Configuring Query Result Size

The query result size limit is configured via the following system properties.

• hazelcast.query.result.size.limit: Result size limit for query operations on maps. This value defines the maximum number of returned elements for a single query result. If a query exceeds this number of elements, a QueryResultSizeExceededException is thrown.
• hazelcast.query.max.local.partition.limit.for.precheck: Maximum value of local partitions to trigger local pre-check for TruePredicate query operations on maps.

Please refer to the System Properties section to see the full descriptions of these properties and how to set them.

Queue

Hazelcast distributed queue is an implementation of java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue. Being distributed, Hazelcast distributed queue enables all cluster members to interact with it. Using Hazelcast distributed queue, you can add an item in one cluster member and remove it from another one.

Getting a Queue and Putting Items

Use the HazelcastInstance getQueue method to get the queue, then use the queue put method to put items into the queue.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
BlockingQueue<MyTask> queue = hazelcastInstance.getQueue( "tasks" );
queue.put( new MyTask() );
MyTask task = queue.take();

boolean offered = queue.offer( new MyTask(), 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
task = queue.poll( 5, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
if ( task != null ) {
  //process task
}

FIFO ordering will apply to all queue operations across the cluster. User objects (such as MyTask in the example above) that are enqueued or dequeued have to be Serializable.

Hazelcast distributed queue performs no batching while iterating over the queue. All items will be copied locally and iteration will occur locally.

Hazelcast distributed queue uses ItemListener to listen to events which occur when items are added to and removed from the Queue. Please refer to the Listening for Item Events section for information on how to create an item listener class and register it.

Creating an Example Queue

The following example code illustrates a distributed queue that connects a producer and consumer.

Putting Items on the Queue

Let's put one integer on the queue every second, 100 integers total.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.IQueue;

public class ProducerMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IQueue<Integer> queue = hz.getQueue( "queue" );
    for ( int k = 1; k < 100; k++ ) {
      queue.put( k );
      System.out.println( "Producing: " + k );
      Thread.sleep(1000);
    }
    queue.put( -1 );
    System.out.println( "Producer Finished!" );
  }
}

Producer puts a -1 on the queue to show that the put's are finished.

Taking Items off the Queue

Now, let's create a Consumer class to take a message from this queue, as shown below.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.IQueue;

public class ConsumerMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IQueue<Integer> queue = hz.getQueue( "queue" );
    while ( true ) {
      int item = queue.take();
      System.out.println( "Consumed: " + item );
      if ( item == -1 ) {
        queue.put( -1 );
        break;
      }
      Thread.sleep( 5000 );
    }
    System.out.println( "Consumer Finished!" );
  }
}

As seen in the above example code, Consumer waits 5 seconds before it consumes the next message. It stops once it receives -1. Also note that Consumer puts -1 back on the queue before the loop is ended.

When you first start Producer and then start Consumer, items produced on the queue will be consumed from the same queue.

Balancing the Queue Operations

From the above example code, you can see that an item is produced every second, and consumed every 5 seconds. Therefore, the consumer keeps growing. To balance the produce/consume operation, let's start another consumer. By this way, consumption is distributed to these two consumers, as seen in the sample outputs below.

The second consumer is started. After a while, here is the first consumer output:

...
Consumed 13 
Consumed 15
Consumer 17
...

Here is the second consumer output:

...
Consumed 14 
Consumed 16
Consumer 18
...

In the case of a lot of producers and consumers for the queue, using a list of queues may solve the queue bottlenecks. In this case, be aware that the order of the messages sent to different queues is not guaranteed. Since in most cases strict ordering is not important, a list of queues is a good solution.

NOTE: The items are taken from the queue in the same order they were put on the queue. However, if there is more than one consumer, this order is not guaranteed.

Setting a Bounded Queue

A bounded queue is a queue with a limited capacity. When the bounded queue is full, no more items can be put into the queue until some items are taken out.

To turn a Hazelcast distributed queue into a bounded queue, set the capacity limit with the max-size property. You can set the max-size property in the configuration, as shown below. max-size specifies the maximum size of the queue. Once the queue size reaches this value, put operations will be blocked until the queue size goes below max-size, which happens when a consumer removes items from the queue.

Let's set 10 as the maximum size of our example queue in Creating an Example Queue.

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <queue name="queue">
    <max-size>10</max-size>
  </queue>
  ...
</hazelcast>

When the producer is started, 10 items are put into the queue and then the queue will not allow more put operations. When the consumer is started, it will remove items from the queue. This means that the producer can put more items into the queue until there are 10 items in the queue again, at which point put operation again become blocked.

But in this example code, the producer is 5 times faster than the consumer. It will effectively always be waiting for the consumer to remove items before it can put more on the queue. For this example code, if maximum throughput was the goal, it would be a good option to start multiple consumers to prevent the queue from filling up.

Queueing with Persistent Datastore

Hazelcast allows you to load and store the distributed queue items from/to a persistent datastore using the interface QueueStore. If queue store is enabled, each item added to the queue will also be stored at the configured queue store. When the number of items in the queue exceeds the memory limit, the subsequent items are persisted in the queue store, they are not stored in the queue memory.

The QueueStore interface enables you to store, load, and delete queue items with methods like store, storeAll, load and delete. The following example class includes all of the QueueStore methods.

public class TheQueueStore implements QueueStore<Item> {
    @Override
    public void delete(Long key) {
        System.out.println("delete");
    }

    @Override
    public void store(Long key, Item value) {
        System.out.println("store");
    }

    @Override
    public void storeAll(Map<Long, Item> map) {
        System.out.println("store all");
    }

    @Override
    public void deleteAll(Collection<Long> keys) {
        System.out.println("deleteAll");
    }

    @Override
    public Item load(Long key) {
        System.out.println("load");
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public Map<Long, Item> loadAll(Collection<Long> keys) {
        System.out.println("loadAll");
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public Set<Long> loadAllKeys() {
        System.out.println("loadAllKeys");
        return null;
    }

Item must be serializable. Following is an example queue store configuration.

<queue-store>
  <class-name>com.hazelcast.QueueStoreImpl</class-name>
  <properties>
    <property name="binary">false</property>
    <property name="memory-limit">1000</property>
    <property name="bulk-load">500</property>
  </properties>
</queue-store>

Let's explain the queue store properties.

• Binary: By default, Hazelcast stores the queue items in serialized form, and before it inserts the queue items into datastore, it deserializes them. But if you will not reach the queue store from an external application, you might prefer that the items be inserted in binary form. Do this by setting the binary property to true: then you can get rid of the deserialization step, which is a performance optimization. The binary property is false by default.

• Memory Limit: This is the number of items after which Hazelcast will store items only to datastore. For example, if the memory limit is 1000, then the 1001st item will be put only to datastore. This feature is useful when you want to avoid out-of-memory conditions. If you want to always use memory, you can set it to Integer.MAX_VALUE. The default number for memory-limit is 1000.

• Bulk Load: When the queue is initialized, items are loaded from QueueStore in bulks. Bulk load is the size of these bulks. The default value of bulk-load is 250.

Configuring Queue

The following are example queue configurations including the QueueStore configuration which is explained in the Queueing with Persistent Datastore section.

Declarative:

<queue name="default">
    <max-size>0</max-size>
    <backup-count>1</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>0</async-backup-count>
    <empty-queue-ttl>-1</empty-queue-ttl>
    <item-listeners>
       <item-listener>
          com.hazelcast.examples.ItemListener
       </item-listener>
    <item-listeners>
</queue>
<queue-store>
    <class-name>com.hazelcast.QueueStoreImpl</class-name>
    <properties>
       <property name="binary">false</property>
       <property name="memory-limit">10000</property>
       <property name="bulk-load">500</property>
    </properties>
</queue-store>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
QueueConfig queueConfig = config.getQueueConfig();
queueConfig.setName( "MyQueue" ).setBackupCount( "1" )
        .setMaxSize( "0" ).setStatisticsEnabled( "true" );
queueConfig.getQueueStoreConfig()
        .setEnabled ( "true" )
        .setClassName( "com.hazelcast.QueueStoreImpl" )
        .setProperty( "binary", "false" );

Hazelcast distributed queue has one synchronous backup by default. By having this backup, when a cluster member with a queue goes down, another member having the backup of that queue will continue. Therefore, no items are lost. You can define the number of synchronous backups for a queue using the backup-count element in the declarative configuration. A queue can also have asynchronous backups: you can define the number of asynchronous backups using the async-backup-count element.

To set the maximum size of the queue, use the max-size element. To purge unused or empty queues after a period of time, use the empty-queue-ttl element. If you define a value (time in seconds) for the empty-queue-ttl element, then your queue will be destroyed if it stays empty or unused for the time you give.

The following are the full list of elements with their descriptions.

• max-size: Maximum number of items in the Queue.
• backup-count: Number of synchronous backups. Queue is a non-partitioned data structure, so all entries of a Queue resides in one partition. When this parameter is '1', it means there will be 1 backup of that Queue in another member in the cluster. When it is '2', 2 members will have the backup.
• async-backup-count: Number of asynchronous backups.
• empty-queue-ttl: Used to purge unused or empty queues. If you define a value (time in seconds) for this element, then your queue will be destroyed if it stays empty or unused for that time.
• item-listeners: Lets you add listeners (listener classes) for the queue items. You can also set the attribute include-value to true if you want the item event to contain the item values, and you can set local to true if you want to listen to the items on the local node (member).
• queue-store: Includes the queue store factory class name and the properties binary, memory limit and bulk load. Please refer to Queueing with Persistent Datastore.
• statistics-enabled: If set to true, you can retrieve statistics for this Queue using the method getLocalQueueStats().

MultiMap

Hazelcast MultiMap is a specialized map where you can store multiple values under a single key. Just like any other distributed data structure implementation in Hazelcast, MultiMap is distributed and thread-safe.

Hazelcast MultiMap is not an implementation of java.util.Map due to the difference in method signatures. It supports most features of Hazelcast Map except for indexing, predicates and MapLoader/MapStore. Yet, like Hazelcast Map, entries are almost evenly distributed onto all cluster members. When a new member joins the cluster, the same ownership logic used in the distributed map applies.

Getting a MultiMap and Putting an Entry

The following example creates a MultiMap and puts items into it. Use the HazelcastInstance getMultiMap method to get the MultiMap, then use the MultiMap put method to put an entry into the MultiMap.

public class PutMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    MultiMap <String , String > map = hazelcastInstance.getMultiMap( "map" );

    map.put( "a", "1" );
    map.put( "a", "2" );
    map.put( "b", "3" ); 
    System.out.println( "PutMember:Done" );
  }
}

Now let's print the entries in this MultiMap.

public class PrintMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) { 
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    MultiMap <String, String > map = hazelcastInstance.getMultiMap( "map" );
    for ( String key : map.keySet() ){
      Collection <String > values = map.get( key );
      System.out.println( "%s -> %s\n",key, values );
    }
  }
}

After you run the first code sample, run the PrintMember sample. You will see the key a has two values, as shown below.

b -> [3]

a -> [2, 1]

Hazelcast MultiMap uses EntryListener to listen to events which occur when entries are added to, updated in or removed from the MultiMap. Please refer to the Listening for MultiMap Events section for information on how to create an entry listener class and register it.

Configuring MultiMap

When using MultiMap, the collection type of the values can be either Set or List. You configure the collection type with the valueCollectionType parameter. If you choose Set, duplicate and null values are not allowed in your collection and ordering is irrelevant. If you choose List, ordering is relevant and your collection can include duplicate and null values.

You can also enable statistics for your MultiMap with the statisticsEnabled parameter. If you enable statisticsEnabled, statistics can be retrieved with getLocalMultiMapStats() method.

NOTE: Currently, eviction is not supported for the MultiMap data structure.

The following are the example MultiMap configurations.

Declarative:

<hazelcast>
  <multimap name="default">
    <backup-count>0</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>1</async-backup-count>
    <value-collection-type>SET</value-collection-type>
    <entry-listeners>
        <entry-listener include-value="false" local="false">
           com.hazelcast.examples.EntryListener
        </entry-listener>
    </entry-listeners>   
  </map>
</hazelcast>

Programmatic:

MultiMapConfig mmConfig = new MultiMapConfig();
mmConfig.setName( "default" );

mmConfig.setBackupCount( "0" ).setAsyncBackupCount( "1" );

mmConfig.setValueCollectionType( "SET" );

The following are the configuration elements and their descriptions:

• backup-count: Defines the number of asynchronous backups. For example, if it is set to 1, backup of a partition will be placed on 1 other member. If it is 2, it will be placed on 2 other members.
• async-backup-count: The number of synchronous backups. Behavior is the same as that of the backup-count element.
• statistics-enabled: You can retrieve some statistics like owned entry count, backup entry count, last update time, locked entry count by setting this parameter's value as "true". The method for retrieving the statistics is getLocalMultiMapStats().
• value-collection-type: Type of the value collection. It can be Set or List.
• entry-listeners: Lets you add listeners (listener classes) for the map entries. You can also set the attribute include-value to true if you want the item event to contain the entry values, and you can set local to true if you want to listen to the entries on the local node.

Set

Hazelcast Set is a distributed and concurrent implementation of java.util.Set.

• Hazelcast Set does not allow duplicate elements.
• Hazelcast Set does not preserve the order of elements.
• Hazelcast Set is a non-partitioned data structure: all the data that belongs to a set will live on one single partition in that member.
• Hazelcast Set cannot be scaled beyond the capacity of a single machine. Since the whole set lives on a single partition, storing large amount of data on a single set may cause memory pressure. Therefore, you should use multiple sets to store large amount of data; this way, all the sets will be spread across the cluster, hence sharing the load.
• A backup of Hazelcast Set is stored on a partition of another member in the cluster so that data is not lost in the event of a primary member failure.
• All items are copied to the local member and iteration occurs locally.
• The equals method implemented in Hazelcast Set uses a serialized byte version of objects, as opposed to java.util.HashSet.

Getting a Set and Putting Items

Use the HazelcastInstance getSet method to get the Set, then use the set put method to put items into the Set.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.Iterator;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

Set<Price> set = hazelcastInstance.getSet( "IBM-Quote-History" );
set.add( new Price( 10, time1 ) );
set.add( new Price( 11, time2 ) );
set.add( new Price( 12, time3 ) );
set.add( new Price( 11, time4 ) );
//....
Iterator<Price> iterator = set.iterator();
while ( iterator.hasNext() ) { 
  Price price = iterator.next(); 
  //analyze
}

Hazelcast Set uses ItemListener to listen to events that occur when items are added to and removed from the Set. Please refer to the Listening for Item Events section for information on how to create an item listener class and register it.

Configuring Set

The following are the example set configurations.

Declarative:

<set name="default">
   <backup-count>1</backup-count>
   <async-backup-count>0</async-backup-count>
   <max-size>10</max-size>
   <item-listeners>
      <item-listener>
          com.hazelcast.examples.ItemListener
      </item-listener>
   <item-listeners>
</set>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
CollectionConfig collectionSet = config.getCollectionConfig();
collectionSet.setName( "MySet" ).setBackupCount( "1" )
        .setMaxSize( "10" );

Set configuration has the following elements.

• statistics-enabled: True (default) if statistics gathering is enabled on the set, false otherwise.
• backup-count: Count of synchronous backups. Set is a non-partitioned data structure, so all entries of a Set reside in one partition. When this parameter is '1', it means there will be 1 backup of that Set in another member in the cluster. When it is '2', 2 members will have the backup.
• async-backup-count: Count of asynchronous backups.
• max-size: The maximum number of entries for this Set.
• item-listeners: Lets you add listeners (listener classes) for the list items. You can also set the attributes include-value to true if you want the item event to contain the item values, and you can set local to true if you want to listen to the items on the local member.

List

Hazelcast List is similar to Hazelcast Set, but Hazelcast List also allows duplicate elements.

• Besides allowing duplicate elements, Hazelcast List preserves the order of elements.
• Hazelcast List is a non-partitioned data structure where values and each backup are represented by their own single partition.
• Hazelcast List cannot be scaled beyond the capacity of a single machine.
• All items are copied to local and iteration occurs locally.

Getting a List and Putting Items

Use the HazelcastInstance getList method to get the list, then use the list put method to put items into the List.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Iterator;

HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

List<Price> list = hz.getList( "IBM-Quote-Frequency" );
list.add( new Price( 10 ) );
list.add( new Price( 11 ) );
list.add( new Price( 12 ) );
list.add( new Price( 11 ) );
list.add( new Price( 12 ) );

//....
Iterator<Price> iterator = list.iterator();
while ( iterator.hasNext() ) { 
  Price price = iterator.next(); 
  //analyze
}

Hazelcast List uses ItemListener to listen to events which occur when items are added to and removed from the List. Please refer to the Listening for Item Events section for information on how to create an item listener class and register it.

Configuring List

The following are example list configurations.

Declarative:

<list name="default">
   <backup-count>1</backup-count>
   <async-backup-count>0</async-backup-count>
   <max-size>10</max-size>
   <item-listeners>
      <item-listener>
          com.hazelcast.examples.ItemListener
      </item-listener>
   </item-listeners>
</list>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
CollectionConfig collectionList = config.getCollectionConfig();
collectionList.setName( "MyList" ).setBackupCount( "1" )
        .setMaxSize( "10" );

List configuration has the following elements.

• statistics-enabled: True (default) if statistics gathering is enabled on the list, false otherwise.
• backup-count: Number of synchronous backups. List is a non-partitioned data structure, so all entries of a List reside in one partition. When this parameter is '1', there will be 1 backup of that List in another member in the cluster. When it is '2', 2 members will have the backup.
• async-backup-count: Number of asynchronous backups.
• max-size: The maximum number of entries for this List.
• item-listeners: Lets you add listeners (listener classes) for the list items. You can also set the attribute include-value to true if you want the item event to contain the item values, and you can set the attribute local to true if you want to listen the items on the local member.

Ringbuffer

Hazelcast Ringbuffer is a distributed data structure that stores its data in a ring-like structure. You can think of it as a circular array with a given capacity. Each Ringbuffer has a tail and a head. The tail is where the items are added and the head is where the items are overwritten or expired. You can reach each element in a Ringbuffer using a sequence ID, which is mapped to the elements between the head and tail (inclusive) of the Ringbuffer.

Getting a Ringbuffer and Reading Items

Reading from Ringbuffer is simple: get the Ringbuffer with the HazelcastInstance getRingbuffer method, get its current head with the headSequence method, and start reading. Use the method readOne to return the item at the given sequence; readOne blocks if no item is available. To read the next item, increment the sequence by one.

Ringbuffer<String> ringbuffer = hz.getRingbuffer("rb");
long sequence = ringbuffer.headSequence();
while(true){
    String item = ringbuffer.readOne(sequence);
    sequence++;
    ... process item
}

By exposing the sequence, you can now move the item from the Ringbuffer as long as the item is still available. If the item is not available any longer, StaleSequenceException is thrown.

Adding Items to a Ringbuffer

Adding an item to a Ringbuffer is also easy with the Ringbuffer add method:

Ringbuffer<String> ringbuffer = hz.getRingbuffer("rb");
ringbuffer.add("someitem")

Use the method add to return the sequence of the inserted item; the sequence value will always be unique. You can use this as a very cheap way of generating unique IDs if you are already using Ringbuffer.

IQueue vs. Ringbuffer

Hazelcast Ringbuffer can sometimes be a better alternative than an Hazelcast IQueue. Unlike IQueue, Ringbuffer does not remove the items, it only reads items using a certain position. There are many advantages to this approach:

• The same item can be read multiple times by the same thread; this is useful for realizing semantics of read-at-least-once or read-at-most-once.
• The same item can be read by multiple threads. Normally you could use an IQueue per thread for the same semantic, but this is less efficient because of the increased remoting. A take from an IQueue is destructive, so the change needs to be applied for backup also, which is why a queue.take() is more expensive than a ringBuffer.read(...).
• Reads are extremely cheap since there is no change in the Ringbuffer, therefore no replication is required.
• Reads and writes can be batched to speed up performance. Batching can dramatically improve the performance of Ringbuffer.

Configuring Ringbuffer Capacity

By default, a Ringbuffer is configured with a capacity of 10000 items. This creates an array with a size of 10000. If a time-to-live is configured, then an array of longs is also created that stores the expiration time for every item. In a lot of cases, you may want to change this capacity number to something that better fits your needs.

Below is a declarative configuration example of a Ringbuffer with a capacity of 2000 items.

<ringbuffer name="rb">
    <capacity>2000</capacity>
</ringbuffer>

Currently, Hazelcast Ringbuffer is not a partitioned data structure; its data is stored in a single partition and the replicas are stored in another partition. Therefore, create a Ringbuffer that can safely fit in a single cluster member.

Backing Up Ringbuffer

Hazelcast Ringbuffer has 1 single synchronous backup by default. You can control the Ringbuffer backup just like most of the other Hazelcast distributed data structures by setting the synchronous and asynchronous backups: backup-count and async-backup-count. In the example below, a Ringbuffer is configured with 0 synchronous backups and 1 asynchronous backup:

<ringbuffer name="rb">
    <backup-count>0</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>1</async-backup-count>
</ringbuffer>

An asynchronous backup will probably give you better performance. However, there is a chance that the item added will be lost when the member owning the primary crashes before the backup could complete. You may want to consider batching methods if you need high performance but do not want to give up on consistency.

Configuring Ringbuffer Time To Live

You can configure Hazelcast Ringbuffer with a time to live in seconds. Using this setting, you can control how long the items remain in the Ringbuffer before they are expired. By default, the time to live is set to 0, meaning that unless the item is overwritten, it will remain in the Ringbuffer indefinitely. If you set a time to live and an item is added, then depending on the Overflow Policy, either the oldest item is overwritten, or the call is rejected.

In the example below, a Ringbuffer is configured with a time to live of 180 seconds.

<ringbuffer name="rb">
    <time-to-live-seconds>180</time-to-live-seconds>
</ringbuffer>

Setting Ringbuffer Overflow Policy

Using the overflow policy, you can determine what to do if the oldest item in the Ringbuffer is not old enough to expire when more items than the configured Ringbuffer capacity are being added. The below options are currently available.

• OverflowPolicy.OVERWRITE: The oldest item is overwritten.
• OverflowPolicy.FAIL: The call is aborted. The methods that make use of the OverflowPolicy return -1 to indicate that adding the item has failed.

Overflow policy gives you fine control on what to do if the Ringbuffer is full. You can also use the overflow policy to apply a back pressure mechanism. The following example code shows the usage of an exponential backoff.

long sleepMs = 100;
for (; ; ) {
    long result = ringbuffer.addAsync(item, OverflowPolicy.FAIL).get();
    if (result != -1) {
        break;
    }

    TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.sleep(sleepMs);
    sleepMs = min(5000, sleepMs * 2);
}

Configuring Ringbuffer In-Memory Format

You can configure Hazelcast Ringbuffer with an in-memory format which controls the format of the Ringbuffer's stored items. By default, BINARY in-memory format is used, meaning that the object is stored in a serialized form. You can select the OBJECT in-memory format, which is useful when filtering is applied or when the OBJECT in-memory format has a smaller memory footprint than BINARY.

In the declarative configuration example below, a Ringbuffer is configured with the OBJECT in-memory format:

<ringbuffer name="rb">
    <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
</ringbuffer>

Adding Batched Items

In the previous examples, the method ringBuffer.add() is used to add an item to the Ringbuffer. The problem with this method is that it always overwrites and that it does not support batching. Batching can have a huge impact on the performance. You can use the method addAllAsync to support batching.

Please see the following example code.

List<String> items = Arrays.asList("1","2","3");
ICompletableFuture<Long> f = rb.addAllAsync(items, OverflowPolicy.OVERWRITE);
f.get()

In the above case, three strings are added to the Ringbuffer using the policy OverflowPolicy.OVERWRITE. Please see the Overflow Policy section for more information.

Reading Batched Items

In the previous example, the readOne method read items from the Ringbuffer. readOne is simple but not very efficient for the following reasons:

• readOne does not use batching.
• readOne cannot filter items at the source; the items need to be retrieved before being filtered.

The method readManyAsync can read a batch of items and can filter items at the source.

Please see the following example code.

ICompletableFuture<ReadResultSet<E>> readManyAsync(
   long startSequence, 
   int minCount,                                              
   int maxCount, 
   IFunction<E, Boolean> filter);

The meanings of the readManyAsync arguments are given below.

• startSequence: Sequence of the first item to read.
• minCount: Minimum number of items to read. If you do not want to block, set it to 0. If you want to block for at least one item, set it to 1.
• maxCount: Maximum number of the items to retrieve. Its value cannot exceed 1000.
• filter: A function that accepts an item and checks if it should be returned. If no filtering should be applied, set it to null.

A full example is given below.

long sequence = rb.headSequence();
for(;;) {
    ICompletableFuture<ReadResultSet<String>> f = rb.readManyAsync(sequence, 1, 10, null);
    ReadResultSet<String> rs = f.get();
    for (String s : rs) {
        System.out.println(s);
    }
    sequence+=rs.readCount();
}

Please take a careful look at how your sequence is being incremented. You cannot always rely on the number of items being returned if the items are filtered out.

Using Async Methods

Hazelcast Ringbuffer provides asynchronous methods for more powerful operations like batched writing or batched reading with filtering. To make these methods synchronous, just call the method get() on the returned future.

Please see the following example code.

ICompletableFuture f = ringbuffer.addAsync(item, OverflowPolicy.FAIL);
f.get();

However, you can also use ICompletableFuture to get notified when the operation has completed. The advantage of ICompletableFuture is that the thread used for the call is not blocked till the response is returned.

Please see the below code as an example of when you want to get notified when a batch of reads has completed.

ICompletableFuture<ReadResultSet<String>> f = rb.readManyAsync(sequence, min, max, someFilter);
f.andThen(new ExecutionCallback<ReadResultSet<String>>() {
   @Override
   public void onResponse(ReadResultSet<String> response) {
        for (String s : response) {
            System.out.println("Received:" + s);
        }
   }

   @Override
   public void onFailure(Throwable t) {
        t.printStackTrace();
   }
});

Ringbuffer Configuration Examples

The following shows the declarative configuration of a Ringbuffer called rb. The configuration is modeled after the Ringbuffer defaults.

<ringbuffer name="rb">
    <capacity>10000</capacity>
    <backup-count>1</backup-count>
    <async-backup-count>0</async-backup-count>
    <time-to-live-seconds>0</time-to-live-seconds>
    <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
</ringbuffer>

You can also configure a Ringbuffer programmatically. The following is a programmatic version of the above declarative configuration.

RingbufferConfig rbConfig = new RingbufferConfig("rb")
    .setCapacity(10000)
    .setBackupCount(1)
    .setAsyncBackupCount(0)
    .setTimeToLiveSeconds(0)
    .setInMemoryFormat(InMemoryFormat.BINARY);
Config config = new Config();
config.addRingbufferConfig(rbConfig);

Topic

Hazelcast provides a distribution mechanism for publishing messages that are delivered to multiple subscribers. This is also known as a publish/subscribe (pub/sub) messaging model. Publishing and subscribing operations are cluster wide. When a member subscribes to a topic, it is actually registering for messages published by any member in the cluster, including the new members that joined after you add the listener.

NOTE: Publish operation is async. It does not wait for operations to run in remote members, it works as fire and forget.

Getting a Topic and Publishing Messages

Use the HazelcastInstance getTopic method to get the Topic, then use the topic publish method to publish your messages (messageObject).

import com.hazelcast.core.Topic;
import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.MessageListener;

public class Sample implements MessageListener<MyEvent> {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    Sample sample = new Sample();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ITopic topic = hazelcastInstance.getTopic( "default" );
    topic.addMessageListener( sample );
    topic.publish( new MyEvent() );
  }

  public void onMessage( Message<MyEvent> message ) {
    MyEvent myEvent = message.getMessageObject();
    System.out.println( "Message received = " + myEvent.toString() );
    if ( myEvent.isHeavyweight() ) {
      messageExecutor.execute( new Runnable() {
          public void run() {
            doHeavyweightStuff( myEvent );
          }
      } );
    }
  }

  // ...

  private final Executor messageExecutor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
}

Hazelcast Topic uses the MessageListener interface to listen for events that occur when a message is received. Please refer to the Listening for Topic Messages section for information on how to create a message listener class and register it.

Getting Topic Statistics

Topic has two statistic variables that you can query. These values are incremental and local to the member.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
ITopic<Object> myTopic = hazelcastInstance.getTopic( "myTopicName" );

myTopic.getLocalTopicStats().getPublishOperationCount();
myTopic.getLocalTopicStats().getReceiveOperationCount();

getPublishOperationCount and getReceiveOperationCount returns the total number of published and received messages since the start of this node, respectively. Please note that these values are not backed up, so if the node goes down, these values will be lost.

You can disable this feature with topic configuration. Please see the Configuring Topic section.

NOTE: These statistics values can be also viewed in Management Center. Please see Monitoring Topics.

Understanding Topic Behavior

Each cluster member has a list of all registrations in the cluster. When a new member is registered for a topic, it sends a registration message to all members in the cluster. Also, when a new member joins the cluster, it will receive all registrations made so far in the cluster.

The behavior of a topic varies depending on the value of the configuration parameter globalOrderEnabled.

Ordering Messages as Published

If globalOrderEnabled is disabled, messages are ordered: listeners (subscribers) process the messages in the order that the messages are published. If cluster member M publishes messages m1, m2, m3, ..., mn to a topic T, then Hazelcast makes sure that all of the subscribers of topic T will receive and process m1, m2, m3, ..., mn in the given order.

Here is how it works. Let's say that we have three members (member1, member2 and member3) and that member1 and member2 are registered to a topic named news. Note that all three members know that member1 and member2 are registered to news.

In this example, member1 publishes two messages: a1 and a2, and member3 publishes two messages: c1 and c2. When member1 and member3 publish a message, they will check their local list for registered members, and they will discover that member1 and member2 are in their lists, then they will fire messages to those members. One possible order of the messages received can be the following.

member1 -> c1, b1, a2, c2

member2 -> c1, c2, a1, a2

Ordering Messages for Members

If globalOrderEnabled is enabled, all members listening to the same topic will get its messages in the same order.

Here is how it works. Let's say that we have three members (member1, member2 and member3) and that member1 and member2 are registered to a topic named news. Note that all three members know that member1 and member2 are registered to news.

In this example, member1 publishes two messages: a1 and a2, and member3 publishes two messages: c1 and c2. When a member publishes messages over the topic news, it first calculates which partition the news ID corresponds to. Then it sends an operation to the owner of the partition for that member to publish messages. Let's assume that news corresponds to a partition that member2 owns. member1 and member3 first sends all messages to member2. Assume that the messages are published in the following order:

member1 -> a1, c1, a2, c2

member2 then publishes these messages by looking at registrations in its local list. It sends these messages to member1 and member2 (it makes a local dispatch for itself).

member1 -> a1, c1, a2, c2

member2 -> a1, c1, a2, c2

This way, we guarantee that all members will see the events in the same order.

Keeping Generated and Published Order the Same

In both cases, there is a StripedExecutor in EventService that is responsible for dispatching the received message. For all events in Hazelcast, the order that events are generated and the order they are published to the user are guaranteed to be the same via this StripedExecutor.

In StripedExecutor, there are as many threads as are specified in the property hazelcast.event.thread.count (default is 5). For a specific event source (for a particular topic name), hash of that source's name % 5 gives the ID of the responsible thread. Note that there can be another event source (entry listener of a map, item listener of a collection, etc.) corresponding to the same thread. In order not to make other messages to block, heavy processing should not be done in this thread. If there is time consuming work that needs to be done, the work should be handed over to another thread. Please see the Getting a Topic and Publishing Messages section.

Configuring Topic

To configure a topic, set the topic name, decide on statistics and global ordering, and set message listeners. Default values are:

• global-ordering is false, meaning that by default, there is no guarantee of global order.
• statistics is true, meaning that by default, statistics are calculated.

You can see the example configuration snippets below.

Declarative:

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <topic name="yourTopicName">
    <global-ordering-enabled>true</global-ordering-enabled>
    <statistics-enabled>true</statistics-enabled>
    <message-listeners>
      <message-listener>MessageListenerImpl</message-listener>
    </message-listeners>
  </topic>
  ...
</hazelcast>

Programmatic:

TopicConfig topicConfig = new TopicConfig();
topicConfig.setGlobalOrderingEnabled( true );
topicConfig.setStatisticsEnabled( true );
topicConfig.setName( "yourTopicName" );
MessageListener<String> implementation = new MessageListener<String>() {
  @Override
  public void onMessage( Message<String> message ) {
    // process the message
  }
};
topicConfig.addMessageListenerConfig( new ListenerConfig( implementation ) );
HazelcastInstance instance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance()

Topic configuration has the following elements.

• statistics-enabled: Default is true, meaning statistics are calculated.
• global-ordering-enabled: Default is false, meaning there is no global order guarantee.
• message-listeners: Lets you add listeners (listener classes) for the topic messages.

Besides the above elements, there are the following system properties that are topic related but not topic specific:

• hazelcast.event.queue.capacity with a default value of 1,000,000
• hazelcast.event.queue.timeout.millis with a default value of 250
• hazelcast.event.thread.count with a default value of 5

For a description of these parameters, please see the Global Event Configuration section.

Reliable Topic

The Reliable Topic data structure has been introduced with the release of Hazelcast 3.5. The Reliable Topic uses the same ITopic interface as a regular topic. The main difference is that Reliable Topic is backed up by the Ringbuffer (also introduced with Hazelcast 3.5) data structure. The following are the advantages of this approach:

• Events are not lost since the Ringbuffer is configured with 1 synchronous backup by default.
• Each Reliable ITopic gets its own Ringbuffer; if there is a topic with a very fast producer, it will not lead to problems at the topic that runs at a slower pace.
• Since the event system behind a regular ITopic is shared with other data structures (e.g. collection listeners), you can run into isolation problems. This does not happen with the Reliable ITopic.

Sample Reliable ITopic Code

import com.hazelcast.core.Topic;
import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.MessageListener;

public class Sample implements MessageListener<MyEvent> {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    Sample sample = new Sample();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ITopic topic = hazelcastInstance.getReliableTopic( "default" );
    topic.addMessageListener( sample );
    topic.publish( new MyEvent() );
  }

  public void onMessage( Message<MyEvent> message ) {
    MyEvent myEvent = message.getMessageObject();
    System.out.println( "Message received = " + myEvent.toString() );
  }
}

You can configure the Reliable ITopic using its Ringbuffer. If there is a Reliable Topic with the name Foo, then you can configure this topic by adding a ReliableTopicConfig for a Ringbuffer with the name Foo. By default, a Ringbuffer does not have any TTL (time to live) and it has a limited capacity; you may want to change that configuration.

By default, the Reliable ITopic uses a shared thread pool. If you need better isolation, you can configure a custom executor on the ReliableTopicConfig.

Because the reads on a Ringbuffer are not destructive, it is easy to apply batching. ITopic uses read batching and reads 10 items at a time (if available) by default.

Slow Consumers

The Reliable ITopic provides control and a way to deal with slow consumers. It is unwise to keep events for a slow consumer in memory indefinitely since you do not know when it is going to catch up. You can control the size of the Ringbuffer by using its capacity. For the cases when a Ringbuffer runs out of its capacity, you can specify the following policies for the TopicOverloadPolicy configuration:

• DISCARD_OLDEST: Overwrite the oldest item, no matter if a TTL is set. In this case the fast producer supersedes a slow consumer
• DISCARD_NEWEST: Discard the newest item.
• BLOCK: Wait until the items are expired in the Ringbuffer.
• FAIL: Immediately throw TopicOverloadException if there is no space in the Ringbuffer.

Configuring Reliable Topic

The following are example Reliable Topic configurations.

Declarative:

<reliable-topic name="default">
    <statistics-enabled>true</statistics-enabled>
    <message-listeners>
        <message-listener>
        ...
        </message-listener>
    </message-listeners>
    <read-batch-size>10</read-batch-size>
    <topic-overload-policy>BLOCK</topic-overload-policy>
</reliable-topic>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
ReliableTopicConfig rtConfig = config.getReliableTopicConfig();
rtConfig.setTopicOverloadPolicy( TopicOverloadPolicy.BLOCK )
        .setReadBatchSize( 10 )
        .setStatisticsEnabled( true );

Reliable Topic configuration has the following elements.

• statistics-enabled: Enables or disables the statistics collection for the Reliable Topic. The default value is true.
• message-listener: Message listener class that listens to the messages when they are added or removed.
• read-batch-size: Minimum number of messages that Reliable Topic will try to read in batches. The default value is 10.
• topic-overload-policy: Policy to handle an overloaded topic. Available values are DISCARD_OLDEST, DISCARD_NEWEST, BLOCK and ERROR. The default value is `BLOCK.

Lock

ILock is the distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.locks.Lock. Meaning if you lock using an ILock, the critical section that it guards is guaranteed to be executed by only one thread in the entire cluster. Even though locks are great for synchronization, they can lead to problems if not used properly. Also note that Hazelcast Lock does not support fairness.

Using Try-Catch Blocks with Locks

Always use locks with try-catch blocks. It will ensure that locks will be released if an exception is thrown from the code in a critical section. Also note that the lock method is outside the try-catch block, because we do not want to unlock if the lock operation itself fails.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.Lock;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
Lock lock = hazelcastInstance.getLock( "myLock" );
lock.lock();
try {
  // do something here
} finally {
  lock.unlock();
}

Releasing Locks with tryLock Timeout

If a lock is not released in the cluster, another thread that is trying to get the lock can wait forever. To avoid this, use tryLock with a timeout value. You can set a high value (normally it should not take that long) for tryLock. You can check the return value of tryLock as follows:

if ( lock.tryLock ( 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS ) ) {
  try {  
    // do some stuff here..  
  } finally {  
    lock.unlock();  
  }   
} else {
  // warning
}

Avoiding Waiting Threads with Lease Time

You can also avoid indefinitely waiting threads by using lock with lease time: the lock will be released in the given lease time. Lock can be safely unlocked before the lease time expires. Note that the unlock operation can throw an IllegalMonitorStateException if the lock is released because the lease time expires. If that is the case, critical section guarantee is broken.

Please see the below example.

lock.lock( 5, TimeUnit.SECONDS )
try {
  // do some stuff here..
} finally {
  try {
    lock.unlock();
  } catch ( IllegalMonitorStateException ex ){
    // WARNING Critical section guarantee can be broken
  }
}

You can also specify a lease time when trying to acquire a lock: tryLock(time, unit, leaseTime, leaseUnit). In that case, it tries to acquire the lock within the specified lease time. If the lock is not available, the current thread becomes disabled for thread scheduling purposes until either it acquires the lock or the specified waiting time elapses.

Understanding Lock Behavior

• Locks are fail-safe. If a member holds a lock and some other members go down, the cluster will keep your locks safe and available. Moreover, when a member leaves the cluster, all the locks acquired by that dead member will be removed so that those locks are immediately available for live members.

• Locks are re-entrant: the same thread can lock multiple times on the same lock. Note that for other threads to be able to require this lock, the owner of the lock must call unlock as many times as the owner called lock.

• In the split-brain scenario, the cluster behaves as if it were two different clusters. Since two separate clusters are not aware of each other, two nodes from different clusters can acquire the same lock. For more information on places where split brain syndrome can be handled, please see split brain syndrome.

• Locks are not automatically removed. If a lock is not used anymore, Hazelcast will not automatically garbage collect the lock. This can lead to an OutOfMemoryError. If you create locks on the fly, make sure they are destroyed.

• Hazelcast IMap also provides locking support on the entry level with the method IMap.lock(key). Although the same infrastructure is used, IMap.lock(key) is not an ILock and it is not possible to expose it directly.

Synchronizing Threads with ICondition

ICondition is the distributed implementation of the notify, notifyAll and wait operations on the Java object. You can use it to synchronize threads across the cluster. More specifically, you use ICondition when a thread's work depends on another thread's output. A good example can be producer/consumer methodology.

Please see the below code examples for a producer/consumer implementation.

Producer thread:

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
Lock lock = hazelcastInstance.getLock( "myLockId" );
ICondition condition = lock.newCondition( "myConditionId" );

lock.lock();
try {
  while ( !shouldProduce() ) {
    condition.await(); // frees the lock and waits for signal
                       // when it wakes up it re-acquires the lock
                       // if available or waits for it to become
                       // available
  }
  produce();
  condition.signalAll();
} finally {
  lock.unlock();
}

NOTE: The method await() takes time value and time unit as arguments. If you specify a negative value for the time, it is interpreted as infinite.

Consumer thread:

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
Lock lock = hazelcastInstance.getLock( "myLockId" );
ICondition condition = lock.newCondition( "myConditionId" );

lock.lock();
try {
  while ( !canConsume() ) {
    condition.await(); // frees the lock and waits for signal
                       // when it wakes up it re-acquires the lock if 
                       // available or waits for it to become
                       // available
  }
  consume();
  condition.signalAll();
} finally {
  lock.unlock();
}

IAtomicLong

Hazelcast IAtomicLong is the distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong. It offers most of AtomicLong's operations such as get, set, getAndSet, compareAndSet and incrementAndGet. Since IAtomicLong is a distributed implementation, these operations involve remote calls and hence their performances differ from AtomicLong.

The following example code creates an instance, increments it by a million, and prints the count.

public class Member {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();     
    IAtomicLong counter = hazelcastInstance.getAtomicLong( "counter" );
    for ( int k = 0; k < 1000 * 1000; k++ ) {
      if ( k % 500000 == 0 ) {
        System.out.println( "At: " + k );
      }
      counter.incrementAndGet();
    }
    System.out.printf( "Count is %s\n", counter.get() );
  }
}

When you start other instances with the code above, you will see the count as member count times a million.

Sending Functions to IAtomicLong

You can send functions to an IAtomicLong. Function is a Hazelcast owned, single method interface. The following sample Function implementation doubles the original value.

private static class Add2Function implements Function <Long, Long> { 
  @Override
  public Long apply( Long input ) { 
    return input + 2;
  }
}

Executing Functions on IAtomicLong

You can use the following methods to execute functions on IAtomicLong.

• apply: It applies the function to the value in IAtomicLong without changing the actual value and returning the result.
• alter: It alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function. It will not send back a result.
• alterAndGet: It alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function, storing the result in the IAtomicLong and returning the result.
• getAndAlter: It alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function and returning the original value.

The following sample code includes these methods.

public class Member {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();         
    IAtomicLong atomicLong = hazelcastInstance.getAtomicLong( "counter" );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    long result = atomicLong.apply( new Add2Function() );         
    System.out.println( "apply.result: " + result);         
    System.out.println( "apply.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    atomicLong.alter( new Add2Function() );             
    System.out.println( "alter.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    result = atomicLong.alterAndGet( new Add2Function() );         
    System.out.println( "alterAndGet.result: " + result );         
    System.out.println( "alterAndGet.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    result = atomicLong.getAndAlter( new Add2Function() );         
    System.out.println( "getAndAlter.result: " + result );         
    System.out.println( "getAndAlter.value: " + atomicLong.get() );
  }
}

Reasons to Use Functions with IAtomic

The reason for using a function instead of a simple code line like atomicLong.set(atomicLong.get() + 2)); is that the IAtomicLong read and write operations are not atomic. Since IAtomicLong is a distributed implementation, those operations can be remote ones, which may lead to race problems. By using functions, the data is not pulled into the code, but the code is sent to the data. This makes it more scalable.

NOTE: IAtomicLong has 1 synchronous backup and no asynchronous backups. Its backup count is not configurable.

ISemaphore

Hazelcast ISemaphore is the distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.Semaphore.

Controlling Thread Counts with Semaphore Permits

Semaphores offer permits to control the thread counts in the case of performing concurrent activities. To execute a concurrent activity, a thread grants a permit or waits until a permit becomes available. When the execution is completed, the permit is released.

NOTE: Semaphore with a single permit may be considered as a lock. But unlike the locks, when semaphores are used, any thread can release the permit and semaphores can have multiple permits.

NOTE: Hazelcast Semaphore does not support fairness.

When a permit is acquired on ISemaphore:

• if there are permits, the number of permits in the semaphore is decreased by one and the calling thread performs its activity. If there is contention, the longest waiting thread will acquire the permit before all other threads.
• if no permits are available, the calling thread blocks until a permit becomes available. When a timeout happens during this block, the thread is interrupted. In the case where the semaphore is destroyed, an InstanceDestroyedException is thrown.

Example Semaphore Code

The following example code uses an IAtomicLong resource 1000 times, increments the resource when a thread starts to use it, and decrements it when the thread completes.

public class SemaphoreMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception{
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(); 
    ISemaphore semaphore = hazelcastInstance.getSemaphore( "semaphore" ); 
    IAtomicLong resource = hazelcastInstance.getAtomicLong( "resource" ); 
    for ( int k = 0 ; k < 1000 ; k++ ) {
      System.out.println( "At iteration: " + k + ", Active Threads: " + resource.get() );
      semaphore.acquire();
      try {
        resource.incrementAndGet();
        Thread.sleep( 1000 );
        resource.decrementAndGet();
      } finally { 
        semaphore.release();
      }
    }
    System.out.println("Finished");
  }
}

Let's limit the concurrent access to this resource by allowing at most 3 threads. You can configure it declaratively by setting the initial-permits property, as shown below.

<semaphore name="semaphore"> 
  <initial-permits>3</initial-permits>
</semaphore>

NOTE: If there is a shortage of permits while the semaphore is being created, value of this property can be set to a negative number.

If you execute the above SemaphoreMember class 5 times, the output will be similar to the following:

At iteration: 0, Active Threads: 1

At iteration: 1, Active Threads: 2

At iteration: 2, Active Threads: 3

At iteration: 3, Active Threads: 3

At iteration: 4, Active Threads: 3

As can be seen, the maximum count of concurrent threads is equal or smaller than 3. If you remove the semaphore acquire/release statements in SemaphoreMember, you will see that there is no limitation on the number of concurrent usages.

Hazelcast also provides backup support for ISemaphore. When a member goes down, another member can take over the semaphore with the permit information (permits are automatically released when a member goes down). To enable this, configure synchronous or asynchronous backup with the properties backup-count and async-backup-count (by default, synchronous backup is already enabled).

Configuring Semaphore

The following are example semaphore configurations.

Declarative:

<semaphore name="semaphore">
   <backup-count>1</backup-count>
   <async-backup-count>0</async-backup-count>
   <initial-permits>3</initial-permits>
</semaphore>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
SemaphoreConfig semaphoreConfig = config.getSemaphoreConfig();
semaphoreConfig.setName( "semaphore" ).setBackupCount( "1" )
        .setInitialPermits( "3" );

Semaphore configuration has the below elements.

• initial-permits: the thread count to which the concurrent access is limited. For example, if you set it to "3", concurrent access to the object is limited to 3 threads.
• backup-count: Number of synchronous backups.
• async-backup-count: Number of asynchronous backups.

NOTE: If high performance is more important (than not losing the permit information), you can disable the backups by setting backup-count to 0.

IAtomicReference

The IAtomicLong is very useful if you need to deal with a long, but in some cases you need to deal with a reference. That is why Hazelcast also supports the IAtomicReference which is the distributed version of the java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference.

Here is an IAtomicReference example.

public class Member {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Config config = new Config();

        HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);

        IAtomicReference<String> ref = hz.getAtomicReference("reference");
        ref.set("foo");
        System.out.println(ref.get());
        System.exit(0);
    } 
}

When you execute the above example, you will see the following output.

foo

Sending Functions to IAtomicReference

Just like IAtomicLong, IAtomicReference has methods that accept a 'function' as an argument, such as alter, alterAndGet, getAndAlter and apply. There are two big advantages of using these methods:

• From a performance point of view, it is better to send the function to the data then the data to the function. Often the function is a lot smaller than the data and therefore cheaper to send over the line. Also the function only needs to be transferred once to the target machine, and the data needs to be transferred twice.
• You do not need to deal with concurrency control. If you would perform a load, transform, store, you could run into a data race since another thread might have updated the value you are about to overwrite.

Using IAtomicReference

Below are some issues you need to know when you use IAtomicReference.

• IAtomicReference works based on the byte-content and not on the object-reference. If you use the compareAndSet method, do not change to original value because its serialized content will then be different. It is also important to know that if you rely on Java serialization, sometimes (especially with hashmaps) the same object can result in different binary content.
• IAtomicReference will always have 1 synchronous backup.
• All methods returning an object will return a private copy. You can modify the private copy, but the rest of the world will be shielded from your changes. If you want these changes to be visible to the rest of the world, you need to write the change back to the IAtomicReference; but be careful about introducing a data-race.
• The 'in-memory format' of an IAtomicReference is binary. The receiving side does not need to have the class definition available, unless it needs to be deserialized on the other side (e.g. because a method like 'alter' is executed). This deserialization is done for every call that needs to have the object instead of the binary content, so be careful with expensive object graphs that need to be deserialized.
• If you have an object with many fields or an object graph, and you only need to calculate some information or need a subset of fields, you can use the apply method. With the apply method, the whole object does not need to be sent over the line, only the information that is relevant.

ICountDownLatch

Hazelcast ICountDownLatch is the distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch.

Gate-Keeping Concurrent Activities

CountDownLatch is considered to be a gate keeper for concurrent activities. It enables the threads to wait for other threads to complete their operations.

The following code samples describe the mechanism of ICountDownLatch. Assume that there is a leader process and there are follower processes that will wait until the leader completes. Here is the leader:

public class Leader {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ICountDownLatch latch = hazelcastInstance.getCountDownLatch( "countDownLatch" );
    System.out.println( "Starting" );
    latch.trySetCount( 1 );
    Thread.sleep( 30000 );
    latch.countDown();
    System.out.println( "Leader finished" );
    latch.destroy();
  }
}

Since only a single step is needed to be completed as a sample, the above code initializes the latch with 1. Then, the code sleeps for a while to simulate a process and starts the countdown. Finally, it clears up the latch. Let's write a follower:

public class Follower {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ICountDownLatch latch = hazelcastInstance.getCountDownLatch( "countDownLatch" );
    System.out.println( "Waiting" );
    boolean success = latch.await( 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
    System.out.println( "Complete: " + success );
  }
}

The follower class above first retrieves ICountDownLatch and then calls the await method to enable the thread to listen for the latch. The method await has a timeout value as a parameter. This is useful when the countDown method fails. To see ICountDownLatch in action, start the leader first and then start one or more followers. You will see that the followers will wait until the leader completes.

Recovering From Failure

In a distributed environment, the counting down cluster member may go down. In this case, all listeners are notified immediately and automatically by Hazelcast. The state of the current process just before the failure should be verified and 'how to continue now' should be decided (e.g. restart all process operations, continue with the first failed process operation, throw an exception, etc.).

Using ICountDownLatch

Although the ICountDownLatch is a very useful synchronization aid, you will probably not use it on a daily basis. Unlike Java’s implementation, Hazelcast’s ICountDownLatch count can be re-set after a countdown has finished but not during an active count.

NOTE: ICountDownLatch has 1 synchronous backup and no asynchronous backups. Its backup count is not configurable. Also, the count cannot be re-set during an active count, it should be re-set after the countdown is finished.

IdGenerator

Hazelcast IdGenerator is used to generate cluster-wide unique identifiers. Generated identifiers are long type primitive values between 0 and Long.MAX_VALUE.

Generating Cluster-Wide IDs

ID generation occurs almost at the speed of AtomicLong.incrementAndGet(). A group of 1 million identifiers is allocated for each cluster member. In the background, this allocation takes place with an IAtomicLong incremented by 1 million. Once a cluster member generates IDs (allocation is done), IdGenerator increments a local counter. If a cluster member uses all IDs in the group, it will get another 1 million IDs. By this way, only one time of network traffic is needed, meaning that 999,999 identifiers are generated in memory instead of over the network. This is fast.

Let's write a sample identifier generator.

public class IdGeneratorExample {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IdGenerator idGen = hazelcastInstance.getIdGenerator( "newId" );
    while (true) {
      Long id = idGen.newId();
      System.err.println( "Id: " + id );
      Thread.sleep( 1000 );
    }
  }
}

Let's run the above code two times. The output will be similar to the following.

Members [1] {
  Member [127.0.0.1]:5701 this
}
Id: 1
Id: 2
Id: 3

Members [2] {
  Member [127.0.0.1]:5701
  Member [127.0.0.1]:5702 this
}
Id: 1000001
Id: 1000002
Id: 1000003

Unique IDs and Duplicate IDs

You can see that the generated IDs are unique and counting upwards. If you see duplicated identifiers, it means your instances could not form a cluster.

NOTE: Generated IDs are unique during the life cycle of the cluster. If the entire cluster is restarted, IDs start from 0 again or you can initialize to a value using the init() method of IdGenerator.

NOTE: IdGenerator has 1 synchronous backup and no asynchronous backups. Its backup count is not configurable.

Replicated Map

A replicated map is a distributed key-value data structure where the data is replicated to all members in the cluster.

Replicating Instead of Partitioning

All other data structures are partitioned in design. A replicated map does not partition data (it does not spread data to different cluster members); instead, it replicates the data to all members.

This leads to higher memory consumption. However, a replicated map has faster read and write access since the data are available on all members.

Writes could take place on local/remote members in order to provide write-order, eventually being replicated to all other members.

Replicated map is suitable for objects, catalogue data, or idempotent calculable data (like HTML pages).

Replicated map nearly fully implements the java.util.Map interface, but it lacks the methods from java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap since there are no atomic guarantees to writes or reads.

NOTE: If Replicated Map is used from a dummy client and this dummy client is connected to a lite member, the entry listeners cannot be registered/de-registered.

NOTE: You cannot use Replicated Map from a lite member. A com.hazelcast.replicatedmap.ReplicatedMapCantBeCreatedOnLiteMemberException is thrown if com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance#getReplicatedMap(name) is invoked on a lite member.

Example Replicated Map Code

Here is an example of replicated map code. The HazelcastInstance's getReplicatedMap method gets the replicated map, and the replicated map's put method creates map entries.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Map;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
Map<String, Customer> customers = hazelcastInstance.getReplicatedMap("customers");
customers.put( "1", new Customer( "Joe", "Smith" ) );
customers.put( "2", new Customer( "Ali", "Selam" ) );
customers.put( "3", new Customer( "Avi", "Noyan" ) );

Collection<Customer> colCustomers = customers.values();
for ( Customer customer : colCustomers ) {
  // process customer
}

HazelcastInstance::getReplicatedMap returns com.hazelcast.core.ReplicatedMap which, as stated above, extends the java.util.Map interface.

The com.hazelcast.core.ReplicatedMap interface has some additional methods for registering entry listeners or retrieving values in an expected order.

Considerations for Replicated Map

If you have a large cluster or very high occurrences of updates, the replicated map may not scale linearly as expected since it has to replicate update operations to all members in the cluster.

Since the replication of updates is performed in an asynchronous manner, we recommend you to enable back pressure in case your system has high occurrences of updates. Please refer to the Back Pressure section to learn how to enable it.

Replicated map has an anti-entropy system, which will converge values to a common one if some of the members are missing replication updates.

Replicated map does not guarantee eventual consistency because there are some edge cases which fails to provide consistency.

Replicated map uses internal partition system of Hazelcast in order to serialize updates happening on the same key at the same time. This happens by sending updates of the same key to the same Hazelcast member in the cluster.

Due to asynchronous nature of replication, a Hazelcast member could die before successfully replicating a "write" operation to other members, after sending the "write completed" response to it's caller during the write process. In this scenario, Hazelcast's internal partition system will promote one of the replicas of the partition as the primary one. The new primary partition will not have the latest "write" since the died member could not successfully replicate the update. This will leave the system in a state that the caller is the only one that has the update and the rest of the cluster have not. In this case even the anti-entropy system simply could not converge the value since the source of true information is lost for the update. This leads to a break in the eventual consistency because different values can be read from the system for the same key.

Other than the aforementioned scenario, it will behave like an eventually consistent system with read-your-writes consistency.

Configuration Design for Replicated Map

There are several technical design decisions you should consider when you configure a replicated map.

Initial provisioning

If a new member joins, there are two ways you can handle the initial provisioning that is executed to replicate all existing values to the new member. Each involves how you configure for async fill up.

First, you can configure async fill up to true, which does not block reads while the fill up operation is underway. That way, you have immediate access on the new member, but it will take time until all values are eventually accessible. Not yet replicated values are returned as non-existing (null).

Second, you can configure for a synchronous initial fill up (by configuring the async fill up to false), which blocks every read or write access to the map until the fill up operation is finished. Use this with caution since it might block your application from operating.

Configuring Replicated Map

Replicated Map can be configured using the following two ways (as with most other features in Hazelcast):

• Programmatic: the typical Hazelcast way, using the Config API seen above.
• Declarative: using hazelcast.xml.

Replicated Map Declarative Configuration

You can declare your Replicated Map configuration in the Hazelcast configuration file hazelcast.xml. See the following example declarative configuration.

<replicatedmap name="default">
  <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
  <async-fillup>true</async-fillup>
  <statistics-enabled>true</statistics-enabled>
  <entry-listeners>
    <entry-listener include-value="true">
      com.hazelcast.examples.EntryListener
    </entry-listener>
  </entry-listeners>
</replicatedmap>

• in-memory-format: Internal storage format. Please see the In-Memory Format section. The default value is OBJECT.
• async-fillup: Specifies if the replicated map is available for reads before the initial replication is completed. The default value is true. If set to false (i.e. synchronous initial fill up), no exception will be thrown when the replicated map is not yet ready, but null values can be seen until the initial replication is completed.
• statistics-enabled: If set to true, the statistics such as cache hits and misses are collected. The default value is false.
• entry-listener: Full canonical classname of the EntryListener implementation.
  • entry-listener#include-value: Specifies whether the event includes the value or not. Sometimes the key is enough to react on an event. In those situations, setting this value to false will save a deserialization cycle. The default value is true.
  • entry-listener#local: Not used for Replicated Map since listeners are always local.

Replicated Map Programmatic Configuration

You can use the Config API for programmatic configuration, as you can for all other data structures in Hazelcast. You must create the configuration upfront, when you instantiate the HazelcastInstance.

A basic example on how to configure the Replicated Map using the programmatic approach is shown in the following snippet.

Config config = new Config();

ReplicatedMapConfig replicatedMapConfig =
    config.getReplicatedMapConfig( "default" );

replicatedMapConfig.setInMemoryFormat( InMemoryFormat.BINARY );

All properties that can be configured using the declarative configuration are also available using programmatic configuration by transforming the tag names into getter or setter names.

In-Memory Format on Replicated Map

Currently, two in-memory-format values are usable with the Replicated Map.

• OBJECT (default): The data will be stored in deserialized form. This configuration is the default choice since the data replication is mostly used for high speed access. Please be aware that changing the values without a Map::put is not reflected on the other nodes but is visible on the changing nodes for later value accesses.

• BINARY: The data is stored in serialized binary format and has to be deserialized on every request. This option offers higher encapsulation since changes to values are always discarded as long as the newly changed object is not explicitly Map::put into the map again.

Using EntryListener on Replicated Map

A com.hazelcast.core.EntryListener used on a Replicated Map serves the same purpose as it would on other data structures in Hazelcast. You can use it to react on add, update, and remove operations. Replicated maps do not yet support eviction.

Difference in EntryListener on Replicated Map

The fundamental difference in Replicated Map behavior, compared to the other data structures, is that an EntryListener only reflects changes on local data. Since replication is asynchronous, all listener events are fired only when an operation is finished on a local node. Events can fire at different times on different nodes.

Example of Replicated Map EntryListener

Here is a code example for using EntryListener on a replicated map.

The HazelcastInstance method getReplicated map gets a replicated map (customers), and the ReplicatedMap method addEntryListener adds an entry listener to the replicated map. Then the ReplicatedMap put method adds a replicated map entry, then updates it, and then the remove method removes the entry.

import com.hazelcast.core.EntryEvent;
import com.hazelcast.core.EntryListener;
import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.ReplicatedMap;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
ReplicatedMap<String, Customer> customers =
    hazelcastInstance.getReplicatedMap( "customers" );

customers.addEntryListener( new EntryListener<String, Customer>() {
  @Override
  public void entryAdded( EntryEvent<String, Customer> event ) {
    log( "Entry added: " + event );
  }

  @Override
  public void entryUpdated( EntryEvent<String, Customer> event ) {
    log( "Entry updated: " + event );
  }

  @Override
  public void entryRemoved( EntryEvent<String, Customer> event ) {
    log( "Entry removed: " + event );
  }

  @Override
  public void entryEvicted( EntryEvent<String, Customer> event ) {
    // Currently not supported, will never fire
  }
});

customers.put( "1", new Customer( "Joe", "Smith" ) ); // add event
customers.put( "1", new Customer( "Ali", "Selam" ) ); // update event
customers.remove( "1" ); // remove event

Distributed Events

You can register for Hazelcast entry events so you will be notified when those events occur. Event Listeners are cluster-wide: when a listener is registered in one member of cluster, it is actually registered for events that originated at any member in the cluster. When a new member joins, events originated at the new member will also be delivered.

An Event is created only if you registered an event listener. If no listener is registered, then no event will be created. If you provided a predicate when you registered the event listener, pass the predicate before sending the event to the listener (member/client).

As a rule of thumb, your event listener should not implement heavy processes in its event methods which block the thread for a long time. If needed, you can use ExecutorService to transfer long running processes to another thread and thus offload the current listener thread.

Event Listeners for Hazelcast Members

Hazelcast offers the following event listeners:

• Membership Listener for cluster membership events.
• Distributed Object Listener for distributed object creation and destroy events.
• Migration Listener for partition migration start and complete events.
• Partition Lost Listener for partition lost events.
• Lifecycle Listener for HazelcastInstance lifecycle events.
• Entry Listener for IMap and MultiMap entry events.
• Item Listener for IQueue, ISet and IList item events.
• Message Listener for ITopic message events.
• Client Listener for client connection events.

Listening for Member Events

The Membership Listener interface has methods that are invoked for the following events.

• memberAdded: A new member is added to the cluster.
• memberRemoved: An existing member leaves the cluster.
• memberAttributeChanged: An attribute of a member is changed. Please refer to Defining Member Attributes to learn about member attributes.

To write a Membership Listener class, you implement the MembershipListener interface and its methods.

The following is an example Membership Listener class.

public class ClusterMembershipListener
     implements MembershipListener {

public void memberAdded(MembershipEvent membershipEvent) {
  System.err.println("Added: " + membershipEvent);
}

public void memberRemoved(MembershipEvent membershipEvent) {
       System.err.println("Removed: " + membershipEvent);
     }

public void memberAttributeChanged(MemberAttributeEvent memberAttributeEvent) {
       System.err.println("Member attribute changed: " + memberAttributeEvent);
     }

}

When a respective event is fired, the membership listener outputs the addresses of the members that joined and left, and also which attribute changed on which member.

Registering Membership Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include the membership listener. Below is an example using the method addMembershipListener.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
hazelcastInstance.getCluster().addMembershipListener( new ClusterMembershipListener() );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

Config config = new Config();
config.addListenerConfig(
new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.ClusterMembershipListener" ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <listeners>
      <listener type="membership-listener">
         com.your-package.ClusterMembershipListener
      </listener>
   </listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:listeners>
 <hz:listener class-name="com.your-package.ClusterMembershipListener"/>
 <hz:listener implementation="MembershipListener"/>
</hz:listeners>

Listening for Distributed Object Events

The Distributed Object Listener methods distributedObjectCreated and distributedObjectDestroyed are invoked when a distributed object is created and destroyed throughout the cluster. To write a Distributed Object Listener class, you implement the DistributedObjectListener interface and its methods.

The following is an example Distributed Object Listener class.

public class SampleDistObjListener implements DistributedObjectListener {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SampleDistObjListener sample = new SampleDistObjListener();

    Config config = new Config();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);
    hazelcastInstance.addDistributedObjectListener(sample);

    Collection<DistributedObject> distributedObjects = hazelcastInstance.getDistributedObjects();
    for (DistributedObject distributedObject : distributedObjects) {
      System.out.println(distributedObject.getName() + "," + distributedObject.getId());
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void distributedObjectCreated(DistributedObjectEvent event) {
    DistributedObject instance = event.getDistributedObject();
    System.out.println("Created " + instance.getName() + "," + instance.getId());
  }

  @Override
  public void distributedObjectDestroyed(DistributedObjectEvent event) {
    DistributedObject instance = event.getDistributedObject();
    System.out.println("Destroyed " + instance.getName() + "," + instance.getId());
  }
}

When a respective event is fired, the distributed object listener outputs the event type, and the name, service (for example, if a Map service provides the distributed object, than it is a Map object), and ID of the object.

Registering Distributed Object Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include distributed object listeners. Below is an example using the method addDistributedObjectListener. You can also see this portion in the above class creation.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
SampleDistObjListener sample = new SampleDistObjListener();

hazelcastInstance.addDistributedObjectListener( sample );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register the listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

config.addListenerConfig(
new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.SampleDistObjListener" ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <listeners>
      <listener>
      com.your-package.SampleDistObjListener
      </listener>
   </listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:listeners>
   <hz:listener class-name="com.your-package.SampleDistObjListener"/>
   <hz:listener implementation="DistributedObjectListener"/>
</hz:listeners>

Listening for Migration Events

The Migration Listener interface has methods that are invoked for the following events:

• migrationStarted: A partition migration is started.
• migrationCompleted: A partition migration is completed.
• migrationFailed: A partition migration failed.

To write a Migration Listener class, you implement the DistributedObjectListener interface and its methods.

The following is an example Migration Listener class.

public class ClusterMigrationListener implements MigrationListener {
     @Override
     public void migrationStarted(MigrationEvent migrationEvent) {
       System.err.println("Started: " + migrationEvent);
     }
    @Override
     public void migrationCompleted(MigrationEvent migrationEvent) {
       System.err.println("Completed: " + migrationEvent);
     }
     @Override
     public void migrationFailed(MigrationEvent migrationEvent) {
       System.err.println("Failed: " + migrationEvent);
     }
}

When a respective event is fired, the migration listener outputs the partition ID, status of the migration, the old member and the new member. The following is an example output.

Started: MigrationEvent{partitionId=98, oldOwner=Member [127.0.0.1]:5701,
newOwner=Member [127.0.0.1]:5702 this}

Registering Migration Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include migration listeners. Below is an example using the method addMigrationListener.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

PartitionService partitionService = hazelcastInstance.getPartitionService();
partitionService.addMigrationListener( new ClusterMigrationListener );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register the listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

config.addListenerConfig( 
new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.ClusterMigrationListener" ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <listeners>
      <listener>
      com.your-package.ClusterMigrationListener
      </listener>
   </listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:listeners>
   <hz:listener class-name="com.your-package.ClusterMigrationListener"/>
   <hz:listener implementation="MigrationListener"/>
</hz:listeners>

Listening for Partition Lost Events

Hazelcast provides fault-tolerance by keeping multiple copies of your data. For each partition, one of your cluster members become owner and some of the other members become replica members based on your configuration. Nevertheless, data loss may occur if a few members crash simultaneously.

Let`s consider the following example with three members: N1, N2, N3 for a given partition-0. N1 is owner of partition-0, N2 and N3 are the first and second replicas respectively. If N1 and N2 crash simultaneously, partition-0 loses its data that is configured with less than 2 backups. For instance, if we configure a map with 1 backup, that map loses its data in partition-0 since both owner and first replica of partition-0 have crashed. However, if we configure our map with 2 backups, it does not lose any data since a copy of partition-0's data for the given map also resides in N3.

The Partition Lost Listener notifies for possible data loss occurrences with the information of how many replicas are lost for a partition. It listens to PartitionLostEvent instances. Partition lost events are dispatched per partition.

Partition loss detection is done after a member crash is detected by the other members and the crashed member is removed from the cluster. Please note that false-positive PartitionLostEvent instances may be fired on the network split errors.

Writing a Partition Lost Listener Class

To write a Partition Lost Listener, you implement the PartitionLostListener interface and its partitionLost method, which is invoked when a partition loses its owner and all backups.

The following is an example Partition Lost Listener class.

    public class ConsoleLoggingPartitionLostListener implements PartitionLostListener {
        @Override
        public void partitionLost(PartitionLostEvent event) {
            System.out.println(event);
        }
    }

When a PartitionLostEvent is fired, the partition lost listener given above outputs the partition ID, the replica index that is lost and the member that has detected the partition loss. The following is an example output.

com.hazelcast.partition.PartitionLostEvent{partitionId=242, lostBackupCount=0, 
eventSource=Address[192.168.2.49]:5701}

Registering Partition Lost Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster programmatically or declaratively to include the partition lost listener. Below is an example of its programmatic configuration.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
hazelcastInstance.getPartitionService().addPartitionLostListener( new ConsoleLoggingPartitionLostListener() );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
  <partition-lost-listeners>
     <partition-lost-listener>
        com.your-package.ConsoleLoggingPartitionLostListener
     </partition-lost-listener>
 </partition-lost-listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

Listening for Lifecycle Events

The Lifecycle Listener notifies for the following events:

• STARTING: A member is starting.
• STARTED: A member started.
• SHUTTING_DOWN: A member is shutting down.
• SHUTDOWN: A member's shutdown has completed.
• MERGING: A member is merging with the cluster.
• MERGED: A member's merge operation has completed.
• CLIENT_CONNECTED: A Hazelcast Client connected to the cluster.
• CLINET_DISCONNECTED: A Hazelcast Client disconnected from the cluster.

The following is an example Lifecycle Listener class.

public class NodeLifecycleListener implements LifecycleListener {
     @Override
     public void stateChanged(LifecycleEvent event) {
       System.err.println(event);
     }
}

This listener is local to an individual member (node). It notifies the application that uses Hazelcast about the events mentioned above for a particular member.

Registering Lifecycle Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include lifecycle listeners. Below is an example using the method addLifecycleListener.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
hazelcastInstance.getLifecycleService().addLifecycleListener( new NodeLifecycleListener() );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register the listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

config.addListenerConfig(
new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.NodeLifecycleListener" ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <listeners>
      <listener>
      com.your-package.NodeLifecycleListener
      </listener>
   </listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:listeners>
   <hz:listener class-name="com.your-package.NodeLifecycleListener"/>
   <hz:listener implementation="LifecycleListener"/>
</hz:listeners>

Listening for Map Events

You can listen to map-wide or entry-based events using the listeners provided by the Hazelcast's eventing framework. To listen to these events, implement a MapListener sub-interface.

A map-wide event is fired as a result of a map-wide operation: for example, IMap#clear or IMap#evictAll. An entry-based event is fired after the operations that affect a specific entry: for example, IMap#remove or IMap#evict.

Catching a Map Event

To catch an event, you should explicitly implement a corresponding sub-interface of a MapListener, such as EntryAddedListener or MapClearedListener.

NOTE: EntryListener interface still can be implemented, we kept that for backward compatibility reasons. However, if you need to listen to a different event which is not available in the EntryListener interface, you should also implement a relevant MapListener sub-interface.

Let's take a look at the following class example.

public class Listen {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IMap<String, String> map = hz.getMap( "somemap" );
    map.addEntryListener( new MyEntryListener(), true );
     System.out.println( "EntryListener registered" );
  }

  static class MyEntryListener implements EntryAddedListener<String, String>, 
                                          EntryRemovedListener<String, String>, 
                                          EntryUpdatedListener<String, String>, 
                                          EntryEvictedListener<String, String> , 
                                          MapEvictedListener, 
                                          MapClearedListener   {
    @Override
    public void entryAdded( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Added:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void entryRemoved( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Removed:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void entryUpdated( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Updated:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void entryEvicted( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Evicted:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void mapEvicted( MapEvent event ) {
      System.out.println( "Map Evicted:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void mapCleared( MapEvent event ) {
      System.out.println( "Map Cleared:" + event );
    }

  }
}

Now, let's perform some modifications on the map entries using the following example code.

public class Modify {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IMap<String, String> map = hz.getMap( "somemap");
    String key = "" + System.nanoTime();
    String value = "1";
    map.put( key, value );
    map.put( key, "2" );
    map.delete( key );
  }
}

If you execute the Listen class and then the Modify class, you get the following output produced by the Listen class.

entryAdded:EntryEvent {Address[192.168.1.100]:5702} key=251359212222282,
    oldValue=null, value=1, event=ADDED, by Member [192.168.1.100]:5702

entryUpdated:EntryEvent {Address[192.168.1.100]:5702} key=251359212222282,
    oldValue=1, value=2, event=UPDATED, by Member [192.168.1.100]:5702

entryRemoved:EntryEvent {Address[192.168.1.100]:5702} key=251359212222282,
    oldValue=2, value=2, event=REMOVED, by Member [192.168.1.100]:5702

public class MyEntryListener implements EntryListener{

    private Executor executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);

    @Override
    public void entryAdded(EntryEvent event) {
        executor.execute(new DoSomethingWithEvent(event));
    }
...

Partitions and Entry Listeners

A map listener runs on the event threads that are also used by the other listeners: for example, the collection listeners and pub/sub message listeners. This means that the entry listeners can access other partitions. Consider this when you run long tasks, since listening to those tasks may cause the other map/event listeners to starve.

Listening for Lost Map Partitions

You can listen to MapPartitionLostEvent instances by registering an implementation of MapPartitionLostListener, which is also a sub-interface of MapListener.

Let`s consider the following example code:

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Config config = new Config();
    config.getMapConfig("map").setBackupCount(1); // might lose data if any member crashes

    HazelcastInstance instance = HazelcastInstanceFactory.newHazelcastInstance(config);

    IMap<Object, Object> map = instance1.getMap("map");
    map.put(0, 0);

    map.addPartitionLostListener(new MapPartitionLostListener() {
      @Override
      public void partitionLost(MapPartitionLostEvent event) {
        System.out.println(event);
      }
    });
  }

Within this example code, a MapPartitionLostListener implementation is registered to a map that is configured with 1 backup. For this particular map and any of the partitions in the system, if the partition owner member and its first backup member crash simultaneously, the given MapPartitionLostListener receives a corresponding MapPartitionLostEvent. If only a single member crashes in the cluster, there will be no MapPartitionLostEvent fired for this map since backups for the partitions owned by the crashed member are kept on other members.

Please refer to Listening for Partition Lost Events for more information about partition lost detection and partition lost events.

Registering Map Listeners

After you create your listener class, you can configure your cluster to include map listeners using the method addEntryListener (as you can see in the example Listen class above). Below is the related portion from this code, showing how to register a map listener.

HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IMap<String, String> map = hz.getMap( "somemap" );
map.addEntryListener( new MyEntryListener(), true );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

mapConfig.addEntryListenerConfig(
new EntryListenerConfig( "com.yourpackage.MyEntryListener", 
                                     false, false ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <map name="somemap">
   ...
      <entry-listeners>
         <entry-listener include-value="false" local="false">
         com.your-package.MyEntryListener
         </entry-listener>
      </entry-listeners>
   </map>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:map name="somemap">
   <hz:entry-listeners>
      <hz:entry-listener include-value="true"
      class-name="com.hazelcast.spring.DummyEntryListener"/>
      <hz:entry-listener implementation="dummyEntryListener" local="true"/>
   </hz:entry-listeners>
</hz:map>

Map Listener Attributes

As you see, there are attributes of the map listeners in the above examples: include-value and local. The attribute include-value is a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, the map event will contain the map value. Its default value is true.

The attribute local is also a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, you can listen to the map on the local member. Its default value is false.

Listening for MultiMap Events

You can listen to entry-based events in the MultiMap using EntryListener. The following is an example listener class for MultiMap.

public class Listen {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    MultiMap<String, String> map = hz.getMultiMap( "somemap" );
    map.addEntryListener( new MyEntryListener(), true );
    System.out.println( "EntryListener registered" );
  }

  static class SampleEntryListener implements EntryListener<String, String>{
    @Override
    public void entryAdded( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Added:" + event );
    }

    @Override
    public void entryRemoved( EntryEvent<String, String> event ) {
      System.out.println( "Entry Removed:" + event );
    }
  }
}

Registering MultiMap Listeners

After you create your listener class, you can configure your cluster to include MultiMap listeners using the method addEntryListener (as you can see in the example Listen class above). Below is the related portion from this code, showing how to register a map listener.

HazelcastInstance hz = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
MultiMap<String, String> map = hz.getMultiMap( "somemap" );
map.addEntryListener( new MyEntryListener(), true );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

multiMapConfig.addEntryListenerConfig(
new EntryListenerConfig( "com.your-package.SampleEntryListener",
                                     false, false ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <multimap name="somemap">
      <value-collection-type>SET</value-collection-type>
      <entry-listeners>
         <entry-listener include-value="false" local="false">
            com.your-package.SampleEntryListener
         </entry-listener>
      </entry-listeners>
   </multimap>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:multimap name="default" value-collection-type="LIST">
   <hz:entry-listeners>
      <hz:entry-listener include-value="false"
         class-name="com.your-package.SampleEntryListener"/>
      <hz:entry-listener implementation="EntryListener" local="false"/>
   </hz:entry-listeners>
</hz:multimap>

MultiMap Listener Attributes

As you see, there are attributes of the MultiMap listeners in the above examples: include-value and local. The attribute include-value is a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, the MultiMap event will contain the map value. Its default value is true.

The attribute local is also a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, you can listen to the MultiMap on the local member. Its default value is false.

Listening for Item Events

The Item Listener is used by the Hazelcast IQueue, ISet and IList interfaces.

To write an Item Listener class, you implement the ItemListener interface and its methods itemAdded and itemRemoved. These methods are invoked when an item is added or removed.

The following is an example Item Listener class for an ISet structure.

public class SampleItemListener implements ItemListener {

  public static void main( String[] args ) { 
    SampleItemListener sampleItemListener = new SampleItemListener();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ICollection<Price> set = hazelcastInstance.getSet( "default" );
    set.addItemListener( sampleItemListener, true ); 

    Price price = new Price( 10, time1 )
    set.add( price );
    set.remove( price );
  } 

  public void itemAdded( Object item ) {
    System.out.println( "Item added = " + item );
  }

  public void itemRemoved( Object item ) {
    System.out.println( "Item removed = " + item );
  }     
}

NOTE: You can use ICollection when creating any of the collection (queue, set and list) data structures, as shown above. You can also use IQueue, ISet or IList instead of ICollection.

Registering Item Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include item listeners. Below is an example using the method addItemListener for ISet (it applies also to IQueue and IList). You can also see this portion in the above class creation.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

ICollection<Price> set = hazelcastInstance.getSet( "default" );
// or ISet<Prices> set = hazelcastInstance.getSet( "default" );
default.addItemListener( sampleItemListener, true );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register listeners in configuration. You can register listeners using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

setConfig.addItemListenerConfig(
new ItemListenerConfig( "com.your-package.SampleItemListener", true ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <item-listeners>
     <item-listener include-value="true">
       com.your-package.SampleItemListener
     </item-listener>
   </item-listeners>
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:set name="default" >
  <hz:item-listeners>
    <hz:item-listener include-value="true"
      class-name="com.your-package.SampleItemListener"/>
  </hz:item-listeners>
</hz:set>

Item Listener Attributes

As you see, there is an attribute in the above examples: include-value. It is a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, the item event will contain the item value. Its default value is true.

There is also another attribute called local, which is not shown in the above examples. It is also a boolean attribute which is optional to use and if you set it to true, you can listen to the items on the local member. Its default value is false.

Listening for Topic Messages

The Message Listener is used by the ITopic interface. It notifies when a message is received for the registered topic.

To write a Message Listener class, you implement the MessageListener interface and its method onMessage, which is invoked when a message is received for the registered topic.

The following is an example Message Listener class.

public class SampleMessageListener implements MessageListener<MyEvent> {

  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    SampleMessageListener sample = new SampleMessageListener();
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    ITopic topic = hazelcastInstance.getTopic( "default" );
    topic.addMessageListener( sample );
    topic.publish( new MyEvent() );
  }

  public void onMessage( Message<MyEvent> message ) {
    MyEvent myEvent = message.getMessageObject();
    System.out.println( "Message received = " + myEvent.toString() );
    if ( myEvent.isHeavyweight() ) {
      messageExecutor.execute( new Runnable() {
          public void run() {
            doHeavyweightStuff( myEvent );
          }
      } );
    }
  }

Registering Message Listeners

After you create your class, you can configure your cluster to include message listeners. Below is an example using the method addMessageListener. You can also see this portion in the above class creation.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

ITopic topic = hazelcastInstance.getTopic( "default" );
topic.addMessageListener( sample );

With the above approach, there is a possibility of missing messaging events between the creation of the instance and registering the listener. To overcome this race condition, Hazelcast allows you to register this listener in configuration. You can register it using declarative, programmatic, or Spring configuration, as shown below.

The following is an example programmatic configuration.

topicConfig.addMessageListenerConfig(
new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.SampleMessageListener" ) );

The following is an example of the equivalent declarative configuration.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <topic name="default">
      <message-listeners>
         <message-listener>
         com.your-package.SampleMessageListener
         </message-listener>
      </message-listeners>
   </topic>   
   ...
</hazelcast>

And, the following is an example of the equivalent Spring configuration.

<hz:topic name="default">
  <hz:message-listeners>
    <hz:message-listener 
       class-name="com.your-package.SampleMessageListener"/>
  </hz:message-listeners>
</hz:topic>

Listening for Clients

The Client Listener is used by the Hazelcast cluster members. It notifies the cluster members when a client is connected to or disconnected from the cluster.

To write a Client Listener class, you implement the ClientListener interface and its methods clientConnected and clientDisconnected, which are invoked when a client is connected to or disconnected from the cluster.

Then, you can register your listener using one of the following configurations on the member side. Below is an example programmatic configuration for the member, to listen to the topic events on the client.

topicConfig.addMessageListenerConfig(
   new ListenerConfig( "com.your-package.SampleClientListener" ) );

The following is the equivalent declarative configuration.

<listeners>
   <listener>
      com.your-package.SampleClientListener
   </listener>
</listeners>

And, the following is the equivalent configuration in the Spring context.

<hz:listeners>
   <hz:listener class-name="com.your-package.SampleClientListener"/>
   <hz:listener implementation="com.your-package.SampleClientListener"/>
</hz:listeners>

NOTE: You can also add event listeners to a Hazelcast client. Please refer to Client Listenerconfig for the related information.

Event Listeners for Hazelcast Clients

You can add event listeners to a Hazelcast Java client. You can configure the following listeners to listen to the events on the client side. Please see the respective sections under the Event Listeners for Hazelcast Members section for example code.

• Lifecycle Listener: Notifies when the client is starting, started, shutting down, and shutdown.
• Membership Listener: Notifies when a member joins to/leaves the cluster to which the client is connected, or when an attribute is changed in a member.
• DistributedObject Listener: Notifies when a distributed object is created or destroyed throughout the cluster to which the client is connected.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Client Listenerconfig section for more information.

Global Event Configuration

• hazelcast.event.queue.capacity: default value is 1000000
• hazelcast.event.queue.timeout.millis: default value is 250
• hazelcast.event.thread.count: default value is 5

A striped executor in each cluster member controls and dispatches the received events. This striped executor also guarantees the event order. For all events in Hazelcast, the order in which events are generated and the order in which they are published are guaranteed for given keys. For map and multimap, the order is preserved for the operations on the same key of the entry. For list, set, topic and queue, the order is preserved for events on that instance of the distributed data structure.

To achieve the order guarantee, you make only one thread responsible for a particular set of events (entry events of a key in a map, item events of a collection, etc.) in StripedExecutor (within com.hazelcast.util.executor).

If the event queue reaches its capacity (hazelcast.event.queue.capacity) and the last item cannot be put into the event queue for the period specified in hazelcast.event.queue.timeout.millis, these events will be dropped with a warning message, such as "EventQueue overloaded".

If event listeners perform a computation that takes a long time, the event queue can reach its maximum capacity and lose events. For map and multimap, you can configure hazelcast.event.thread.count to a higher value so that fewer collisions occur for keys, and therefore worker threads will not block each other in StripedExecutor. For list, set, topic and queue, you should offload heavy work to another thread. To preserve order guarantee, you should implement similar logic with StripedExecutor in the offloaded thread pool.

Distributed Computing

From Wikipedia: Distributed computing refers to the use of distributed systems to solve computational problems. In distributed computing, a problem is divided into many tasks, each of which is solved by one or more computers.

Executor Service

One of the coolest features of Java 1.5 is the Executor framework, which allows you to asynchronously execute your tasks (logical units of work), such as database query, complex calculation, and image rendering.

The default implementation of this framework (ThreadPoolExecutor) is designed to run within a single JVM. In distributed systems, this implementation is not desired since you may want a task submitted in one JVM and processed in another one. Hazelcast offers IExecutorService for you to use in distributed environments: it implements java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService to serve the applications requiring computational and data processing power.

With IExecutorService, you can execute tasks asynchronously and perform other useful tasks. If your task execution takes longer than expected, you can cancel the task execution. Tasks should be Serializable since they will be distributed.

In the Java Executor framework, you implement tasks two ways: Callable or Runnable.

• Callable: If you need to return a value and submit to Executor, implement the task as java.util.concurrent.Callable.
• Runnable: If you do not need to return a value, implement the task as java.util.concurrent.Runnable.

Implementing a Callable Task

In Hazelcast, when you implement a task as java.util.concurrent.Callable (a task that returns a value), you implement Callable and Serializable.

Below is an example of a Callable task. SumTask prints out map keys and returns the summed map values.

import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance;
import com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstanceAware;
import com.hazelcast.core.IMap;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;

public class SumTask
    implements Callable<Integer>, Serializable, HazelcastInstanceAware {

  private transient HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance;

  public void setHazelcastInstance( HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance ) {
    this.hazelcastInstance = hazelcastInstance;
  }

  public Integer call() throws Exception {
    IMap<String, Integer> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "map" );
    int result = 0;
    for ( String key : map.localKeySet() ) {
      System.out.println( "Calculating for key: " + key );
      result += map.get( key );
    }
    System.out.println( "Local Result: " + result );
    return result;
  }
}

Another example is the Echo callable below. In its call() method, it returns the local member and the input passed in. Remember that instance.getCluster().getLocalMember() returns the local member and toString() returns the member's address (IP + port) in String form, just to see which member actually executed the code for our example. Of course, the call() method can do and return anything you like.

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.io.Serializable;

public class Echo implements Callable<String>, Serializable {
    String input = null;

    public Echo() {
    }

    public Echo(String input) {
        this.input = input;
    }

    public String call() {
        Config cfg = new Config();
        HazelcastInstance instance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(cfg);
        return instance.getCluster().getLocalMember().toString() + ":" + input;
    }
}

Executing a Callable Task

To execute a callable task with the executor framework:

• Obtain an ExecutorService instance (generally via Executors).
• Submit a task which returns a Future.
• After executing the task, you do not have to wait for the execution to complete, you can process other things.
• When ready, use the Future object to retrieve the result as shown in the code example below.

Below, the Echo task is executed.

ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
Future<String> future = executorService.submit( new Echo( "myinput") );
//while it is executing, do some useful stuff
//when ready, get the result of your execution
String result = future.get();

Please note that the Echo callable in the above code sample also implements a Serializable interface, since it may be sent to another JVM to be processed.

NOTE: When a task is deserialized, HazelcastInstance needs to be accessed. To do this, the task should implement HazelcastInstanceAware interface. Please see the HazelcastInstanceAware Interface section for more information.

Implementing a Runnable Task

In Hazelcast, when you implement a task as java.util.concurrent.runnable (a task that does not return a value), you implement Runnable and Serializable.

Below is Runnable example code. It is a task that waits for some time and echoes a message.

public class EchoTask implements Runnable, Serializable {
  private final String msg;

  public EchoTask( String msg ) {
    this.msg = msg;
  }

  @Override
  public void run() {
    try {
      Thread.sleep( 5000 );
    } catch ( InterruptedException e ) {
    }
    System.out.println( "echo:" + msg );
  }
}

Executing a Runnable Task

To execute the runnable task:

• Retrieve the Executor from HazelcastInstance.
• Submit the tasks to the Executor.

Now let's write a class that submits and executes these echo messages. Executor is retrieved from HazelcastInstance and 1000 echo tasks are submitted.

public class MasterMember {
  public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
    IExecutorService executor = hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService( "exec" );
    for ( int k = 1; k <= 1000; k++ ) {
      Thread.sleep( 1000 );
      System.out.println( "Producing echo task: " + k );
      executor.execute( new EchoTask( String.valueOf( k ) ) );
    }
    System.out.println( "EchoTaskMain finished!" );
  }
}

Scaling The Executor Service

You can scale the Executor service both vertically (scale up) and horizontally (scale out).

To scale up, you should improve the processing capacity of the JVM. You can do this by increasing the pool-size property mentioned in Configuring Executor Service (i.e., increasing the thread count). However, please be aware of your JVM's capacity. If you think it cannot handle such an additional load caused by increasing the thread count, you may want to consider improving the JVM's resources (CPU, memory, etc.). As an example, set the pool-size to 5 and run the above MasterMember. You will see that EchoTask is run as soon as it is produced.

To scale out, more JVMs should be added instead of increasing only one JVM's capacity. In reality, you may want to expand your cluster by adding more physical or virtual machines. For example, in the EchoTask example in the Runnable section, you can create another Hazelcast instance. That instance will automatically get involved in the executions started in MasterMember and start processing.

Executing Code in the Cluster

The distributed executor service is a distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService. It allows you to execute your code in the cluster. In this section, the code examples are based on the Echo class above (please note that the Echo class is Serializable). The code examples show how Hazelcast can execute your code (Runnable, Callable):

• echoOnTheMember: On a specific cluster member you choose with the IExecutorService submitToMember method.
• echoOnTheMemberOwningTheKey: On the member owning the key you choose with the IExecutorService submitToKeyOwner method.
• echoOnSomewhere: On the member Hazelcast picks with the IExecutorService submit method.
• echoOnMembers: On all or a subset of the cluster members with the IExecutorService submitToMembers method.

import com.hazelcast.core.Member;
import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.IExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.Future;   
import java.util.Set;

public void echoOnTheMember( String input, Member member ) throws Exception {
  Callable<String> task = new Echo( input );
  HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
  IExecutorService executorService = 
      hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService( "default" );

  Future<String> future = executorService.submitToMember( task, member );
  String echoResult = future.get();
}

public void echoOnTheMemberOwningTheKey( String input, Object key ) throws Exception {
  Callable<String> task = new Echo( input );
  HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
  IExecutorService executorService =
      hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService( "default" );

  Future<String> future = executorService.submitToKeyOwner( task, key );
  String echoResult = future.get();
}

public void echoOnSomewhere( String input ) throws Exception { 
  HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
  IExecutorService executorService =
      hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService( "default" );

  Future<String> future = executorService.submit( new Echo( input ) );
  String echoResult = future.get();
}

public void echoOnMembers( String input, Set<Member> members ) throws Exception {
  HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
  IExecutorService executorService = 
      hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService( "default" );

  Map<Member, Future<String>> futures = executorService
      .submitToMembers( new Echo( input ), members );

  for ( Future<String> future : futures.values() ) {
    String echoResult = future.get();
    // ...
  }
}

NOTE: You can obtain the set of cluster members via HazelcastInstance#getCluster().getMembers() call.

Canceling an Executing Task

A task in the code that you execute in a cluster might take longer than expected. If you cannot stop/cancel that task, it will keep eating your resources.

To cancel a task, you can use the standard Java executor framework's cancel() API. This framework encourages us to code and design for cancellations, a highly ignored part of software development.

Example Task to Cancel

The Fibonacci callable class below calculates the Fibonacci number for a given number. In the calculate method, we check if the current thread is interrupted so that the code can respond to cancellations once the execution is started.

public class Fibonacci<Long> implements Callable<Long>, Serializable {
  int input = 0; 

  public Fibonacci() { 
  } 

  public Fibonacci( int input ) { 
    this.input = input;
  } 

  public Long call() {
    return calculate( input );
  }

  private long calculate( int n ) {
    if ( Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() ) {
      return 0;
    }
    if ( n <= 1 ) {
      return n;
    } else {
      return calculate( n - 1 ) + calculate( n - 2 );
    }
  }
}

Example Method to Execute and Cancel the Task

The fib() method below submits the Fibonacci calculation task above for number 'n' and waits a maximum of 3 seconds for the result. If the execution does not completed in 3 seconds, future.get() will throw a TimeoutException and upon catching it, we cancel the execution, saving some CPU cycles.

long fib( int n ) throws Exception {
  HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
  IExecutorService es = hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService();
  Future future = es.submit( new Fibonacci( n ) );  
  try {
    return future.get( 3, TimeUnit.SECONDS );
  } catch ( TimeoutException e ) {
    future.cancel( true );            
  }
  return -1;
}

fib(20) will probably take less than 3 seconds. However, fib(50) will take much longer. (This is not an example for writing better Fibonacci calculation code, but for showing how to cancel a running execution that takes too long.) The method future.cancel(false) can only cancel execution before it is running (executing), but future.cancel(true) can interrupt running executions if your code is able to handle the interruption. If you are willing to cancel an already running task, then your task should be designed to handle interruptions. If the calculate (int n) method did not have the (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) line, then you would not be able to cancel the execution after it is started.

Callback When Task Completes

You can use the ExecutionCallback offered by Hazelcast to asynchronously be notified when the execution is done.

• To be notified when your task completes without an error, implement the onResponse method.
• To be notified when your task completes with an error, implement the onFailure method.

Example Task to Callback

Let's use the Fibonacci series to explain this. The example code below is the calculation that will be executed. Note that it is Callable and Serializable.

public class Fibonacci<Long> implements Callable<Long>, Serializable {
  int input = 0;

  public Fibonacci() {
  }

  public Fibonacci( int input ) {
    this.input = input;
  }

  public Long call() {
    return calculate( input );
  }

  private long calculate( int n ) {
    if (n <= 1) {
      return n;
    } else {
      return calculate( n - 1 ) + calculate( n - 2 );
    }
  }
}

Example Method to Callback the Task

The example code below submits the Fibonacci calculation to ExecutionCallback and prints the result asynchronously. ExecutionCallback has the methods onResponse and onFailure. In this example code, onResponse is called upon a valid response and prints the calculation result, whereas onFailure is called upon a failure and prints the stacktrace.

import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.ExecutionCallback;
import com.hazelcast.core.IExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Future;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IExecutorService es = hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService();
Callable<Long> task = new Fibonacci( 10 );

es.submit(task, new ExecutionCallback<Long> () {

  @Override
  public void onResponse( Long response ) {
    System.out.println( "Fibonacci calculation result = " + response );
  }

  @Override
  public void onFailure( Throwable t ) {
    t.printStackTrace();
  }
};

Selecting Members for Task Execution

As previously mentioned, it is possible to indicate where in the Hazelcast cluster the Runnable or Callable is executed. Usually, you will execute these in the cluster based on the location of a key, set of keys, or you will just allow Hazelcast to select a member.

If you want more control over where your code runs, use the MemberSelector interface. For example, you may want certain tasks to run only on certain members, or you may wish to implement some form of custom load balancing regime. The MemberSelector is an interface that you can implement and then provide to the IExecutorService when you submit or execute.

The select(Member) method is called for every available member in the cluster. Implement this method to decide if the member is going to be used or not.

In a simple example shown below, we select the cluster members based on the presence of an attribute.

public class MyMemberSelector implements MemberSelector {
     public boolean select(Member member) {
         return Boolean.TRUE.equals(member.getAttribute("my.special.executor"));
     }
 }

You can use MemberSelector instances provided via com.hazelcast.cluster.memberselector.MemberSelectors class. For example, you can select a lite member for running a task using com.hazelcast.cluster.memberselector.MemberSelectors#LITE_MEMBER_SELECTOR.

Configuring Executor Service

The following are example configurations for executor service.

Declarative:

<executor-service name="exec">
   <pool-size>1</pool-size>
   <queue-capacity>10</queue-capacity>
   <statistics-enabled>true</statistics-enabled>
</executor-service>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
ExecutorConfig executorConfig = config.getExecutorConfig("exec");
executorConfig.setPoolSize( "1" ).setQueueCapacity( "10" )
          .setStatisticsEnabled( true );

Executor service configuration has the following elements.

• pool-size: The number of executor threads per Member for the Executor. By default, Executor is configured to have 8 threads in the pool. You can change that with this element.
• queue-capacity: Executor's task queue capacity.
• statistics-enabled: Some statistics like pending operations count, started operations count, completed operations count, cancelled operations count can be retrieved by setting this parameter's value as true. The method for retrieving the statistics is getLocalExecutorStats().

Entry Processor

Hazelcast supports entry processing. An entry processor is a function that executes your code on a map entry in an atomic way.

An entry processor is a good option if you perform bulk processing on an IMap. Usually, you perform a loop of keys: executing IMap.get(key), mutating the value, and finally putting the entry back in the map using IMap.put(key,value). If you perform this process from a client or from a member where the keys do not exist, you effectively perform 2 network hops for each update: the first to retrieve the data and the second to update the mutated value.

If you are doing the process described above, you should consider using entry processors. An entry processor executes a read and updates upon the member where the data resides. This eliminates the costly network hops described previously.

Performing Fast In-Memory Map Operations

An entry processor enables fast in-memory operations on your map without you having to worry about locks or concurrency issues. You can apply it to a single map entry or to all map entries. It supports choosing target entries using predicates. You do not need any explicit lock on entry thanks to the isolated threading model: Hazelcast runs the EntryProcessor for all entries on a partitionThread so there will NOT be any interleaving of the EntryProcessor and other mutations.

Hazelcast sends the entry processor to each cluster member and these members apply it to map entries. Therefore, if you add more members, your processing completes faster.

Using OBJECT In-Memory Format

If entry processing is the major operation for a map and if the map consists of complex objects, you should use OBJECT as the in-memory-format to minimize serialization cost. By default, the entry value is stored as a byte array (BINARY format). When it is stored as an object (OBJECT format), then the entry processor is applied directly on the object. In that case, no serialization or deserialization is performed. But if there is a defined event listener, a new entry value will be serialized when passing to the event publisher service.

NOTE: When in-memory-format is OBJECT, old value of the updated entry will be null.

Entry Processing with IMap Methods

The methods below are in the IMap interface for entry processing.

• executeOnKey processes an entry mapped by a key.
• executeOnKeys processes entries mapped by a collection of keys.
• submitToKey processes an entry mapped by a key while listening to event status.
• executeOnEntries processes all entries in a map.
• executeOnEntries can also process all entries in a map with a defined predicate.

/**
 * Applies the user defined EntryProcessor to the entry mapped by the key.
 * Returns the object which is the result of the process() method of EntryProcessor.
 */
Object executeOnKey( K key, EntryProcessor entryProcessor );

/**
 * Applies the user defined EntryProcessor to the entries mapped by the collection of keys.
 * Returns the results mapped by each key in the collection.
 */
Map<K, Object> executeOnKeys( Set<K> keys, EntryProcessor entryProcessor );

/**
 * Applies the user defined EntryProcessor to the entry mapped by the key with
 * specified ExecutionCallback to listen to event status and return immediately.
 */
void submitToKey( K key, EntryProcessor entryProcessor, ExecutionCallback callback );


/**
 * Applies the user defined EntryProcessor to all entries in the map.
 * Returns the results mapped by each key in the map.
 */
Map<K, Object> executeOnEntries( EntryProcessor entryProcessor );

/**
 * Applies the user defined EntryProcessor to the entries in the map which satisfies 
 provided predicate.
 * Returns the results mapped by each key in the map.
 */
Map<K, Object> executeOnEntries( EntryProcessor entryProcessor, Predicate predicate );

NOTE: Entry Processors run via Operation Threads that are dedicated to specific partitions. Therefore, with long running Entry Processor executions, other partition operations such as map.put(key) cannot be processed. With this in mind, it is a good practice to make your Entry Processor executions as quick as possible.

EntryProcessor Interface

The following is the EntryProcessor interface:

public interface EntryProcessor<K, V> extends Serializable {
  Object process( Map.Entry<K, V> entry );

  EntryBackupProcessor<K, V> getBackupProcessor();
}

NOTE: If you want to execute a task on a single key, you can also use executeOnKeyOwner provided by Executor Service. But, in this case, you need to perform a lock and serialization.

When using the executeOnEntries method, if the number of entries is high and you do need the results, then returning null in process() method is a good practice. By returning null, results of the processing is not stored in the map and hence out of memory errors are eliminated.

Processing Backup Entries

If your code modifies the data, then you should also provide a processor for backup entries. This is required to prevent the primary map entries from having different values than the backups; it causes the entry processor to be applied both on the primary and backup entries.

public interface EntryBackupProcessor<K, V> extends Serializable {
    void processBackup( Map.Entry<K, V> entry );
}

NOTE: It is possible that an Entry Processor can see that a key exists but its backup processor may not find it at the run time due to an unsent backup of a previous operation (e.g. a previous put operation). In those situations, Hazelcast internally/eventually will synchronize those owner and backup partitions so you will not lose any data. When coding an EntryBackupProcessor, you should take that case into account, otherwise NullPointerException can be seen since Map.Entry.getValue() may return null.

Creating an Entry Processor

The EntryProcessorTest class has the following methods.

• testMapEntryProcessor puts one map entry and calls executeOnKey to process that map entry.
• testMapEntryProcessor puts all the entries in a map and calls executeOnEntries to process all the entries.

The static class IncrementingEntryProcessor creates an entry processor to process the map entries in the EntryProcessorTest class. It creates the entry processor class by:

• implementing the map interfaces EntryProcessor and EntryBackupProcessor.
• implementing the java.io.Serializable interface.
• implementing the EntryProcessor methods process and getBackupProcessor.
• implementing the EntryBackupProcessor method processBackup.

public class EntryProcessorTest {

  @Test
  public void testMapEntryProcessor() throws InterruptedException {
    Config config = new Config().getMapConfig( "default" )
        .setInMemoryFormat( MapConfig.InMemoryFormat.OBJECT );

    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance1 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( config );
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance2 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( config );
    IMap<Integer, Integer> map = hazelcastInstance1.getMap( "mapEntryProcessor" );
    map.put( 1, 1 );
    EntryProcessor entryProcessor = new IncrementingEntryProcessor();
    map.executeOnKey( 1, entryProcessor );
    assertEquals( map.get( 1 ), (Object) 2 );
    hazelcastInstance1.getLifecycleService().shutdown();
    hazelcastInstance2.getLifecycleService().shutdown();
  }

  @Test
  public void testMapEntryProcessorAllKeys() throws InterruptedException {
    StaticNodeFactory factory = new StaticNodeFactory( 2 );
    Config config = new Config().getMapConfig( "default" )
        .setInMemoryFormat( MapConfig.InMemoryFormat.OBJECT );

    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance1 = factory.newHazelcastInstance( config );
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance2 = factory.newHazelcastInstance( config );
    IMap<Integer, Integer> map = hazelcastInstance1
        .getMap( "mapEntryProcessorAllKeys" );

    int size = 100;
    for ( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) {
      map.put( i, i );
    }
    EntryProcessor entryProcessor = new IncrementingEntryProcessor();
    Map<Integer, Object> res = map.executeOnEntries( entryProcessor );
    for ( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) {
      assertEquals( map.get( i ), (Object) (i + 1) );
    }
    for ( int i = 0; i < size; i++ ) {
      assertEquals( map.get( i ) + 1, res.get( i ) );
    }
    hazelcastInstance1.getLifecycleService().shutdown();
    hazelcastInstance2.getLifecycleService().shutdown();
  }

  static class IncrementingEntryProcessor
      implements EntryProcessor, EntryBackupProcessor, Serializable {

    public Object process( Map.Entry entry ) {
      Integer value = (Integer) entry.getValue();
      entry.setValue( value + 1 );
      return value + 1;
    }

    public EntryBackupProcessor getBackupProcessor() {
      return IncrementingEntryProcessor.this;
    }

    public void processBackup( Map.Entry entry ) {
      entry.setValue( (Integer) entry.getValue() + 1 );
    }
  }
}

NOTE: You should explicitly call setValue method of Map.Entry when modifying data in Entry Processor. Otherwise, Entry Processor will be accepted as read-only.

NOTE: An Entry Processor instance is not thread safe. If you are storing partition specific state between invocations, be sure to register this in a thread-local. An Entry Processor instance can be used by multiple partition threads.

Abstract Entry Processor

You can use the AbstractEntryProcessor class when the same processing will be performed both on the primary and backup map entries (i.e. the same logic applies to them). If you use Entry Processor, you need to apply the same logic to the backup entries separately. The AbstractEntryProcessor class makes this primary/backup processing easier.

The code below shows the Hazelcast AbstractEntryProcessor class. You can use it to create your own Abstract Entry Processor.

public abstract class AbstractEntryProcessor <K, V>
    implements EntryProcessor <K, V> {

  private final EntryBackupProcessor <K,V> entryBackupProcessor;
  public AbstractEntryProcessor() {
    this(true);
  }

  public AbstractEntryProcessor(boolean applyOnBackup) {
    if ( applyOnBackup ) {
      entryBackupProcessor = new EntryBackupProcessorImpl();
    } else {
      entryBackupProcessor = null;
    }
  } 

  @Override
  public abstract Object process(Map.Entry<K, V> entry);

  @Override
  public final EntryBackupProcessor <K, V> getBackupProcessor() {
    return entryBackupProcessor;
  }

  private class EntryBackupProcessorImpl implements EntryBackupProcessor <K,V>{
    @Override
    public void processBackup(Map.Entry<K, V> entry) {
      process(entry); 
    }
  }    
}

In the above code, the method getBackupProcessor returns an EntryBackupProcessor instance. This means the same processing will be applied to both the primary and backup entries. If you want to apply the processing only upon the primary entries, then make the getBackupProcessor method return null.

NOTE: Beware of the null issue described at the note in the Processing Backup Entries section. Due to a yet unsent backup from a previous operation, an EntryBackupProcessor may temporarily receive null from Map.Entry.getValue() even though the value actually exists in the map. If you decide to use AbstractEntryProcessor, make sure your code logic is not sensitive to null values, or you may encounter NullPointerException during runtime.

Distributed Query

Distributed queries access data from multiple data sources stored on either the same or different members.

Hazelcast partitions your data and spreads it across cluster of members. You can iterate over the map entries and look for certain entries (specified by predicates) you are interested in. However, this is not very efficient because you will have to bring the entire entry set and iterate locally. Instead, Hazelcast allows you to run distributed queries on your distributed map.

How Distributed Query Works

1. The requested predicate is sent to each member in the cluster.
2. Each member looks at its own local entries and filters them according to the predicate. At this stage, key/value pairs of the entries are deserialized and then passed to the predicate.
3. The predicate requester merges all the results coming from each member into a single set.

If you add new members to the cluster, the partition count for each member is reduced and hence the time spent by each member on iterating its entries is reduced. Therefore, the above querying approach is highly scalable. Another reason it is highly scalable is the pool of partition threads that evaluates the entries concurrently in each member. The network traffic is also reduced since only filtered data is sent to the requester.

Hazelcast offers the following APIs for distributed query purposes:

• Criteria API
• Distributed SQL Query
  
  

Employee Map Query Example

Assume that you have an "employee" map containing values of Employee objects, as coded below.

import java.io.Serializable;

public class Employee implements Serializable {
private String name;
private int age;
private boolean active;
private double salary;

public Employee(String name, int age, boolean live, double price) {
    this.name = name;
    this.age = age;
    this.active = live;
    this.salary = price;
}

public Employee() {
}

public String getName() {
    return name;
}

public int getAge() {
    return age;
}

public double getSalary() {
    return salary;
}

public boolean isActive() {
    return active;
}
}

Now, let's look for the employees who are active and have an age less than 30 using the aforementioned APIs (Criteria API and Distributed SQL Query). The following subsections describe each query mechanism for this example.

NOTE: When using Portable objects, if one field of an object exists on one node but does not exist on another one, Hazelcast does not throw an unknown field exception. Instead, Hazelcast treats that predicate, which tries to perform a query on an unknown field, as an always false predicate.

Querying with Criteria API

Criteria API is a programming interface offered by Hazelcast that is similar to the Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL). Below is the code for the above example query.

import com.hazelcast.core.IMap;
import com.hazelcast.query.Predicate;
import com.hazelcast.query.PredicateBuilder;
import com.hazelcast.query.EntryObject;
import com.hazelcast.config.Config;

IMap<String, Employee> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employee" );

EntryObject e = new PredicateBuilder().getEntryObject();
Predicate predicate = e.is( "active" ).and( e.get( "age" ).lessThan( 30 ) );

Set<Employee> employees = map.values( predicate );

In the above example code, predicate verifies whether the entry is active and its age value is less than 30. This predicate is applied to the employee map using the map.values(predicate) method. This method sends the predicate to all cluster members and merges the results coming from them. Since the predicate is communicated between the members, it needs to be serializable.

NOTE: Predicates can also be applied to keySet, entrySet and localKeySet of Hazelcast distributed       map.

Predicates Class Operators

The Predicates class offered by Hazelcast includes many operators for your query requirements. Some of them are explained below.

• equal: Checks if the result of an expression is equal to a given value.
• notEqual: Checks if the result of an expression is not equal to a given value.
• instanceOf: Checks if the result of an expression has a certain type.
• like: Checks if the result of an expression matches some string pattern. % (percentage sign) is placeholder for many characters, (underscore) is placeholder for only one character.
• greaterThan: Checks if the result of an expression is greater than a certain value.
• greaterEqual: Checks if the result of an expression is greater than or equal to a certain value.
• lessThan: Checks if the result of an expression is less than a certain value.
• lessEqual: Checks if the result of an expression is less than or equal to a certain value.
• between: Checks if the result of an expression is between 2 values (this is inclusive).
• in: Checks if the result of an expression is an element of a certain collection.
• isNot: Checks if the result of an expression is false.
• regex: Checks if the result of an expression matches some regular expression.
  
  

RELATED INFORMATION

Please see the Predicates class for all predicates provided.

Joining Predicates with AND, OR, NOT

You can join predicates using the and, or and not operators, as shown in the below examples.

public Set<Person> getWithNameAndAge( String name, int age ) {
  Predicate namePredicate = Predicates.equal( "name", name );
  Predicate agePredicate = Predicates.equal( "age", age );
  Predicate predicate = Predicates.and( namePredicate, agePredicate );
  return personMap.values( predicate );
}

public Set<Person> getWithNameOrAge( String name, int age ) {
  Predicate namePredicate = Predicates.equal( "name", name );
  Predicate agePredicate = Predicates.equal( "age", age );
  Predicate predicate = Predicates.or( namePredicate, agePredicate );
  return personMap.values( predicate );
}

public Set<Person> getNotWithName( String name ) {
  Predicate namePredicate = Predicates.equal( "name", name );
  Predicate predicate = Predicates.not( namePredicate );
  return personMap.values( predicate );
}

Simplifying with PredicateBuilder

You can simplify predicate usage with the PredicateBuilder class, which offers simpler predicate building. Please see the below example code which selects all people with a certain name and age.

public Set<Person> getWithNameAndAgeSimplified( String name, int age ) {
  EntryObject e = new PredicateBuilder().getEntryObject();
  Predicate agePredicate = e.get( "age" ).equal( age );
  Predicate predicate = e.get( "name" ).equal( name ).and( agePredicate );
  return personMap.values( predicate );
}

Querying with SQL

com.hazelcast.query.SqlPredicate takes the regular SQL where clause. Here is an example:

IMap<Employee> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employee" );
Set<Employee> employees = map.values( new SqlPredicate( "active AND age < 30" ) );

Supported SQL Syntax

AND/OR: <expression> AND <expression> AND <expression>...

• active AND age>30
• active=false OR age = 45 OR name = 'Joe'
• active AND ( age > 20 OR salary < 60000 )
  
  

Equality: =, !=, <, <=, >, >=

• <expression> = value
• age <= 30
• name = "Joe"
• salary != 50000
  
  

BETWEEN: <attribute> [NOT] BETWEEN <value1> AND <value2>

• age BETWEEN 20 AND 33 ( same as age >= 20 AND age <= 33 )
• age NOT BETWEEN 30 AND 40 ( same as age < 30 OR age > 40 )
  
  

IN: <attribute> [NOT] IN (val1, val2,...)

• age IN ( 20, 30, 40 )
• age NOT IN ( 60, 70 )
• active AND ( salary >= 50000 OR ( age NOT BETWEEN 20 AND 30 ) )
• age IN ( 20, 30, 40 ) AND salary BETWEEN ( 50000, 80000 )
  
  

LIKE: <attribute> [NOT] LIKE 'expression'

The % (percentage sign) is placeholder for multiple characters, an _ (underscore) is placeholder for only one character.

• name LIKE 'Jo%' (true for 'Joe', 'Josh', 'Joseph' etc.)
• name LIKE 'Jo_' (true for 'Joe'; false for 'Josh')
• name NOT LIKE 'Jo_' (true for 'Josh'; false for 'Joe')
• name LIKE 'J_s%' (true for 'Josh', 'Joseph'; false 'John', 'Joe')
  
  

ILIKE: <attribute> [NOT] ILIKE ‘expression’

Similar to LIKE predicate but in a case-insensitive manner.

• name ILIKE 'Jo%' (true for 'Joe', 'joe', 'jOe','Josh','joSH', etc.)
• name ILIKE 'Jo_' (true for 'Joe' or 'jOE'; false for 'Josh')
  
  

REGEX: <attribute> [NOT] REGEX ‘expression’

• name REGEX 'abc-.*’ (true for 'abc-123'; false for 'abx-123')

Filtering with Paging Predicates

Hazelcast provides paging for defined predicates. With its PagingPredicate class, you can get a collection of keys, values, or entries page by page by filtering them with predicates and giving the size of the pages. Also, you can sort the entries by specifying comparators.

In the example code below:

• The greaterEqual predicate gets values from the "students" map. This predicate has a filter to retrieve the objects with a "age" greater than or equal to 18.
• Then a PagingPredicate is constructed in which the page size is 5, so there will be 5 objects in each page. The first time the values are called creates the first page.
• It gets subsequent pages with the nextPage() method of PagingPredicate and querying the map again with the updated PagingPredicate.

IMap<Integer, Student> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "students" );
Predicate greaterEqual = Predicates.greaterEqual( "age", 18 );
PagingPredicate pagingPredicate = new PagingPredicate( greaterEqual, 5 );
// Retrieve the first page
Collection<Student> values = map.values( pagingPredicate );
...
// Set up next page
pagingPredicate.nextPage();
// Retrieve next page
values = map.values( pagingPredicate );
...

If a comparator is not specified for PagingPredicate, but you want to get a collection of keys or values page by page, this collection must be an instance of Comparable (i.e. it must implement java.lang.Comparable). Otherwise, the java.lang.IllegalArgument exception is thrown.

Starting with Hazelcast 3.6, you can also access to a specific page more easily with the help of the method setPage(). By this way, if you make a query for 100th page, for example, it will get all the 100 pages at once instead of reaching the 100th page one by one using the method nextPage(). Please note that this feature tires the memory and refer to the PagingPredicate class.

Paging Predicate, also known as Order & Limit, is not supported in Transactional Context.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please see the Predicates class for all predicates provided.

Indexing Queries

Hazelcast distributed queries will run on each member in parallel and will return only the results to the caller. Then, on the caller side, the results will be merged.

When a query runs on a member, Hazelcast will iterate through the entire owned entries and find the matching ones. This can be made faster by indexing the mostly queried fields, just like you would do for your database. Indexing will add overhead for each write operation but queries will be a lot faster. If you query your map a lot, make sure to add indexes for the most frequently queried fields. For example, if you do an active and age < 30 query, make sure you add an index for the active and age fields. The following example code does that by:

• getting the map from the Hazelcast instance, and
• adding indexes to the map with the IMap addIndex method.

IMap map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employees" );
// ordered, since we have ranged queries for this field
map.addIndex( "age", true );
// not ordered, because boolean field cannot have range
map.addIndex( "active", false );

Indexing Ranged Queries

IMap.addIndex(fieldName, ordered) is used for adding index. For each indexed field, if you have ranged queries such as age>30, age BETWEEN 40 AND 60, then you should set the ordered parameter to true. Otherwise, set it to false.

Configuring IMap Indexes

Also, you can define IMap indexes in configuration. An example is shown below.

<map name="default">
  ...
  <indexes>
    <index ordered="false">name</index>
    <index ordered="true">age</index>
  </indexes>
</map>

You can also define IMap indexes using programmatic configuration, as in the example below.

mapConfig.addMapIndexConfig( new MapIndexConfig( "name", false ) );
mapConfig.addMapIndexConfig( new MapIndexConfig( "age", true ) );

The following is the Spring declarative configuration for the same sample.

<hz:map name="default">
  <hz:indexes>
    <hz:index attribute="name"/>
    <hz:index attribute="age" ordered="true"/>
  </hz:indexes>
</hz:map>

NOTE: Non-primitive types to be indexed should implement Comparable.

Configuring Query Thread Pool

You can change the size of the thread pool dedicated to query operations using the pool-size property. Below is an example of that declarative configuration.

<executor-service name="hz:query">
  <pool-size>100</pool-size>
</executor-service>

Below is an example of the equivalent programmatic configuration.

Config cfg = new Config();
cfg.getExecutorConfig("hz:query").setPoolSize(100);

Querying in Collections and Arrays

Hazelcast allows querying in collections and arrays.

Let's have a look at the following data structure expressed in pseudo-code:

class Motorbike {
    Wheel wheels[2];
}

class Wheel {
   String name;

}

In order to query a single element of a collection / array, you can execute the following query:

// it matches all motorbikes where the zero wheel's name is 'front-wheel'
Predicate p = Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', 'front-wheel');
Collection<Motorbike> result = map.values(p);

It is also possible to query a collection / array using the any semantic as shown below:

// it matches all motorbikes where any wheel's name is 'front-wheel'
Predicate p = Predicates.equals('wheels[any].name', 'front');
Collection<Motorbike> result = map.values(p);

The exact same query may be executed using the SQLPredicate as shown below:

Predicate p = new SQLPredicate('wheels[any].name', 'front');
Collection<Motorbike> result = map.values(p);

[] notation applies to both collections and arrays.

Indexing in Collections and Arrays

You can also create an index using a query in collections / arrays.

Please note that in order to leverage the index, the attribute name used in the query has to be the same as the one used in the index definition.

Let's assume you have the following index definition:

<indexes>
  <index ordered="false">wheels[any].name</index>
</indexes>

The following query will use the index:

Predicate p = Predicates.equals('wheels[any].name', 'front-wheel');

The following query, however, will NOT leverage the index, since it does not use exactly the same attribute name that was used in the index:

Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', 'front-wheel')

In order to use the index in the above mentioned case you have to create another index as shown below:

<indexes>
  <index ordered="false">wheels[0].name</index>
</indexes>

Corner cases

Handling of corner cases may be a bit different than the one used in programming language, like Java.

Let's have a look at the following examples in order to understand the differences. To make the analysis simpler let's assume that there is only one Motorbike object stored in an IMap.

Id	Query	Data state	Extraction Result	Match
1	Predicates.equals('wheels[7].name', 'front-wheel')	wheels.size() == 1	null	No
2	Predicates.equals('wheels[7].name', null)	wheels.size() == 1	null	Yes
3	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', 'front-wheel')	wheels[0].name == null	null	No
4	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', null)	wheels[0].name == null	null	Yes
5	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', 'front-wheel')	wheels[0] == null	null	No
6	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', null)	wheels[0] == null	null	Yes
7	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', 'front-wheel')	wheels == null	null	No
8	Predicates.equals('wheels[0].name', null)	wheels == null	null	Yes

As you can see no NullPointerExceptions or IndexOutOfBoundExceptions are thrown in the extraction process even though parts of the expression are null.

Looking at examples 4, 6 and 8 we can also easily notice that it is impossible to distinguish which part of the expression was null. If we execute the following query wheels[1].name = null it may be evaluated to true because:

• wheels collection / array is null
• index == 1 is out of bound
• name attribute of the wheels[1] object is null

In order to make the query unambiguous extra conditions would have to be added, e.g. wheels != null AND wheels[1].name = null

Custom Attributes

It is possible to define a custom attribute that may be referenced in predicates, queries and indexes.

A custom attribute is a "synthetic" attribute which does not exist as a field or a getter in the object that it is extracted from. Thus, it is required to define the policy how the attribute is supposed to be extracted. Currently, the only way to extract a custom attribute is to implement a com.hazelcast.query.extractor.ValueExtractor which encompasses the extraction logic.

Implementing a ValueExtractor

In order to implement a ValueExtractor just extend the abstract com.hazelcast.query.extractor.ValueExtractor class and implement the extract() method.

The ValueExtractor interface looks as follows:

/***
 * Common superclass for all extractors.
 *
 * @param <T> type of the target object to extract the value from
 * @param <A> type of the extraction argument object passed to the extract() method
 *
 */
public abstract class ValueExtractor<T, A> {

    /**
     * Extracts custom attribute's value from the given target object.
     *
     * @param target    object to extract the value from
     * @param argument  extraction argument
     * @param collector collector of the extracted value(s)
     *
     */
    public abstract void extract(T target, A argument, ValueCollector collector);

}

The extract() method does not return any value since the extracted value is collected by the ValueCollector. In order to return multiple results from a single extraction just invoke the ValueCollector.collect() method multiple times, so that the collector collects all results.

Here's the ValueCollector contract:

/**
 * Enables collecting values extracted by a {@see com.hazelcast.query.extractor.ValueExtractor}
 */
public abstract class ValueCollector {

    /**
     * Collects a value extracted by a ValueExtractor.
     * <p/>
     * More than one value may be collected in a single extraction
     *
     * @param value value to be collected
     */
    public abstract void addObject(Object value);

}

Returning Multiple Values from a Single Extraction

It sounds counter-intuitive, but a single extraction may return multiple values when arrays or collections are involved. Let's have a look at the following data structure in pseudo-code:

class Motorbike {
    Wheel wheel[2];
}

class Wheel {
    String name;
}

Let's assume that we want to extract the names of all wheels from a single motorbike object. Each motorbike has two wheels so there are two names too. In order to return both values from the extraction operation just collect them separately using the ValueCollector. Collecting multiple values in such a way allows operating on these multiple values as if they were single-values during the evaluation of the predicates.

Let's assume that we registered a custom extractor with the name wheelName and executed the following query: wheelName = front-wheel.

The extraction may return up to two wheel names for each Motorbike since each Motorbike has up to two wheels. In such a case, it is enough if a single value evaluates the predicate's condition to true to return a match, so it will return a Motorbike if "any" of the wheels matches the expression.

Extraction Arguments

A ValueExtractor may use a custom argument if it is specified in the query. The custom argument may be passed within the square brackets located after the name of the custom attribute, e.g. customAttribute[argument].

Let's have a look at the following query: currency[incoming] == EUR The currency is a custom attribute that uses a com.test.CurrencyExtractor for extraction.

The string incoming is an argument that will be passed to the ArgumentParser during the extraction. The parser will parse the string according to the parser's custom logic and it will return a parsed object. The parsed object may be a single object, array, collection, or any arbitrary object. It's up to the ValueExtractor's implementor to understand the semantics of the parsed argument object.

For now, it's not possible to register a custom ArgumentParser, thus a default parser is used. It follows a pass-through semantic, which means that the string located in the square-brackets is passed as-is to the ValueExtractor.extract() method.

Please note that it is not allowed to use square brackets within the argument string.

Configuring a Custom Attribute Programmatically

The following snippet demonstrates how to define a custom attribute using a ValueExtractor.

MapAttributeConfig attributeConfig = new MapAttributeConfig();
attributeConfig.setName("currency");
attributeConfig.setExtractor("com.bank.CurrencyExtractor");

MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig();
mapConfig.addMapAttributeConfig(attributeConfig);

currency is the name of the custom attribute that will be extracted using the CurrencyExtractor class.

Please, bear in mind that an extractor may not be added after the map has been instantiated. All extractors have to be defined upfront in the map's initial configuration.

Configuring a Custom Attribute Declaratively

The following snippet demonstrates how to define a custom attribute in the Hazelcast XML Configuration.

<map name="trades">
   <attributes>
       <attribute extractor="com.bank.CurrencyExtractor">currency</attribute>
   </attributes>
</map>

Analogously to the example above, currency is the name of the custom attribute that will be extracted using the CurrencyExtractor class.

Please note that an attribute name may begin with an ascii letter [A-Za-z] or digit [0-9] and may contain ascii letters [A-Za-z], digits [0-9] or underscores later on.

Indexing Custom Attributes

You can create an index using a custom attribute.

The name of the attribute used in the index definition has to match the one used in the attributes configuration.

It is allowed to define indexes with extraction arguments, as shown in the example below:

<indexes>
    <!-- custom attribute without an extraction argument -->
    <index ordered="true">currency</index>

    <!-- custom attribute using an extraction argument -->
    <index ordered="true">currency[EUR]</index>
</indexes>

MapReduce

You have likely heard about MapReduce ever since Google released its research white paper on this concept. With Hadoop as the most common and well known implementation, MapReduce gained a broad audience and made it into all kinds of business applications dominated by data warehouses.

MapReduce is a software framework for processing large amounts of data in a distributed way. Therefore, the processing is normally spread over several machines. The basic idea behind MapReduce is to map your source data into a collection of key-value pairs and reducing those pairs, grouped by key, in a second step towards the final result.

The main idea can be summarized with the following steps.

1. Read the source data.
2. Map the data to one or multiple key-value pairs.
3. Reduce all pairs with the same key.

Use Cases

The best known examples for MapReduce algorithms are text processing tools, such as counting the word frequency in large texts or websites. Apart from that, there are more interesting examples of use cases listed below.

• Log Analysis
• Data Querying
• Aggregation and summing
• Distributed Sort
• ETL (Extract Transform Load)
• Credit and Risk management
• Fraud detection
• and more.

Understanding MapReduce

This section will give a deeper insight on the MapReduce pattern and helps you understand the semantics behind the different MapReduce phases and how they are implemented in Hazelcast.

In addition to this, the following sections compare Hadoop and Hazelcast MapReduce implementations to help adopters with Hadoop backgrounds to quickly get familiar with Hazelcast MapReduce.

MapReduce Workflow Example

The flowchart below demonstrates the basic workflow of the word count example (distributed occurrences analysis) mentioned in the MapReduce section introduction. From left to right, it iterates over all the entries of a data structure (in this case an IMap). In the mapping phase, it splits the sentence into single words and emits a key-value pair per word: the word is the key, 1 is the value. In the next phase, values are collected (grouped) and transported to their corresponding reducers, where they are eventually reduced to a single key-value pair, the value being the number of occurrences of the word. At the last step, the different reducer results are grouped up to the final result and returned to the requester.

In pseudo code, the corresponding map and reduce function would look like the following. A Hazelcast code example will be shown in the next section.

map( key:String, document:String ):Void ->
  for each w:word in document:
    emit( w, 1 )

reduce( word:String, counts:List[Int] ):Int ->
  return sum( counts )

MapReduce Phases

As seen in the workflow example, a MapReduce process consists of multiple phases. The original MapReduce pattern describes two phases (map, reduce) and one optional phase (combine). In Hazelcast, these phases are either only existing virtually to explain the data flow or are executed in parallel during the real operation while the general idea is still persisting.

(K x V)* -> (L x W)*

[(k1, v1), ..., (kn, vn)] -> [(l1, w1), ..., (lm, wm)]

Mapping Phase

The mapping phase iterates all key-value pairs of any kind of legal input source. The mapper then analyzes the input pairs and emits zero or more new key-value pairs.

K x V -> (L x W)*

(k, v) -> [(l1, w1), ..., (ln, wn)]

Combine Phase

In the combine phase, multiple key-value pairs with the same key are collected and combined to an intermediate result before being send to the reducers. Combine phase is also optional in Hazelcast, but is highly recommended to lower the traffic.

In terms of the word count example, this can be explained using the sentences "Saturn is a planet but the Earth is a planet, too". As shown above, we would send two key-value pairs (planet, 1). The registered combiner now collects those two pairs and combines them into an intermediate result of (planet, 2). Instead of two key-value pairs sent through the wire, there is now only one for the key "planet".

The pseudo code for a combiner is similar to the reducer.

combine( word:String, counts:List[Int] ):Void ->
  emit( word, sum( counts ) )

Grouping / Shuffling Phase

The grouping or shuffling phase only exists virtually in Hazelcast since it is not a real phase; emitted key-value pairs with the same key are always transferred to the same reducer in the same job. They are grouped together, which is equivalent to the shuffling phase.

Reducing Phase

In the reducing phase, the collected intermediate key-value pairs are reduced by their keys to build the final by-key result. This value can be a sum of all the emitted values of the same key, an average value, or something completely different, depending on the use case.

Here is a reduced representation of this phase.

L x W* -> X*

(l, [w1, ..., wn]) -> [x1, ..., xn]

Producing the Final Result

This is not a real MapReduce phase, but it is the final step in Hazelcast after all reducers are notified that reducing has finished. The original job initiator then requests all reduced results and builds the final result.

Additional MapReduce Resources

The Internet is full of useful resources to find deeper information on MapReduce. Below is a short collection of more introduction material. In addition, there are books written about all kinds of MapReduce patterns and how to write a MapReduce function for your use case. To name them all is out of scope of this documentation.

• http://research.google.com/archive/mapreduce.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapReduce
• http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs448g/a2/files/map_reduce_tutorial.pdf
• http://ksat.me/map-reduce-a-really-simple-introduction-kloudo/
• http://www.slideshare.net/franebandov/an-introduction-to-mapreduce-6789635

Using the MapReduce API

This section explains the basics of the Hazelcast MapReduce framework. While walking through the different API classes, we will build the word count example that was discussed earlier and create it step by step.

The Hazelcast API for MapReduce operations consists of a fluent DSL-like configuration syntax to build and submit jobs. JobTracker is the basic entry point to all MapReduce operations and is retrieved from com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance by calling getJobTracker and supplying the name of the required JobTracker configuration. The configuration for JobTrackers will be discussed later, for now we focus on the API itself. In addition, the complete submission part of the API is built to support a fully reactive way of programming.

To give an easy introduction to people used to Hadoop, we created the class names to be as familiar as possible to their counterparts on Hadoop. That means while most users will recognize a lot of similar sounding classes, the way to configure the jobs is more fluent due to the DSL-like styled API.

While building the example, we will go through as many options as possible, e.g. we create a specialized JobTracker configuration (at the end). Special JobTracker configuration is not required, because for all other Hazelcast features you can use "default" as the configuration name. However, special configurations offer better options to predict behavior of the framework execution.

The full example is available here as a ready to run Maven project.

Retrieving a JobTracker Instance

JobTracker creates Job instances, whereas every instance of com.hazelcast.mapreduce.Job defines a single MapReduce configuration. The same Job can be submitted multiple times, no matter if it is executed in parallel or after the previous execution is finished.

NOTE: After retrieving the JobTracker, be aware that it should only be used with data structures derived from the same HazelcastInstance. Otherwise, you can get unexpected behavior.

To retrieve a JobTracker from Hazelcast, we will start by using the "default" configuration for convenience reasons to show the basic way.

import com.hazelcast.mapreduce.*;

JobTracker jobTracker = hazelcastInstance.getJobTracker( "default" );

JobTracker is retrieved using the same kind of entry point as most other Hazelcast features. After building the cluster connection, you use the created HazelcastInstance to request the configured (or default) JobTracker from Hazelcast.

The next step will be to create a new Job and configure it to execute our first MapReduce request against cluster data.

Creating a Job

As mentioned in Retrieving a JobTracker Instance, you create a Job using the retrieved JobTracker instance. A Job defines exactly one configuration of a MapReduce task. Mapper, combiner and reducers will be defined per job. However, since the Job instance is only a configuration, it can be submitted multiple times, no matter if executions happen in parallel or one after the other.

A submitted job is always identified using a unique combination of the JobTracker's name and a jobId generated on submit-time. The way to retrieve the jobId will be shown in one of the later sections.

To create a Job, a second class com.hazelcast.mapreduce.KeyValueSource is necessary. We will have a deeper look at the KeyValueSource class in the next section. KeyValueSource is used to wrap any kind of data or data structure into a well defined set of key-value pairs.

The example code below is a direct follow up of the example in Retrieving a JobTracker Instance. The example reuses the already created HazelcastInstance and JobTracker instances.

The example starts by retrieving an instance of our data map, and then it creates the Job instance. Implementations used to configure the Job will be discussed while walking further through the API documentation.

NOTE: Since the Job class is highly dependent upon generics to support type safety, the generics change over time and may not be assignment compatible to old variable types. To make use of the full potential of the fluent API, we recommend you use fluent method chaining as shown in this example to prevent the need for too many variables.

IMap<String, String> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "articles" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromMap( map );
Job<String, String> job = jobTracker.newJob( source );

ICompletableFuture<Map<String, Long>> future = job
    .mapper( new TokenizerMapper() )
    .combiner( new WordCountCombinerFactory() )
    .reducer( new WordCountReducerFactory() )
    .submit();

// Attach a callback listener
future.andThen( buildCallback() );

// Wait and retrieve the result
Map<String, Long> result = future.get();

As seen above, we create the Job instance and define a mapper, combiner, reducer. Then we submit the request to the cluster. The submit method returns an ICompletableFuture that can be used to attach our callbacks or to wait for the result to be processed in a blocking fashion.

There are more options available for job configurations, such as defining a general chunk size or on what keys the operation will operate. For more information, please refer to the Hazelcast source code for Job.java.

Creating Key-Value Input Sources with KeyValueSource

KeyValueSource can either wrap Hazelcast data structures (like IMap, MultiMap, IList, ISet) into key-value pair input sources, or build your own custom key-value input source. The latter option makes it possible to feed Hazelcast MapReduce with all kinds of data, such as just-in-time downloaded web page contents or data files. People familiar with Hadoop will recognize similarities with the Input class.

You can imagine a KeyValueSource as a bigger java.util.Iterator implementation. Whereas most methods are required to be implemented, the getAllKeys method is optional to implement. If implementation is able to gather all keys upfront, it should be implemented and isAllKeysSupported must return true. That way, Job configured KeyPredicates are able to evaluate keys upfront before sending them to the cluster. Otherwise, they are serialized and transferred as well, to be evaluated at execution time.

As shown in the example above, the abstract KeyValueSource class provides a number of static methods to easily wrap Hazelcast data structures into KeyValueSource implementations already provided by Hazelcast. The data structures' generics are inherited into the resulting KeyValueSource instance. For data structures like IList or ISet, the key type is always String. While mapping, the key is the data structure's name whereas the value type and value itself are inherited from the IList or ISet itself.

// KeyValueSource from com.hazelcast.core.IMap
IMap<String, String> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "my-map" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromMap( map );

// KeyValueSource from com.hazelcast.core.MultiMap
MultiMap<String, String> multiMap = hazelcastInstance.getMultiMap( "my-multimap" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromMultiMap( multiMap );

// KeyValueSource from com.hazelcast.core.IList
IList<String> list = hazelcastInstance.getList( "my-list" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromList( list );

// KeyValueSource from com.hazelcast.core.ISet
ISet<String> set = hazelcastInstance.getSet( "my-set" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromSet( set );

PartitionIdAware

The com.hazelcast.mapreduce.PartitionIdAware interface can be implemented by the KeyValueSource implementation if the underlying data set is aware of the Hazelcast partitioning schema (as it is for all internal data structures). If this interface is implemented, the same KeyValueSource instance is reused multiple times for all partitions on the cluster member. As a consequence, the close and open methods are also executed multiple times but once per partitionId.

Implementing Mapping Logic with Mapper

Using the Mapper interface, you will implement the mapping logic. Mappers can transform, split, calculate, and aggregate data from data sources. In Hazelcast, you can also integrate data from more than the KeyValueSource data source by implementing com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstanceAware and requesting additional maps, multimaps, list, and/or sets.

The mappers map function is called once per available entry in the data structure. If you work on distributed data structures that operate in a partition based fashion, then multiple mappers work in parallel on the different cluster members, on the members' assigned partitions. Mappers then prepare and maybe transform the input key-value pair and emit zero or more key-value pairs for reducing phase.

For our word count example, we retrieve an input document (a text document) and we transform it by splitting the text into the available words. After that, as discussed in the pseudo code, we emit every single word with a key-value pair with the word as the key and 1 as the value.

A common implementation of that Mapper might look like the following example:

public class TokenizerMapper implements Mapper<String, String, String, Long> {
  private static final Long ONE = Long.valueOf( 1L );

  @Override
  public void map(String key, String document, Context<String, Long> context) {
    StringTokenizer tokenizer = new StringTokenizer( document.toLowerCase() );
    while ( tokenizer.hasMoreTokens() ) {
      context.emit( tokenizer.nextToken(), ONE );
    }
  }
}

The code splits the mapped texts into their tokens, iterates over the tokenizer as long as there are more tokens, and emits a pair per word. Note that we're not yet collecting multiple occurrences of the same word, we just fire every word on its own.

LifecycleMapper / LifecycleMapperAdapter

The LifecycleMapper interface or its adapter class LifecycleMapperAdapter can be used to make the Mapper implementation lifecycle aware. That means it will be notified when mapping of a partition or set of data begins and when the last entry was mapped.

Only special algorithms might need those additional lifecycle events to prepare, clean up, or emit additional values.

Minimizing Cluster Traffic with Combiner

As stated in the introduction, a Combiner is used to minimize traffic between the different cluster members when transmitting mapped values from mappers to the reducers. It does this by aggregating multiple values for the same emitted key. This is a fully optional operation, but using it is highly recommended.

Combiners can be seen as an intermediate reducer. The calculated value is always assigned back to the key for which the combiner initially was created. Since combiners are created per emitted key, the Combiner implementation itself is not defined in the jobs configuration; instead, a CombinerFactory is created that is able to create the expected Combiner instance.

Because Hazelcast MapReduce is executing mapping and reducing phase in parallel, the Combiner implementation must be able to deal with chunked data. Therefore, you must reset its internal state whenever you call finalizeChunk. Calling the finalizeChunk method creates a chunk of intermediate data to be grouped (shuffled) and sent to the reducers.

Combiners can override beginCombine and finalizeCombine to perform preparation or cleanup work.

For our word count example, we are going to have a simple CombinerFactory and Combiner implementation similar to the following example.

public class WordCountCombinerFactory
    implements CombinerFactory<String, Long, Long> {

  @Override
  public Combiner<Long, Long> newCombiner( String key ) {
    return new WordCountCombiner();
  }

  private class WordCountCombiner extends Combiner<Long, Long> {
    private long sum = 0;

    @Override
    public void combine( Long value ) {
      sum++;
    }

    @Override
    public Long finalizeChunk() {
      return sum;
    }

    @Override
    public void reset() {
      sum = 0;
    }
  }
}

The Combiner must be able to return its current value as a chunk and reset the internal state by setting sum back to 0. Since combiners are always called from a single thread, no synchronization or volatility of the variables is necessary.

Doing Algorithm Work with Reducer

Reducers do the last bit of algorithm work. This can be aggregating values, calculating averages, or any other work that is expected from the algorithm.

Since values arrive in chunks, the reduce method is called multiple times for every emitted value of the creation key. This also can happen multiple times per chunk if no Combiner implementation was configured for a job configuration.

Different from combiners, a reducers finalizeReduce method is only called once per reducer (which means once per key). Therefore, a reducer does not need to reset its internal state at any time.

Reducers can override beginReduce to perform preparation work.

For our word count example, the implementation will look similar to the following code example.

public class WordCountReducerFactory implements ReducerFactory<String, Long, Long> {

  @Override
  public Reducer<Long, Long> newReducer( String key ) {
    return new WordCountReducer();
  }

  private class WordCountReducer extends Reducer<Long, Long> {
    private volatile long sum = 0;

    @Override
    public void reduce( Long value ) {
      sum += value.longValue();
    }

    @Override
    public Long finalizeReduce() {
      return sum;
    }
  }
}

Reducers Switching Threads

Different from combiners, reducers tend to switch threads if running out of data to prevent blocking threads from the JobTracker configuration. They are rescheduled at a later point when new data to be processed arrives but are unlikely to be executed on the same thread as before. As of Hazelcast version 3.3.3 the guarantee for memory visibility on the new thread is ensured by the framework. This means the previous requirement for making fields volatile is dropped.

Modifying the Result with Collator

A Collator is an optional operation that is executed on the job emitting member and is able to modify the finally reduced result before returned to the user's codebase. Only special use cases are likely to use collators.

For an imaginary use case, we might want to know how many words were all over in the documents we analyzed. For this case, a Collator implementation can be given to the submit method of the Job instance.

A collator would look like the following snippet:

public class WordCountCollator implements Collator<Map.Entry<String, Long>, Long> {

  @Override
  public Long collate( Iterable<Map.Entry<String, Long>> values ) {
    long sum = 0;

    for ( Map.Entry<String, Long> entry : values ) {
      sum += entry.getValue().longValue();
    }
    return sum;
  }
}

The definition of the input type is a bit strange, but because Combiner and Reducer implementations are optional, the input type heavily depends on the state of the data. As stated above, collators are non-typical use cases and the generics of the framework always help in finding the correct signature.

Preselecting Keys with KeyPredicate

You can use KeyPredicate to pre-select whether or not a key should be selected for mapping in the mapping phase. If the KeyValueSource implementation is able to know all keys prior to execution, the keys are filtered before the operations are divided among the different cluster members.

A KeyPredicate can also be used to select only a special range of data (e.g. a time-frame) or similar use cases.

A basic KeyPredicate implementation that only maps keys containing the word "hazelcast" might look like the following code example:

public class WordCountKeyPredicate implements KeyPredicate<String> {

  @Override
  public boolean evaluate( String s ) {
    return s != null && s.toLowerCase().contains( "hazelcast" );
  }
}

Job Monitoring with TrackableJob

You can retrieve a TrackableJob instance after submitting a job. It is requested from the JobTracker using the unique jobId (per JobTracker). You can use it get runtime statistics of the job. The information available is limited to the number of processed (mapped) records and the processing state of the different partitions or members (if KeyValueSource is not PartitionIdAware).

To retrieve the jobId after submission of the job, use com.hazelcast.mapreduce.JobCompletableFuture instead of the com.hazelcast.core.ICompletableFuture as the variable type for the returned future.

The example code below gives a quick introduction on how to retrieve the instance and the runtime data. For more information, please have a look at the Javadoc corresponding your running Hazelcast version.

The example performs the following steps to get the job instance.

• It gets the map with the hazelcastInstance getMap method.
• From the map, it gets the source with the KeyValueSource fromMap method.
• From the source, it gets a job with the JobTracker newJob method.

IMap<String, String> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "articles" );
KeyValueSource<String, String> source = KeyValueSource.fromMap( map );
Job<String, String> job = jobTracker.newJob( source );

JobCompletableFuture<Map<String, Long>> future = job
    .mapper( new TokenizerMapper() )
    .combiner( new WordCountCombinerFactory() )
    .reducer( new WordCountReducerFactory() )
    .submit();

String jobId = future.getJobId();
TrackableJob trackableJob = jobTracker.getTrackableJob(jobId);

JobProcessInformation stats = trackableJob.getJobProcessInformation();
int processedRecords = stats.getProcessedRecords();
log( "ProcessedRecords: " + processedRecords );

JobPartitionState[] partitionStates = stats.getPartitionStates();
for ( JobPartitionState partitionState : partitionStates ) {
  log( "PartitionOwner: " + partitionState.getOwner()
          + ", Processing state: " + partitionState.getState().name() );
}

NOTE: Caching of the JobProcessInformation does not work on Java native clients since current values are retrieved while retrieving the instance to minimize traffic between executing member and client.

Configuring JobTracker

You configure JobTracker configuration to set up behavior of the Hazelcast MapReduce framework.

Every JobTracker is capable of running multiple MapReduce jobs at once; one configuration is meant as a shared resource for all jobs created by the same JobTracker. The configuration gives full control over the expected load behavior and thread counts to be used.

The following snippet shows a typical JobTracker configuration. The configuration properties are discussed below the example.

<jobtracker name="default">
  <max-thread-size>0</max-thread-size>
  <!-- Queue size 0 means number of partitions * 2 -->
  <queue-size>0</queue-size>
  <retry-count>0</retry-count>
  <chunk-size>1000</chunk-size>
  <communicate-stats>true</communicate-stats>
  <topology-changed-strategy>CANCEL_RUNNING_OPERATION</topology-changed-strategy>
</jobtracker>

• max-thread-size: Maximum thread pool size of the JobTracker.
• queue-size: Maximum number of tasks that are able to wait to be processed. A value of 0 means an unbounded queue. Very low numbers can prevent successful execution since job might not be correctly scheduled or intermediate chunks might be lost.
• retry-count: Currently not used. Reserved for later use where the framework will automatically try to restart / retry operations from an available save point.
• chunk-size: Number of emitted values before a chunk is sent to the reducers. If your emitted values are big or you want to better balance your work, you might want to change this to a lower or higher value. A value of 0 means immediate transmission, but remember that low values mean higher traffic costs. A very high value might cause an OutOfMemoryError to occur if the emitted values do not fit into heap memory before being sent to the reducers. To prevent this, you might want to use a combiner to pre-reduce values on mapping members.
• communicate-stats: Specifies whether the statistics (for example, statistics about processed entries) are transmitted to the job emitter. This can show progress to a user inside of an UI system, but it produces additional traffic. If not needed, you might want to deactivate this.
• topology-changed-strategy: Specifies how the MapReduce framework reacts on topology changes while executing a job. Currently, only CANCEL_RUNNING_OPERATION is fully supported, which throws an exception to the job emitter (will throw a com.hazelcast.mapreduce.TopologyChangedException).

Hazelcast MapReduce Architecture

This section explains some of the internals of the MapReduce framework. This is more advanced information. If you're not interested in how it works internally, you might want to skip this section.

Node Interoperation Example

To understand the following technical internals, we first have a short look at what happens in terms of an example workflow.

As a simple example, think of an IMap<String, Integer> and emitted keys having the same types. Imagine you have a three node cluster (a cluster with three members) and you initiate the MapReduce job on the first node. After you requested the JobTracker from your running / connected Hazelcast, we submit the task and retrieve the ICompletableFuture which gives us a chance to wait for the result to be calculated or to add a callback (and being more reactive).

The example expects that the chunk size is 0 or 1, so an emitted value is directly sent to the reducers. Internally, the job is prepared, started, and executed on all nodes as shown below. The first node acts as the job owner (job emitter).

Node1 starts MapReduce job
Node1 emits key=Foo, value=1
Node1 does PartitionService::getKeyOwner(Foo) => results in Node3

Node2 emits key=Foo, value=14
Node2 asks jobOwner (Node1) for keyOwner of Foo => results in Node3

Node1 sends chunk for key=Foo to Node3

Node3 receives chunk for key=Foo and looks if there is already a Reducer,
      if not creates one for key=Foo
Node3 processes chunk for key=Foo

Node2 sends chunk for key=Foo to Node3

Node3 receives chunk for key=Foo and looks if there is already a Reducer and uses
      the previous one
Node3 processes chunk for key=Foo

Node1 send LastChunk information to Node3 because processing local values finished

Node2 emits key=Foo, value=27
Node2 has cached keyOwner of Foo => results in Node3
Node2 sends chunk for key=Foo to Node3

Node3 receives chunk for key=Foo and looks if there is already a Reducer and uses
      the previous one
Node3 processes chunk for key=Foo

Node2 send LastChunk information to Node3 because processing local values finished

Node3 finishes reducing for key=Foo

Node1 registers its local partitions are processed
Node2 registers its local partitions are processed

Node1 sees all partitions processed and requests reducing from all nodes

Node1 merges all reduced results together in a final structure and returns it

The flow is quite complex but extremely powerful since everything is executed in parallel. Reducers do not wait until all values are emitted, but they immediately begin to reduce (when first chunk for an emitted key arrives).

Internal MapReduce Packages

Beginning with the package level, there is one basic package: com.hazelcast.mapreduce. This includes the external API and the impl package which itself contains the internal implementation.

• The impl package contains all the default KeyValueSource implementations and abstract base and support classes for the exposed API.
• The client package contains all classes that are needed on client and member side when a client offers a MapReduce job.
• The notification package contains all "notification" or event classes that notify other members about progress on operations.
• The operation package contains all operations that are used by the workers or job owner to coordinate work and sync partition or reducer processing.
• The task package contains all classes that execute the actual MapReduce operation. It features the supervisor, mapping phase implementation and mapping and reducing tasks.

MapReduce Job Walk-Through

And now to the technical walk-through: a MapReduce Job is always retrieved from a named JobTracker, which is implemented in NodeJobTracker (extends AbstractJobTracker) and is configured using the configuration DSL. All of the internal implementation is completely ICompletableFuture-driven and mostly non-blocking in design.

On submit, the Job creates a unique UUID which afterwards acts as a jobId and is combined with the JobTracker's name to be uniquely identifiable inside the cluster. Then, the preparation is sent around the cluster and every member prepares its execution by creating a JobSupervisor, MapCombineTask, and ReducerTask. The job-emitting JobSupervisor gains special capabilities to synchronize and control JobSupervisors on other nodes for the same job.

If preparation is finished on all nodes, the job itself is started by executing a StartProcessingJobOperation on every node. This initiates a MappingPhase implementation (defaults to KeyValueSourceMappingPhase) and starts the actual mapping on the nodes.

The mapping process is currently a single threaded operation per node, but will be extended to run in parallel on multiple partitions (configurable per Job) in future versions. The Mapper is now called on every available value on the partition and eventually emits values. For every emitted value, either a configured CombinerFactory is called to create a Combiner or a cached one is used (or the default CollectingCombinerFactory is used to create Combiners). When the chunk limit is reached on a node, a IntermediateChunkNotification is prepared by collecting emitted keys to their corresponding nodes. This is either done by asking the job owner to assign members or by an already cached assignment. In later versions, a PartitionStrategy might also be configurable.

The IntermediateChunkNotification is then sent to the reducers (containing only values for this node) and is offered to the ReducerTask. On every offer, the ReducerTask checks if it is already running and if not, it submits itself to the configured ExecutorService (from the JobTracker configuration).

If reducer queue runs out of work, the ReducerTask is removed from the ExecutorService to not block threads but eventually will be resubmitted on next chunk of work.

On every phase, the partition state is changed to keep track of the currently running operations. A JobPartitionState can be in one of the following states with self-explanatory titles: [WAITING, MAPPING, REDUCING, PROCESSED, CANCELLED]. If you have a deeper interest of these states, look at the Javadoc.

• Node asks for new partition to process: WAITING => MAPPING
• Node emits first chunk to a reducer: MAPPING => REDUCING
• All nodes signal that they finished mapping phase and reducing is finished, too: REDUCING => PROCESSED

Eventually (or hopefully), all JobPartitionStates reach the state of PROCESSED. Then, the job emitter's JobSupervisor asks all nodes for their reduced results and executes a potentially offered Collator. With this Collator, the overall result is calculated before it removes itself from the JobTracker, doing some final cleanup and returning the result to the requester (using the internal TrackableJobFuture).

If a job is cancelled while execution, all partitions are immediately set to the CANCELLED state and a CancelJobSupervisorOperation is executed on all nodes to kill the running processes.

While the operation is running in addition to the default operations, some more operations like ProcessStatsUpdateOperation (updates processed records statistics) or NotifyRemoteExceptionOperation (notifies the nodes that the sending node encountered an unrecoverable situation and the Job needs to be cancelled - e.g. NullPointerException inside of a Mapper) are executed against the job owner to keep track of the process.

Aggregators

Based on the Hazelcast MapReduce framework, Aggregators are ready-to-use data aggregations. These are typical operations like sum up values, finding minimum or maximum values, calculating averages, and other operations that you would expect in the relational database world.

Aggregation operations are implemented, as mentioned above, on top of the MapReduce framework and all operations can be achieved using pure MapReduce calls. However, using the Aggregation feature is more convenient for a big set of standard operations.

Aggregations Basics

This section will quickly guide you through the basics of the Aggregations framework and some of its available classes. We also will implement a first base example.

Aggregations and Map Interfaces

Aggregations are available on both types of map interfaces, com.hazelcast.core.IMap and com.hazelcast .core.MultiMap, using the aggregate methods. Two overloaded methods are available that customize resource management of the underlying MapReduce framework by supplying a custom configured com.hazelcast.mapreduce.JobTracker instance. To find out how to configure the MapReduce framework, please see Configuring JobTracker. We will later see another way to configure the automatically used MapReduce framework if no special JobTracker is supplied.

Aggregations and Java

To make Aggregations more convenient to use and future proof, the API is heavily optimized for Java 8 and future versions. The API is still fully compatible with any Java version Hazelcast supports (Java 6 and Java 7). The biggest difference is how you work with the Java generics: on Java 6 and 7, the process to resolve generics is not as strong as on Java 8 and upcoming Java versions. In addition, the whole Aggregations API has full Java 8 Project Lambda (or Closure, JSR 335) support.

For illustration of the differences in Java 6 and 7 in comparison to Java 8, we will have a quick look at code examples for both. After that, we will focus on using Java 8 syntax to keep examples short and easy to understand, and we will see some hints as to what the code looks like in Java 6 or 7.

The first example will produce the sum of some int values stored in a Hazelcast IMap. This example does not use much of the functionality of the Aggregations framework, but it will show the main difference.

IMap<String, Integer> personAgeMapping = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "person-age" );
for ( int i = 0; i < 1000; i++ ) {
  String lastName = RandomUtil.randomLastName();
  int age = RandomUtil.randomAgeBetween( 20, 80 );
  personAgeMapping.put( lastName, Integer.valueOf( age ) );
}

With our demo data prepared, we can see how to produce the sums in different Java versions.

Aggregations and Java 6 or Java 7

Since Java 6 and 7 are not as strong on resolving generics as Java 8, you need to be a bit more verbose with the code you write. You might also consider using raw types, but breaking the type safety to ease this process.

For a short introduction on what the following code example means, look at the source code comments. We will later dig deeper into the different options.

// No filter applied, select all entries
Supplier<String, Integer, Integer> supplier = Supplier.all();
// Choose the sum aggregation
Aggregation<String, Integer, Integer> aggregation = Aggregations.integerSum();
// Execute the aggregation
int sum = personAgeMapping.aggregate( supplier, aggregation );

Aggregations and Java 8

With Java 8, the Aggregations API looks simpler because Java 8 can resolve the generic parameters for us. That means the above lines of Java 6/7 example code will end up in just one easy line on Java 8.

int sum = personAgeMapping.aggregate( Supplier.all(), Aggregations.integerSum() );

Aggregations and the MapReduce Framework

As mentioned before, the Aggregations implementation is based on the Hazelcast MapReduce framework and therefore you might find overlaps in their APIs. One overload of the aggregate method can be supplied with a JobTracker which is part of the MapReduce framework.

If you implement your own aggregations, you will use a mixture of the Aggregations and the MapReduce API. If you will implement your own aggregation, e.g. to make the life of colleagues easier, please read the Implementing Aggregations section.

For the full MapReduce documentation please see the MapReduce section.

Using the Aggregations API

We now look into the possible options of what can be achieved using the Aggregations API. To work on some deeper examples, let's quickly have a look at the available classes and interfaces and discuss their usage.

Supplier

The com.hazelcast.mapreduce.aggregation.Supplier provides filtering and data extraction to the aggregation operation. This class already provides a few different static methods to achieve the most common cases. Supplier.all() accepts all incoming values and does not apply any data extraction or transformation upon them before supplying them to the aggregation function itself.

For filtering data sets, you have two different options by default.

• You can either supply a com.hazelcast.query.Predicate if you want to filter on values and / or keys, or
• you can supply a com.hazelcast.mapreduce.KeyPredicate if you can decide directly on the data key without the need to deserialize the value.

As mentioned above, all APIs are fully Java 8 and Lambda compatible. Let's have a look on how we can do basic filtering using those two options.

Basic Filtering with KeyPredicate

First, we have a look at a KeyPredicate and we only accept people whose last name is "Jones".

Supplier<...> supplier = Supplier.fromKeyPredicate(
    lastName -> "Jones".equalsIgnoreCase( lastName )
);

class JonesKeyPredicate implements KeyPredicate<String> {
  public boolean evaluate( String key ) {
    return "Jones".equalsIgnoreCase( key );
  }
}

Filtering on Values with Predicate

Using the standard Hazelcast Predicate interface, we can also filter based on the value of a data entry. In the following example, you can only select values which are divisible by 4 without a remainder.

Supplier<...> supplier = Supplier.fromPredicate(
    entry -> entry.getValue() % 4 == 0
);

class DivisiblePredicate implements Predicate<String, Integer> {
  public boolean apply( Map.Entry<String, Integer> entry ) {
    return entry.getValue() % 4 == 0;
  }
}

Extracting and Transforming Data

As well as filtering, Supplier can also extract or transform data before providing it to the aggregation operation itself. The following example shows how to transform an input value to a string.

Supplier<String, Integer, String> supplier = Supplier.all(
    value -> Integer.toString(value)
);

You can see a Java 6 / 7 example in the Aggregations Examples section.

Apart from the fact we transformed the input value of type int (or Integer) to a string, we can see that the generic information of the resulting Supplier has changed as well. This indicates that we now have an aggregation working on string values.

Chaining Multiple Filtering Rules

Another feature of Supplier is its ability to chain multiple filtering rules. Let's combine all of the above examples into one rule set:

Supplier<String, Integer, String> supplier =
    Supplier.fromKeyPredicate(
        lastName -> "Jones".equalsIgnoreCase( lastName ),
        Supplier.fromPredicate(
            entry -> entry.getValue() % 4 == 0,  
            Supplier.all( value -> Integer.toString(value) )
        )
    );

Implementing Supplier with Special Requirements

You might prefer or need to implement your Supplier based on special requirements. This is a very basic task. The Supplier abstract class has just one method: the apply method.

NOTE: Due to a limitation of the Java Lambda API, you cannot implement abstract classes using Lambdas. Instead it is recommended that you create a standard named class.

class MyCustomSupplier extends Supplier<String, Integer, String> {
  public String apply( Map.Entry<String, Integer> entry ) {
    Integer value = entry.getValue();
    if (value == null) {
      return null;
    }
    return value % 4 == 0 ? String.valueOf( value ) : null;
  }
}

The Supplier apply methods are expected to return null whenever the input value should not be mapped to the aggregation process. This can be used, as in the example above, to implement filter rules directly. Implementing filters using the KeyPredicate and Predicate interfaces might be more convenient.

To use your own Supplier, just pass it to the aggregate method or use it in combination with other Suppliers.

int sum = personAgeMapping.aggregate( new MyCustomSupplier(), Aggregations.count() );

Supplier<String, Integer, String> supplier =
    Supplier.fromKeyPredicate(
        lastName -> "Jones".equalsIgnoreCase( lastName ),
        new MyCustomSupplier()
     );
int sum = personAgeMapping.aggregate( supplier, Aggregations.count() );

Defining the Aggregation Operation

The com.hazelcast.mapreduce.aggregation.Aggregation interface defines the aggregation operation itself. It contains a set of MapReduce API implementations like Mapper, Combiner, Reducer, and Collator. These implementations are normally unique to the chosen Aggregation. This interface can also be implemented with your aggregation operations based on MapReduce calls. For more information, refer to Implementing Aggregations section.

The com.hazelcast.mapreduce.aggregation.Aggregations class provides a common predefined set of aggregations. This class contains type safe aggregations of the following types:

• Average (Integer, Long, Double, BigInteger, BigDecimal)
• Sum (Integer, Long, Double, BigInteger, BigDecimal)
• Min (Integer, Long, Double, BigInteger, BigDecimal, Comparable)
• Max (Integer, Long, Double, BigInteger, BigDecimal, Comparable)
• DistinctValues
• Count

Those aggregations are similar to their counterparts on relational databases and can be equated to SQL statements as set out below.

Average

Calculates an average value based on all selected values.

map.aggregate( Supplier.all( person -> person.getAge() ),
               Aggregations.integerAvg() );

SELECT AVG(person.age) FROM person;

Sum

Calculates a sum based on all selected values.

map.aggregate( Supplier.all( person -> person.getAge() ),
               Aggregations.integerSum() );

SELECT SUM(person.age) FROM person;

Minimum (Min)

Finds the minimal value over all selected values.

map.aggregate( Supplier.all( person -> person.getAge() ),
               Aggregations.integerMin() );

SELECT MIN(person.age) FROM person;

Maximum (Max)

Finds the maximal value over all selected values.

map.aggregate( Supplier.all( person -> person.getAge() ),
               Aggregations.integerMax() );

SELECT MAX(person.age) FROM person;

Distinct Values

Returns a collection of distinct values over the selected values

map.aggregate( Supplier.all( person -> person.getAge() ),
               Aggregations.distinctValues() );

SELECT DISTINCT person.age FROM person;

Count

Returns the element count over all selected values

map.aggregate( Supplier.all(), Aggregations.count() );

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM person;

Extracting Attribute Values with PropertyExtractor

We used the com.hazelcast.mapreduce.aggregation.PropertyExtractor interface before when we had a look at the example on how to use a Supplier to transform a value to another type. It can also be used to extract attributes from values.

class Person {
  private String firstName;
  private String lastName;
  private int age;

  // getters and setters
}

PropertyExtractor<Person, Integer> propertyExtractor = (person) -> person.getAge();

class AgeExtractor implements PropertyExtractor<Person, Integer> {
  public Integer extract( Person value ) {
    return value.getAge();
  }
}

In this example, we extract the value from the person's age attribute. The value type changes from Person to Integer which is reflected in the generics information to stay type safe.

You can use PropertyExtractors for any kind of transformation of data. You might even want to have multiple transformation steps chained one after another.

Configuring Aggregations

As stated before, the easiest way to configure the resources used by the underlying MapReduce framework is to supply a JobTracker to the aggregation call itself by passing it to either IMap::aggregate or MultiMap::aggregate.

There is another way to implicitly configure the underlying used JobTracker. If no specific JobTracker was passed for the aggregation call, internally one will be created using the following naming specifications:

For IMap aggregation calls the naming specification is created as:

• hz::aggregation-map- and the concatenated name of the map.

For MultiMap it is very similar:

• hz::aggregation-multimap- and the concatenated name of the MultiMap.

Knowing that (the specification of the name), we can configure the JobTracker as expected (as described in Retrieving a JobTracker Instance) using the naming spec we just learned. For more information on configuration of the JobTracker, please see Configuring Jobtracker.

To finish this section, let's have a quick example for the above naming specs:

IMap<String, Integer> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "mymap" );

// The internal JobTracker name resolves to 'hz::aggregation-map-mymap' 
map.aggregate( ... );

MultiMap<String, Integer> multimap = hazelcastInstance.getMultiMap( "mymultimap" );

// The internal JobTracker name resolves to 'hz::aggregation-multimap-mymultimap' 
multimap.aggregate( ... );

Aggregations Examples

For the final example, imagine you are working for an international company and you have an employee database stored in Hazelcast IMap with all employees worldwide and a MultiMap for assigning employees to their certain locations or offices. In addition, there is another IMap which holds the salary per employee.

Setting up the Data Model

Let's have a look at our data model.

class Employee implements Serializable {
  private String firstName;
  private String lastName;
  private String companyName;
  private String address;
  private String city;
  private String county;
  private String state;
  private int zip;
  private String phone1;
  private String phone2;
  private String email;
  private String web;

  // getters and setters
}

class SalaryMonth implements Serializable {
  private Month month;
  private int salary;

  // getters and setters
}

class SalaryYear implements Serializable {
  private String email;
  private int year;
  private List<SalaryMonth> months;

  // getters and setters

  public int getAnnualSalary() {
    int sum = 0;
    for ( SalaryMonth salaryMonth : getMonths() ) {
      sum += salaryMonth.getSalary();
    }
    return sum;
  }
}

The two IMaps and the MultiMap are keyed by the string of email. They are defined as follows:

IMap<String, Employee> employees = hz.getMap( "employees" );
IMap<String, SalaryYear> salaries = hz.getMap( "salaries" );
MultiMap<String, String> officeAssignment = hz.getMultiMap( "office-employee" );

So far, we know all the important information to work out some example aggregations. We will look into some deeper implementation details and how we can work around some current limitations that will be eliminated in future versions of the API.

Average Aggregation Example

Let's start with a very basic example. We want to know the average salary of all of our employees. To do this, we need a PropertyExtractor and the average aggregation for type Integer.

IMap<String, SalaryYear> salaries = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "salaries" );
PropertyExtractor<SalaryYear, Integer> extractor =
    (salaryYear) -> salaryYear.getAnnualSalary();
int avgSalary = salaries.aggregate( Supplier.all( extractor ),
                                    Aggregations.integerAvg() );

That's it. Internally, we created a MapReduce task based on the predefined aggregation and fired it up immediately. Currently, all aggregation calls are blocking operations, so it is not yet possible to execute the aggregation in a reactive way (using com.hazelcast.core.ICompletableFuture) but this will be part of an upcoming version.

Map Join Example

The following example is a little more complex. We only want to have our US based employees selected into the average salary calculation, so we need to execute some kind of a join operation between the employees and salaries maps.

class USEmployeeFilter implements KeyPredicate<String>, HazelcastInstanceAware {
  private transient HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance;

  public void setHazelcastInstance( HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance ) {
    this.hazelcastInstance = hazelcastInstance;
  }

  public boolean evaluate( String email ) {
    IMap<String, Employee> employees = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employees" );
    Employee employee = employees.get( email );
    return "US".equals( employee.getCountry() );
  }
}

Using the HazelcastInstanceAware interface, we get the current instance of Hazelcast injected into our filter and we can perform data joins on other data structures of the cluster. We now only select employees that work as part of our US offices into the aggregation.

IMap<String, SalaryYear> salaries = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "salaries" );
PropertyExtractor<SalaryYear, Integer> extractor =
    (salaryYear) -> salaryYear.getAnnualSalary();
int avgSalary = salaries.aggregate( Supplier.fromKeyPredicate(
                                        new USEmployeeFilter(), extractor
                                    ), Aggregations.integerAvg() );

Grouping Example

For our next example, we will do some grouping based on the different worldwide offices. Currently, a group aggregator is not yet available, so we need a small workaround to achieve this goal. (In later versions of the Aggregations API this will not be required because it will be available out of the box in a much more convenient way.)

Again, let's start with our filter. This time, we want to filter based on an office name and we need to do some data joins to achieve this kind of filtering.

A short tip: to minimize the data transmission on the aggregation we can use Data Affinity rules to influence the partitioning of data. Be aware that this is an expert feature of Hazelcast.

class OfficeEmployeeFilter implements KeyPredicate<String>, HazelcastInstanceAware {
  private transient HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance;
  private String office;

  // Deserialization Constructor
  public OfficeEmployeeFilter() {
  } 

  public OfficeEmployeeFilter( String office ) {
    this.office = office;
  }

  public void setHazelcastInstance( HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance ) {
    this.hazelcastInstance = hazelcastInstance;
  }

  public boolean evaluate( String email ) {
    MultiMap<String, String> officeAssignment = hazelcastInstance
        .getMultiMap( "office-employee" );

    return officeAssignment.containsEntry( office, email );    
  }
}

Now we can execute our aggregations. As mentioned before, we currently need to do the grouping on our own by executing multiple aggregations in a row.

Map<String, Integer> avgSalariesPerOffice = new HashMap<String, Integer>();

IMap<String, SalaryYear> salaries = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "salaries" );
MultiMap<String, String> officeAssignment =
    hazelcastInstance.getMultiMap( "office-employee" );

PropertyExtractor<SalaryYear, Integer> extractor =
    (salaryYear) -> salaryYear.getAnnualSalary();

for ( String office : officeAssignment.keySet() ) {
  OfficeEmployeeFilter filter = new OfficeEmployeeFilter( office );
  int avgSalary = salaries.aggregate( Supplier.fromKeyPredicate( filter, extractor ),
                                      Aggregations.integerAvg() );

  avgSalariesPerOffice.put( office, avgSalary );
}

Simple Count Example

After the previous example, we want to end this section by executing one final and easy aggregation. We want to know how many employees we currently have on a worldwide basis. Before reading the next lines of example code, you can try to do it on your own to see if you understood how to execute aggregations.

IMap<String, Employee> employees = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employees" );
int count = employees.size();

Ok, after the quick joke of the previous two code lines, we look at the real two code lines:

IMap<String, Employee> employees = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "employees" );
int count = employees.aggregate( Supplier.all(), Aggregations.count() );

We now have an overview of how to use aggregations in real life situations. If you want to do your colleagues a favor, you might want to write your own additional set of aggregations. If so, then read the next section, Implementing Aggregations.

Implementing Aggregations

This section explains how to implement your own aggregations in your own application. It is an advanced section, so if you do not intend to implement your own aggregation, you might want to stop reading here and come back later when you need to know how to implement your own aggregation.

An Aggregation implementation is defining a MapReduce task, but with a small difference: the Mapper is always expected to work on a Supplier that filters and / or transforms the mapped input value to some output value.

Aggregation Methods

The main interface for making your own aggregation is com.hazelcast.mapreduce.aggregation.Aggregation. It consists of four methods.

interface Aggregation<Key, Supplied, Result> {
  Mapper getMapper(Supplier<Key, ?, Supplied> supplier);
  CombinerFactory getCombinerFactory();
  ReducerFactory getReducerFactory();
  Collator<Map.Entry, Result> getCollator();
}

The getMapper and getReducerFactory methods should return non-null values. getCombinerFactory and getCollator are optional operations and you do not need to implement them. You can decide to implement them depending on the use case you want to achieve.

Aggregation Tips

For more information on how you implement mappers, combiners, reducers, and collators, refer to the MapReduce section.

For best speed and traffic usage, as mentioned in the MapReduce section, you should add a Combiner to your aggregation whenever it is possible to do some kind of pre-reduction step.

Your implementation also should use DataSerializable or IdentifiedDataSerializable for best compatibility and speed / stream-size reasons.

Continuous Query

Hazelcast Enterprise

A continuous query cache is used to cache the result of a continuous query. After the construction of a continuous query cache, all changes on the underlying IMap are immediately reflected to this cache as a stream of events. Therefore, this cache will be an always up-to-date view of the IMap. You can create a continuous query cache either on the client or member.

Keeping Query Results Local and Ready

A continuous query cache is beneficial when you need to query the distributed IMap data in a very frequent and fast way. By using a continuous query cache, the result of the query will always be ready and local to the application.

Accessing Continuous Query from Member

The following code snippet shows how you can access a continuous query cache from a member.

QueryCacheConfig queryCacheConfig = new QueryCacheConfig("cache-name");
queryCacheConfig.getPredicateConfig().setImplementation(new OddKeysPredicate());

MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig("map-name");
mapConfig.addQueryCacheConfig(queryCacheConfig);

Config config = new Config();
config.addMapConfig(mapConfig);

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);
IEnterpriseMap<Integer, String> map = (IEnterpriseMap) node.getMap("map-name");

QueryCache<Integer, String> cache = map.getQueryCache("cache-name");

Accessing Continuous Query from Client Side

The following code snippet shows how you can access a continuous query cache from the client side. The difference in this code from the member side code above is that you configure and instantiate a client instance instead of a member instance.

QueryCacheConfig queryCacheConfig = new QueryCacheConfig("cache-name");
queryCacheConfig.getPredicateConfig().setImplementation(new OddKeysPredicate());

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.addQueryCacheConfig("map-name", queryCacheConfig);

HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient(clientConfig);
IEnterpriseMap<Integer, Integer> clientMap = (IEnterpriseMap) client.getMap("map-name");

QueryCache<Integer, Integer> cache = clientMap.getQueryCache("cache-name");

Features of Continuous Query

The following features of the continuous query cache is valid both for the member and client.

• You can enable/disable the initial query that is run on the existing IMap data during the continuous query cache construction, according to the supplied predicate via QueryCacheConfig#setPopulate.
• You can index and perform queries on a continuous query cache.
• A continuous query cache is evictable. Note that a continuous query cache has a default maximum capacity of 10000. If you need a non-evictable cache, you should configure the eviction via QueryCacheConfig#setEvictionConfig.
• You can listen to a continuous query cache using QueryCache#addEntryListener.

• The events on the IMap are reflected in a continuous query cache, keeping the same order of those events. Note that the order of the events implies the order in a partition. Therefore, you can only expect ordered events from the same partition. You can listen to the event losses using EventLostListener and events can be recoverable with the method QueryCache#tryRecover. If your buffer size on the node side is large enough, you can recover from a possible event loss scenario. Currently, setting the size of QueryCacheConfig#setBufferSize is the only option for recovery since the events which feed a continuous query cache have no backups. You can use the following example code for a recovery case.

  
       QueryCache queryCache = map.getQueryCache("cache-name", new SqlPredicate("this > 20"), true);
       queryCache.addEntryListener(new EventLostListener() {
           @Override
           public void eventLost(EventLostEvent event) {
               queryCache.tryRecover();
           }
       }, false);
  

• You can perform event batching and coalescing on a continuous query cache.

• You can configure a continuous query cache declaratively or programmatically.
• You can populate a continuous query cache with only the keys of its entries and you can retrieve the subsequent values directly via QueryCache#get from the underlying IMap. This helps to decrease the initial population time when the values are very large.
  
  

Transactions

This chapter explains the usage of Hazelcast in transactional context. It describes the Hazelcast transaction types and how they work, how to provide XA (eXtended Architeture) transactions, and how to integrate Hazelcast with J2EE containers.

Creating a Transaction Interface

You create a TransactionContext object to begin, commit, and rollback a transaction. You can obtain transaction-aware instances of queues, maps, sets, lists, multimaps via TransactionContext, work with them, and commit/rollback in one shot. You can see the TransactionContext source code here.

Hazelcast supports two types of transactions: ONE_PHASE and TWO_PHASE. With the type, you have influence over how much guarantee you get when a member crashes while a transaction is committing. The default behavior is TWO_PHASE.

NOTE: Starting with Hazelcast 3.6, the transaction type LOCAL has been deprecated. Please use ONE_PHASE for the Hazelcast releases 3.6 and higher.

• ONE_PHASE: By selecting this transaction type, you execute the transactions with a single phase, that is committing the changes. Since a preparing phase does not exist, the conflicts are not detected. When a conflict happens during committing the changes (e.g. due to a member crash), it means not all the changes are written and this leaves the system in an inconsistent state.

• TWO_PHASE: When you select this transaction type, it first tries to execute the prepare phase. This phase fails if there are any conflicts. Once the prepare phase is successful, then it executes the commit phase (writing the changes). Before TWO_PHASE commits, it copies the commit log to other members, so in case of a member failure, another member can complete the commit.

import java.util.Queue;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;
import com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast;
import com.hazelcast.core.Transaction;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

TransactionOptions options = new TransactionOptions()
    .setTransactionType( TransactionType.ONE_PHASE );

TransactionContext context = hazelcastInstance.newTransactionContext( options );
context.beginTransaction();

TransactionalQueue queue = context.getQueue( "myqueue" );
TransactionalMap map = context.getMap( "mymap" );
TransactionalSet set = context.getSet( "myset" );

try {
  Object obj = queue.poll();
  //process obj
  map.put( "1", "value1" );
  set.add( "value" );
  //do other things..
  context.commitTransaction();
} catch ( Throwable t ) {
  context.rollbackTransaction();
}

In a transaction, operations will not be executed immediately. Their changes will be local to the TransactionContext until committed. However, they will ensure the changes via locks.

For the above example, when map.put is executed, no data will be put in the map but the key will be locked against changes. While committing, operations will be executed, the value will be put to the map, and the key will be unlocked.

Isolation level in Hazelcast Transactions is READ_COMMITTED. If you are in a transaction, you can read the data in your transaction and the data that is already committed. If you are not in a transaction, you can only read the committed data.

NOTE: The REPEATABLE_READ isolation level can also be exercised using the method getForUpdate() of TransactionalMap.

Queue/Set/List vs. Map/Multimap

Hazelcast implements queue/set/list operations differently than map/multimap operations. For queue operations (offer, poll), offered and/or polled objects are copied to the owner member in order to safely commit/rollback. For map/multimap, Hazelcast first acquires the locks for the write operations (put, remove) and holds the differences (what is added/removed/updated) locally for each transaction. When the transaction is set to commit, Hazelcast will release the locks and apply the differences. When rolling back, Hazelcast will release the locks and discard the differences.

MapStore and QueueStore do not participate in transactions. Hazelcast will suppress exceptions thrown by store in a transaction. Please refer to the XA Transactions section for further information.

ONE_PHASE vs. TWO_PHASE

As discussed in Creating a Transaction Interface, when you choose ONE_PHASE as the transaction type, Hazelcast tracks all changes you make locally in a commit log, i.e. a list of changes. In this case, all the other members are asked to agree that the commit can succeed and once they agree, Hazelcast starts to write the changes. However, if the member that initiates the commit crashes after it has written to at least one member (but has not completed writing to all other members), your system may be left in an inconsistent state.

On the other hand, if you choose TWO_PHASE as the transaction type, the commit log is again tracked locally but it is copied to another cluster member. Therefore, when a failure happens (e.g. the member initiating the commit crashes), you still have the commit log in another member and that member can complete the commit. However, copying the commit log to another member makes the TWO_PHASE approach slow.

Consequently, it is recommended that you choose ONE_PHASE as the transaction type if you want a better performance, and that you choose TWO_PHASE if reliability of your system is more important than the performance.

Providing XA Transactions

XA describes the interface between the global transaction manager and the local resource manager. XA allows multiple resources (such as databases, application servers, message queues, transactional caches, etc.) to be accessed within the same transaction, thereby preserving the ACID properties across applications. XA uses a two-phase commit to ensure that all resources either commit or rollback any particular transaction consistently (all do the same).

When you implement the XAResource interface, Hazelcast provides XA transactions. You can obtain the HazelcastXAResource instance via the HazelcastInstance getXAResource method. You can see the HazelcastXAResource source code here.

Below is example code that uses Atomikos for transaction management.

UserTransactionManager tm = new UserTransactionManager();
tm.setTransactionTimeout(60);
tm.begin();

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
HazelcastXAResource xaResource = hazelcastInstance.getXAResource();

Transaction transaction = tm.getTransaction();
transaction.enlistResource(xaResource);
// other resources (database, app server etc...) can be enlisted

try {
  TransactionContext context = xaResource.getTransactionContext();
  TransactionalMap map = context.getMap("m");
  map.put("key", "value");
  // other resource operations

  transaction.delistResource(xaResource, XAResource.TMSUCCESS);
  tm.commit();
} catch (Exception e) {
  tm.rollback();
}

Integrating into J2EE

You can integrate Hazelcast into J2EE containers via the Hazelcast Resource Adapter (hazelcast-jca-rar-version.rar). After proper configuration, Hazelcast can participate in standard J2EE transactions.

<%@page import="javax.resource.ResourceException" %>
<%@page import="javax.transaction.*" %>
<%@page import="javax.naming.*" %>
<%@page import="javax.resource.cci.*" %>
<%@page import="java.util.*" %>
<%@page import="com.hazelcast.core.*" %>
<%@page import="com.hazelcast.jca.*" %>

<%
UserTransaction txn = null;
HazelcastConnection conn = null;
HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();

try {
  Context context = new InitialContext();
  txn = (UserTransaction) context.lookup( "java:comp/UserTransaction" );
  txn.begin();

  HazelcastConnectionFactory cf = (HazelcastConnectionFactory)
      context.lookup ( "java:comp/env/HazelcastCF" );

  conn = cf.getConnection();

  TransactionalMap<String, String> txMap = conn.getTransactionalMap( "default" );
  txMap.put( "key", "value" );

  txn.commit();

} catch ( Throwable e ) {
  if ( txn != null ) {
    try {
      txn.rollback();
    } catch ( Exception ix ) {
      ix.printStackTrace();
    };
  }
  e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
  if ( conn != null ) {
    try {
      conn.close();
    } catch (Exception ignored) {};
  }
}
%>

Sample Code for J2EE Integration

Please see our sample application for J2EE Integration.

Configuring Resource Adapter

Deploying and configuring the Hazelcast resource adapter is no different than configuring any other resource adapter since the Hazelcast resource adapter is a standard JCA one. However, resource adapter installation and configuration is container specific, so please consult your J2EE vendor documentation for details. The most common steps are:

1. Add the hazelcast-version.jar and hazelcast-jca-version.jar to the container's classpath. Usually there is a lib directory that is loaded automatically by the container on startup.
2. Deploy hazelcast-jca-rar-version.rar. Usually there is some kind of a deploy directory. The name of the directory varies by container.
3. Make container specific configurations when/after deploying hazelcast-jca-rar-version.rar. In addition to container specific configurations, set the JNDI name for the Hazelcast resource.
4. Configure your application to use the Hazelcast resource. Update web.xml and/or ejb-jar.xml to let the container know that your application will use the Hazelcast resource, and define the resource reference.
5. Make the container specific application configuration to specify the JNDI name used for the resource in the application.

Configuring a Glassfish v3 Web Application

To configure an example Glassfish v3 web application:

1. Place the hazelcast-version.jar and hazelcast-jca-version.jar into the GLASSFISH_HOME/glassfish/ domains/domain1/lib/ext/ folder.
2. Place the hazelcast-jca-rar-version.rar into GLASSFISH_HOME/glassfish/domains/domain1/autodeploy/ folder.
3. Add the following lines to the web.xml file.

<resource-ref>
  <res-ref-name>HazelcastCF</res-ref-name>
  <res-type>com.hazelcast.jca.ConnectionFactoryImpl</res-type>
  <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Notice that we did not have to put sun-ra.xml into the RAR file since it already comes with the hazelcast-ra-version.rar file.

If the Hazelcast resource is used from EJBs, you should configure ejb-jar.xml for resource reference and JNDI definitions, just like for the web.xml file.

Configuring a JBoss AS 5 Web Application

To configure a JBoss AS 5 web application:

• Place the hazelcast-version.jar and hazelcast-jca-version.jar into the JBOSS_HOME/server/deploy/ default/lib folder.
• Place the hazelcast-jca-rar-version.rar into the JBOSS_HOME/server/deploy/default/deploy folder.
• Create a hazelcast-ds.xml file containing the following content in the JBOSS_HOME/server/deploy/default/deploy folder. Make sure to set the rar-name element to hazelcast-ra-version.rar.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE connection-factories
  PUBLIC "-//JBoss//DTD JBOSS JCA Config 1.5//EN"
  "http://www.jboss.org/j2ee/dtd/jboss-ds_1_5.dtd">

<connection-factories>
  <tx-connection-factory>
    <local-transaction/>
    <track-connection-by-tx>true</track-connection-by-tx>
    <jndi-name>HazelcastCF</jndi-name>
    <rar-name>hazelcast-jca-rar-<version>.rar</rar-name>
    <connection-definition>
       javax.resource.cci.ConnectionFactory
    </connection-definition>
  </tx-connection-factory>
</connection-factories>

• Add the following lines to the web.xml file.

<resource-ref>
  <res-ref-name>HazelcastCF</res-ref-name>
  <res-type>com.hazelcast.jca.ConnectionFactoryImpl</res-type>
  <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

• Add the following lines to the jboss-web.xml file.

<resource-ref>
  <res-ref-name>HazelcastCF</res-ref-name>
  <jndi-name>java:HazelcastCF</jndi-name>
</resource-ref>

If the Hazelcast resource is used from EJBs, you should configure ejb-jar.xml and jboss.xml for resource reference and JNDI definitions.

Configuring a JBoss AS 7 / EAP 6 Web Application

Deploying on JBoss AS 7 or JBoss EAP 6 is a straightforward process. The steps you perform are shown below. The only non-trivial step is the creation of a new JBoss module with Hazelcast libraries.

• Create the folder <jboss_home>/modules/system/layers/base/com/hazelcast/main.
• Place the hazelcast-<version>.jar and hazelcast-jca-<version>.jar into the folder you created in the previous step.

• Create the file module.xml and place it in the same folder. This file should have the following content.

  <module xmlns="urn:jboss:module:1.0" name="com.hazelcast">
  <resources>
    <resource-root path="."/>
    <resource-root path="hazelcast-<version>.jar"/>
    <resource-root path="hazelcast-jca-<version>.jar"/>
  </resources>
  <dependencies>
    <module name="sun.jdk"/>
    <module name="javax.api"/>
    <module name="javax.resource.api"/>
    <module name="javax.validation.api"/>
    <module name="org.jboss.ironjacamar.api"/>
  </dependencies>
  </module>
  

Starting JBoss

At this point, you have a new JBoss module with Hazelcast in it. You can now start JBoss and deploy the hazelcast-jca-rar-<version>.rar file via JBoss CLI or Administration Console.

Using the Resource Adapter

Once the Hazelcast Resource Adapter is deployed, you can start using it. The easiest way is to let a container inject ConnectionFactory into your beans.

package com.hazelcast.examples.rar;

import com.hazelcast.core.TransactionalMap;
import com.hazelcast.jca.HazelcastConnection;

import javax.annotation.Resource;
import javax.resource.ResourceException;
import javax.resource.cci.ConnectionFactory;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;

@javax.ejb.Stateless
public class ExampleBean implements ExampleInterface {
    private final static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(ExampleBean.class.getName());

    @Resource(mappedName = "java:/HazelcastCF")
    protected ConnectionFactory connectionFactory;

    public void insert(String key, String value) {
        HazelcastConnection hzConn = null;
        try {
            hzConn = getConnection();
            TransactionalMap<String,String> txmap = hzConn.getTransactionalMap("txmap");
            txmap.put(key, value);
        } finally {
            closeConnection(hzConn);
        }
    }

    private HazelcastConnection getConnection() {
        try {
            return (HazelcastConnection) connectionFactory.getConnection();
        } catch (ResourceException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Error while getting Hazelcast connection", e);
        }
    }

    private void closeConnection(HazelcastConnection hzConn) {
        if (hzConn != null) {
            try {
                hzConn.close();
            } catch (ResourceException e) {
                log.log(Level.WARNING, "Error while closing Hazelcast connection.", e);
            }
        }
    }
}

Known Issues

• There is a regression in JBoss EAP 6.1.0 causing failure during Hazelcast Resource Adapter deployment. The issue is fixed in JBoss EAP 6.1.1. Please see this for additional details.

Hazelcast JCache

This chapter describes the basics of JCache: the standardized Java caching layer API. The JCache caching API is specified by the Java Community Process (JCP) as Java Specification Request (JSR) 107.

Caching keeps data in memory that either are slow to calculate/process or originate from another underlying backend system. Caching is used to prevent additional request round trips for frequently used data. In both cases, caching could be used to gain performance or decrease application latencies.

JCache Overview

Starting with Hazelcast release 3.3.1, Hazelcast offers a specification compliant JCache implementation. To show our commitment to this important specification that the Java world was waiting for over a decade, we do not just provide a simple wrapper around our existing APIs; we implemented a caching structure from the ground up to optimize the behavior to the needs of JCache. The Hazelcast JCache implementation is 100% TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit) compliant and therefore passes all specification requirements.

In addition to the given specification, we added some features like asynchronous versions of almost all operations to give the user extra power.

This chapter gives a basic understanding of how to configure your application and how to setup Hazelcast to be your JCache provider. It also shows examples of basic JCache usage as well as the additionally offered features that are not part of JSR-107. To gain a full understanding of the JCache functionality and provided guarantees of different operations, read the specification document (which is also the main documentation for functionality) at the specification page of JSR-107.

JCache Setup and Configuration

This sub-chapter shows what is necessary to provide the JCache API and the Hazelcast JCache implementation for your application. In addition, it demonstrates the different configuration options as well as a description of the configuration properties.

Setting up Your Application

To provide your application with this JCache functionality, your application needs the JCache API inside its classpath. This API is the bridge between the specified JCache standard and the implementation provided by Hazelcast.

The way to integrate the JCache API JAR into the application classpath depends on the build system used. For Maven, Gradle, SBT, Ivy and many other build systems, all using Maven based dependency repositories, perform the integration by adding the Maven coordinates to the build descriptor.

As already mentioned, next to the default Hazelcast coordinates that might be already part of the application, you have to add JCache coordinates.

For Maven users, the coordinates look like the following code:

<dependency>
  <groupId>javax.cache</groupId>
  <artifactId>cache-api</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

With other build systems, you might need to describe the coordinates in a different way.

Activating Hazelcast as JCache Provider

To activate Hazelcast as the JCache provider implementation, add either hazelcast-all.jar or hazelcast.jar to the classpath (if not already available) by either one of the following Maven snippets.

If you use hazelcast-all.jar:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
  <artifactId>hazelcast-all</artifactId>
  <version>3.4</version>
</dependency>

If you use hazelcast.jar:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
  <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
  <version>3.4</version>
</dependency>

The users of other build systems have to adjust the way of defining the dependency to their needs.

Connecting Clients to Remote Member

When the users want to use Hazelcast clients to connect to a remote cluster, the hazelcast-client.jar dependency is also required on the client side applications. This JAR is already included in hazelcast-all.jar. Or, you can add it to the classpath using the following Maven snippet:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
  <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
  <version>3.4</version>
</dependency>

For other build systems, e.g. ANT, the users have to download these dependencies from either the JSR-107 specification and Hazelcast community website (http://www.hazelcast.org) or from the Maven repository search page (http://search.maven.org).

Example JCache Application

Before moving on to configuration, let's have a look at a basic introductory example. The following code shows how to use the Hazelcast JCache integration inside an application in an easy but typesafe way.

// Retrieve the CachingProvider which is automatically backed by
// the chosen Hazelcast member or client provider
CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create a CacheManager
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider.getCacheManager();

// Create a simple but typesafe configuration for the cache
CompleteConfiguration<String, String> config =
    new MutableConfiguration<String, String>()
        .setTypes( String.class, String.class );

// Create and get the cache
Cache<String, String> cache = cacheManager.createCache( "example", config );
// Alternatively to request an already existing cache
// Cache<String, String> cache = cacheManager
//     .getCache( name, String.class, String.class );

// Put a value into the cache
cache.put( "world", "Hello World" );

// Retrieve the value again from the cache
String value = cache.get( "world" );

// Print the value 'Hello World'
System.out.println( value );

Although the example is simple, let's go through the code lines one by one.

Getting the Hazelcast JCache Implementation

First of all, we retrieve the javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider using the static method from javax.cache.Caching:: getCachingManager which automatically picks up Hazelcast as the underlying JCache implementation, if available in the classpath. This way, the Hazelcast implementation of a CachingProvider will automatically start a new Hazelcast node or client (depending on the chosen provider type) and pick up the configuration from either the command line parameter or from the classpath. We will show how to use an existing HazelcastInstance later in this chapter, for now we keep it simple.

Setting up the JCache Entry Point

In the next line, we ask the CachingProvider to return a javax.cache.CacheManager. This is the general application's entry point into JCache. The CachingProvider creates and manages named caches.

Configuring the Cache Before Creating It

The next few lines create a simple javax.cache.configuration.MutableConfiguration to configure the cache before actually creating it. In this case, we only configure the key and value types to make the cache typesafe which is highly recommended and checked on retrieval of the cache.

Creating the Cache

To create the cache, we call javax.cache.CacheManager::createCache with a name for the cache and the previously created configuration; the call returns the created cache. If you need to retrieve a previously created cache, you can use the corresponding method overload javax.cache.CacheManager::getCache. If the cache was created using type parameters, you must retrieve the cache afterward using the type checking version of getCache.

get, put, and getAndPut

The following lines are simple put and get calls from the java.util.Map interface. The javax.cache.Cache::put has a void return type and does not return the previously assigned value of the key. To imitate the java.util.Map::put method, the JCache cache has a method called getAndPut.

Configuring for JCache

Hazelcast JCache provides two different ways for you to perform cache configuration:

• programmatically: the typical Hazelcast way, using the Config API seen above,
• and declaratively: using hazelcast.xml or hazelcast-client.xml.

JCache Declarative Configuration

You can declare your JCache cache configuration using the hazelcast.xml or hazelcast-client.xml configuration files. Using this declarative configuration makes creating the javax.cache.Cache fully transparent and automatically ensures internal thread safety. You do not need a call to javax.cache.Cache::createCache in this case: you can retrieve the cache using javax.cache.Cache::getCache overloads and by passing in the name defined in the configuration for the cache.

To retrieve the cache that you defined in the declaration files, you need only perform a simple call (example below) because the cache is created automatically by the implementation.

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider.getCacheManager();
Cache<Object, Object> cache = cacheManager
    .getCache( "default", Object.class, Object.class );

Note that this section only describes the JCache provided standard properties. For the Hazelcast specific properties, please see the ICache Configuration section.

<cache name="default">
  <key-type class-name="java.lang.Object" />
  <value-type class-name="java.lang.Object" />
  <statistics-enabled>false</statistics-enabled>
  <management-enabled>false</management-enabled>

  <read-through>true</read-through>
  <write-through>true</write-through>
  <cache-loader-factory
     class-name="com.example.cache.MyCacheLoaderFactory" />
  <cache-writer-factory
     class-name="com.example.cache.MyCacheWriterFactory" />
  <expiry-policy-factory
     class-name="com.example.cache.MyExpirePolicyFactory" />

  <cache-entry-listeners>
    <cache-entry-listener old-value-required="false" synchronous="false">
      <cache-entry-listener-factory
         class-name="com.example.cache.MyEntryListenerFactory" />
      <cache-entry-event-filter-factory
         class-name="com.example.cache.MyEntryEventFilterFactory" />
    </cache-entry-listener>
    ...
  </cache-entry-listeners>
</cache>

• key-type#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the cache key type. Its default value is java.lang.Object.
• value-type#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the cache value type. Its default value is java.lang.Object.
• statistics-enabled: If set to true, statistics like cache hits and misses are collected. Its default value is false.
• management-enabled: If set to true, JMX beans are enabled and collected statistics are provided. It doesn't automatically enable statistics collection. Defaults to false.
• read-through: If set to true, enables read-through behavior of the cache to an underlying configured javax.cache.integration.CacheLoader which is also known as lazy-loading. Its default value is false.
• write-through: If set to true, enables write-through behavior of the cache to an underlying configured javax.cache.integration.CacheWriter which passes any changed value to the external backend resource. Its default value is false.
• cache-loader-factory#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementation providing a javax.cache.integration.CacheLoader instance to the cache.
• cache-writer-factory#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementation providing a javax.cache.integration.CacheWriter instance to the cache.
• expiry-policy-factory#-class-name: Fully qualified class name of the javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementation providing a javax.cache.expiry.ExpiryPolicy instance to the cache.
• cache-entry-listener: A set of attributes and elements, explained below, to describe a javax.cache.event. CacheEntryListener.
  • cache-entry-listener#old-value-required: If set to true, previously assigned values for the affected keys will be sent to the javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener implementation. Setting this attribute to true creates additional traffic. Its default value is false.
  • cache-entry-listener#synchronous: If set to true, the javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener implementation will be called in a synchronous manner. Its default value is false.
  • cache-entry-listener/entry-listener-factory#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementation providing a javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener instance.
  • cache-entry-listener/entry-event-filter-factory#class-name: Fully qualified class name of the javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementation providing a javax.cache.event. CacheEntryEventFilter instance.

NOTE: The JMX MBeans provided by Hazelcast JCache show statistics of the local node only. To show the cluster-wide statistics, the user should collect statistic information from all nodes and accumulate them to the overall statistics.

JCache Programmatic Configuration

To configure the JCache programmatically:

• either instantiate javax.cache.configuration.MutableConfiguration if you will use only the JCache standard configuration,
• or instantiate com.hazelcast.config.CacheConfig for a deeper Hazelcast integration.

com.hazelcast.config.CacheConfig offers additional options that are specific to Hazelcast, such as asynchronous and synchronous backup counts. Both classes share the same supertype interface javax.cache.configuration. CompleteConfiguration which is part of the JCache standard.

NOTE: To stay vendor independent, try to keep your code as near as possible to the standard JCache API. We recommend that you use declarative configuration and that you use the javax.cache.configuration.Configuration or javax.cache.configuration.CompleteConfiguration interfaces in your code only when you need to pass the configuration instance throughout your code.

If you don't need to configure Hazelcast specific properties, we recommend that you instantiate javax.cache.configuration.MutableConfiguration and that you use the setters to configure Hazelcast as shown in the example in the Example JCache Application section. Since the configurable properties are the same as the ones explained in the JCache Declarative Configuration section, they are not mentioned here. For Hazelcast specific properties, please read the ICache Configuration section section.

JCache Providers

Use JCache providers to create caches for a specification compliant implementation. Those providers abstract the platform specific behavior and bindings, and provide the different JCache required features.

Hazelcast has two types of providers. Depending on your application setup and the cluster topology, you can use the Client Provider (used by Hazelcast clients) or the Server Provider (used by cluster members).

Configuring JCache Provider

You configure the JCache javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider by either specifying the provider at the command line or by declaring the provider inside the Hazelcast configuration XML file. For more information on setting properties in this XML configuration file, please see the JCache Declarative Configuration section.

Hazelcast implements a delegating CachingProvider that can automatically be configured for either client or member mode and that delegates to the real underlying implementation based on the user's choice. Hazelcast recommends that you use this CachingProvider implementation.

The delegating CachingProviders fully qualified class name is:

com.hazelcast.cache.HazelcastCachingProvider

To configure the delegating provider at the command line, add the following parameter to the Java startup call, depending on the chosen provider:

-Dhazelcast.jcache.provider.type=[client|server]

By default, the delegating CachingProvider is automatically picked up by the JCache SPI and provided as shown above. In cases where multiple javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider implementations reside on the classpath (like in some Application Server scenarios), you can select a CachingProvider by explicitly calling Caching::getCachingProvider overloads and providing them using the canonical class name of the provider to be used. The class names of member and client providers provided by Hazelcast are mentioned in the following two subsections.

NOTE: Hazelcast advises that you use the Caching::getCachingProvider overloads to select a CachingProvider explicitly. This ensures that uploading to later environments or Application Server versions doesn't result in unexpected behavior like choosing a wrong CachingProvider.

For more information on cluster topologies and Hazelcast clients, please see the Hazelcast Topology section.

Configuring JCache with Client Provider

For cluster topologies where Hazelcast light clients are used to connect to a remote Hazelcast cluster, use the Client Provider to configure JCache.

The Client Provider provides the same features as the Server Provider. However, it does not hold data on its own but instead delegates requests and calls to the remotely connected cluster.

The Client Provider can connect to multiple clusters at the same time. This can be achieved by scoping the client side CacheManager with different Hazelcast configuration files. For more information, please see Scoping to Join Clusters.

To request this CachingProvider using Caching#getCachingProvider( String ) or Caching#getCachingProvider( String, ClassLoader ), use the following fully qualified class name:

com.hazelcast.client.cache.impl.HazelcastClientCachingProvider

Configuring JCache with Server Provider

If a Hazelcast node is embedded into an application directly and the Hazelcast client is not used, the Server Provider is required. In this case, the node itself becomes a part of the distributed cache and requests and operations are distributed directly across the cluster by its given key.

The Server Provider provides the same features as the Client provider, but it keeps data in the local Hazelcast node and also distributes non-owned keys to other direct cluster members.

Like the Client Provider, the Server Provider can connect to multiple clusters at the same time. This can be achieved by scoping the client side CacheManager with different Hazelcast configuration files. For more information please see Scoping to Join Clusters.

To request this CachingProvider using Caching#getCachingProvider( String ) or Caching#getCachingProvider( String, ClassLoader ), use the following fully qualified class name:

com.hazelcast.cache.impl.HazelcastServerCachingProvider

JCache API

This section explains the JCache API by providing simple examples and use cases. While walking through the examples, we will have a look at a couple of the standard API classes and see how these classes are used.

JCache API Application Example

The code in this subsection creates a small account application by providing a caching layer over an imagined database abstraction. The database layer will be simulated using single demo data in a simple DAO interface. To show the difference between the "database" access and retrieving values from the cache, a small waiting time is used in the DAO implementation to simulate network and database latency.

Creating User Class Example

Before we implement the JCache caching layer, let's have a quick look at some basic classes we need for this example.

The User class is the representation of a user table in the database. To keep it simple, it has just two properties: userId and username.

public class User {
  private int userId;
  private String username;

  // Getters and setters
}

Creating DAO Interface Example

The DAO interface is also kept easy in this example. It provides a simple method to retrieve (find) a user by its userId.

public interface UserDAO {
  User findUserById( int userId );
  boolean storeUser( int userId, User user );
  boolean removeUser( int userId );
  Collection<Integer> allUserIds();
}

Configuring JCache Example

To show most of the standard features, the configuration example is a little more complex.

// Create javax.cache.configuration.CompleteConfiguration subclass
CompleteConfiguration<Integer, User> config =
    new MutableConfiguration<Integer, User>()
        // Configure the cache to be typesafe
        .setTypes( Integer.class, User.class )
        // Configure to expire entries 30 secs after creation in the cache
        .setExpiryPolicyFactory( FactoryBuilder.factoryOf(
            new AccessedExpiryPolicy( new Duration( TimeUnit.SECONDS, 30 ) )
        ) )
        // Configure read-through of the underlying store
        .setReadThrough( true )
        // Configure write-through to the underlying store
        .setWriteThrough( true )
        // Configure the javax.cache.integration.CacheLoader
        .setCacheLoaderFactory( FactoryBuilder.factoryOf(
            new UserCacheLoader( userDao )
        ) )
        // Configure the javax.cache.integration.CacheWriter
        .setCacheWriterFactory( FactoryBuilder.factoryOf(
            new UserCacheWriter( userDao )
        ) )
        // Configure the javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener with no
        // javax.cache.event.CacheEntryEventFilter, to include old value
        // and to be executed synchronously
        .addCacheEntryListenerConfiguration(
            new MutableCacheEntryListenerConfiguration<Integer, User>(
                new UserCacheEntryListenerFactory(),
                null, true, true
            )
        );

Let's go through this configuration line by line.

Setting the Cache Type and Expire Policy

First, we set the expected types for the cache, which is already known from the previous example. On the next line, an javax.cache.expiry.ExpirePolicy is configured. Almost all integration ExpirePolicy implementations are configured using javax.cache.configuration.Factory instances. Factory and FactoryBuilder are explained later in this chapter.

Configuring Read-Through and Write-Through

The next two lines configure the thread that will be read-through and write-through to the underlying backend resource that is configured over the next few lines. The JCache API offers javax.cache.integration.CacheLoader and javax.cache.integration.CacheWriter to implement adapter classes to any kind of backend resource, e.g. JPA, JDBC, or any other backend technology implementable in Java. The interfaces provides the typical CRUD operations like create, get, update, delete and some bulk operation versions of those common operations. We will look into the implementation of those implementations later.

Configuring Entry Listeners

The last configuration setting defines entry listeners based on sub-interfaces of javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener. This config does not use a javax.cache.event.CacheEntryEventFilter since the listener is meant to be fired on every change that happens on the cache. Again we will look in the implementation of the listener in later in this chapter.

Full Example Code

A full running example that is presented in this subsection is available in the code samples repository. The application is built to be a command line app. It offers a small shell to accept different commands. After startup, you can enter help to see all available commands and their descriptions.

JCache Base Classes

In the Example JCache Application section, we have already seen a couple of the base classes and explained how those work. Following are quick descriptions of them.

javax.cache.Caching:

The access point into the JCache API. It retrieves the general CachingProvider backed by any compliant JCache implementation, such as Hazelcast JCache.

javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider:

The SPI that is implemented to bridge between the JCache API and the implementation itself. Hazelcast nodes and clients use different providers chosen as seen in the Configuring JCache Provider section which enable the JCache API to interact with Hazelcast clusters.

When a javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider::getCacheManager overload is used that takes a java.lang.ClassLoader argument, this classloader will be part of the scope of the created java.cache.Cache and it is not possible to retrieve it on other nodes. We advise not to use those overloads, those are not meant to be used in distributed environments!

javax.cache.CacheManager:

The CacheManager provides the capability to create new and manage existing JCache caches.

NOTE: A javax.cache.Cache instance created with key and value types in the configuration provides a type checking of those types at retrieval of the cache. For that reason, all non-types retrieval methods like getCache throw an exception because types cannot be checked.

javax.cache.configuration.Configuration, javax.cache.configuration.MutableConfiguration:

These two classes are used to configure a cache prior to retrieving it from a CacheManager. The Configuration interface, therefore, acts as a common super type for all compatible configuration classes such as MutableConfiguration.

Hazelcast itself offers a special implementation (com.hazelcast.config.CacheConfig) of the Configuration interface which offers more options on the specific Hazelcast properties that can be set to configure features like synchronous and asynchronous backups counts or selecting the underlying In Memory Format of the cache. For more information on this configuration class, please see the reference in JCache Programmatic Configuration section.

javax.cache.Cache:

This interface represents the cache instance itself. It is comparable to java.util.Map but offers special operations dedicated to the caching use case. Therefore, for example javax.cache.Cache::put, unlike java.util.Map::put, does not return the old value previously assigned to the given key.

NOTE: Bulk operations on the Cache interface guarantee atomicity per entry but not over all given keys in the same bulk operations since no transactional behavior is applied over the whole batch process.

Implementing Factory and FactoryBuilder

The javax.cache.configuration.Factory implementations configure features like CacheEntryListener, ExpirePolicy and CacheLoaders or CacheWriters. These factory implementations are required to distribute the different features to nodes in a cluster environment like Hazelcast. Therefore, these factory implementations have to be serializable.

Factory implementations are easy to do: they follow the default Provider- or Factory-Pattern. The sample class UserCacheEntryListenerFactory shown below implements a custom JCache Factory.

public class UserCacheEntryListenerFactory
    implements Factory<CacheEntryListener<Integer, User>> {

  @Override
  public CacheEntryListener<Integer, User> create() {
    // Just create a new listener instance
    return new UserCacheEntryListener();
  }
}

To simplify the process for the users, JCache API offers a set of helper methods collected in javax.cache. configuration.FactoryBuilder. In the above configuration example, FactoryBuilder::factoryOf creates a singleton factory for the given instance.

Implementing CacheLoader

javax.cache.integration.CacheLoader loads cache entries from any external backend resource.

Cache read-through

If the cache is configured to be read-through, then CacheLoader::load is called transparently from the cache when the key or the value is not yet found in the cache. If no value is found for a given key, it returns null.

If the cache is not configured to be read-through, nothing is loaded automatically. The user code must call javax.cache.Cache::loadAll to load data for the given set of keys into the cache.

For the bulk load operation (loadAll()), some keys may not be found in the returned result set. In this case, a javax.cache.integration.CompletionListener parameter can be used as an asynchronous callback after all the key-value pairs are loaded because loading many key-value pairs can take lots of time.

CacheLoader Example

Let's look at the UserCacheLoader implementation. This implementation is quite straight forward.

• It implements CacheLoader.
• It overrides the load method to compute or retrieve the value corresponding to key.
• It overrides the loadAll method to compute or retrieve the values corresponding to keys.

An important note is that any kind of exception has to be wrapped into javax.cache.integration.CacheLoaderException.

public class UserCacheLoader
    implements CacheLoader<Integer, User>, Serializable {

  private final UserDao userDao;

  public UserCacheLoader( UserDao userDao ) {
    // Store the dao instance created externally
    this.userDao = userDao;
  }

  @Override
  public User load( Integer key ) throws CacheLoaderException {
    // Just call through into the dao
    return userDao.findUserById( key );
  }

  @Override
  public Map<Integer, User> loadAll( Iterable<? extends Integer> keys )
      throws CacheLoaderException {

    // Create the resulting map  
    Map<Integer, User> loaded = new HashMap<Integer, User>();
    // For every key in the given set of keys
    for ( Integer key : keys ) {
      // Try to retrieve the user
      User user = userDao.findUserById( key );
      // If user is not found do not add the key to the result set
      if ( user != null ) {
        loaded.put( key, user );
      }
    }
    return loaded;
  }
}

CacheWriter

You use a javax.cache.integration.CacheWriter to update an external backend resource. If the cache is configured to be write-through, this process is executed transparently to the users code. Otherwise, there is currently no way to trigger writing changed entries to the external resource to a user-defined point in time.

If bulk operations throw an exception, java.util.Collection has to be cleaned of all successfully written keys so the cache implementation can determine what keys are written and can be applied to the cache state.

The following example performs the following tasks.

• It implements CacheWriter.
• It overrides the write method to write the specified entry to the underlying store.
• It overrides the writeAll method to write the specified entires to the underlying store.
• It overrides the delete method to delete the key entry from the store.
• It overrides the deleteAll method to delete the data and keys from the underlying store for the given collection of keys, if present.

public class UserCacheWriter
    implements CacheWriter<Integer, User>, Serializable {

  private final UserDao userDao;

  public UserCacheWriter( UserDao userDao ) {
    // Store the dao instance created externally
    this.userDao = userDao;
  }

  @Override
  public void write( Cache.Entry<? extends Integer, ? extends User> entry )
      throws CacheWriterException {

    // Store the user using the dao
    userDao.storeUser( entry.getKey(), entry.getValue() );
  }

  @Override
  public void writeAll( Collection<Cache.Entry<...>> entries )
      throws CacheWriterException {

    // Retrieve the iterator to clean up the collection from
    // written keys in case of an exception
    Iterator<Cache.Entry<...>> iterator = entries.iterator();
    while ( iterator.hasNext() ) {
      // Write entry using dao
      write( iterator.next() );
      // Remove from collection of keys
      iterator.remove();
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void delete( Object key ) throws CacheWriterException {
    // Test for key type
    if ( !( key instanceof Integer ) ) {
      throw new CacheWriterException( "Illegal key type" );
    }
    // Remove user using dao
    userDao.removeUser( ( Integer ) key );
  }

  @Override
  public void deleteAll( Collection<?> keys ) throws CacheWriterException {
    // Retrieve the iterator to clean up the collection from
    // written keys in case of an exception
    Iterator<?> iterator = keys.iterator();
    while ( iterator.hasNext() ) {
      // Write entry using dao
      delete( iterator.next() );
      // Remove from collection of keys
      iterator.remove();
    }
  }
}

Again the implementation is pretty straight forward and also as above all exceptions thrown by the external resource, like java.sql.SQLException has to be wrapped into a javax.cache.integration.CacheWriterException. Note this is a different exception from the one thrown by CacheLoader.

Implementing EntryProcessor

With javax.cache.processor.EntryProcessor, you can apply an atomic function to a cache entry. In a distributed environment like Hazelcast, you can move the mutating function to the node that owns the key. If the value object is big, it might prevent traffic by sending the object to the mutator and sending it back to the owner to update it.

By default, Hazelcast JCache sends the complete changed value to the backup partition. Again, this can cause a lot of traffic if the object is big. Another option to prevent this is part of the Hazelcast ICache extension. Further information is available at Implementing BackupAwareEntryProcessor.

An arbitrary number of arguments can be passed to the Cache::invoke and Cache::invokeAll methods. All of those arguments need to be fully serializable because in a distributed environment like Hazelcast, it is very likely that these arguments have to be passed around the cluster.

The following example performs the following tasks.

• It implements EntryProcessor.
• It overrides the process method to process an entry.

public class UserUpdateEntryProcessor
    implements EntryProcessor<Integer, User, User> {

  @Override
  public User process( MutableEntry<Integer, User> entry, Object... arguments )
      throws EntryProcessorException {

    // Test arguments length
    if ( arguments.length < 1 ) {
      throw new EntryProcessorException( "One argument needed: username" );
    }

    // Get first argument and test for String type
    Object argument = arguments[0];
    if ( !( argument instanceof String ) ) {
      throw new EntryProcessorException(
          "First argument has wrong type, required java.lang.String" );
    }

    // Retrieve the value from the MutableEntry
    User user = entry.getValue();

    // Retrieve the new username from the first argument
    String newUsername = ( String ) arguments[0];

    // Set the new username
    user.setUsername( newUsername );

    // Set the changed user to mark the entry as dirty
    entry.setValue( user );

    // Return the changed user to return it to the caller
    return user;
  }
}

NOTE: By executing the bulk Cache::invokeAll operation, atomicity is only guaranteed for a single cache entry. No transactional rules are applied to the bulk operation.

NOTE: JCache EntryProcessor implementations are not allowed to call javax.cache.Cache methods; this prevents operations from deadlocking between different calls.

In addition, when using a Cache::invokeAll method, a java.util.Map is returned that maps the key to its javax.cache.processor.EntryProcessorResult, and which itself wraps the actual result or a thrown javax.cache.processor.EntryProcessorException.

CacheEntryListener

The javax.cache.event.CacheEntryListener implementation is straight forward. CacheEntryListener is a super-interface which is used as a marker for listener classes in JCache. The specification brings a set of sub-interfaces.

• CacheEntryCreatedListener: Fires after a cache entry is added (even on read-through by a CacheLoader) to the cache.
• CacheEntryUpdatedListener: Fires after an already existing cache entry was updates.
• CacheEntryRemovedListener: Fires after a cache entry was removed (not expired) from the cache.
• CacheEntryExpiredListener: Fires after a cache entry has been expired. Expiry does not have to be parallel process, it is only required to be executed on the keys that are requested by Cache::get and some other operations. For a full table of expiry please see the https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=107 point 6.

To configure CacheEntryListener, add a javax.cache.configuration.CacheEntryListenerConfiguration instance to the JCache configuration class, as seen in the above example configuration. In addition listeners can be configured to be executed synchronously (blocking the calling thread) or asynchronously (fully running in parallel).

In this example application, the listener is implemented to print event information on the console. That visualizes what is going on in the cache. This application performs the following tasks:

• It implements CacheEntryCreatedListener.
• It implements the onCreated method to call after an entry is created.
• It implements the onUpdated method to call after an entry is updated.
• It implements the onRemoved method to call after an entry is removed.
• It implements the onExpired method to call after an entry expires.
• It implements printEvents to print event information on the console.

public class UserCacheEntryListener
    implements CacheEntryCreatedListener<Integer, User>,
        CacheEntryUpdatedListener<Integer, User>,
        CacheEntryRemovedListener<Integer, User>,
        CacheEntryExpiredListener<Integer, User> {

  @Override
  public void onCreated( Iterable<CacheEntryEvent<...>> cacheEntryEvents )
      throws CacheEntryListenerException {

    printEvents( cacheEntryEvents );
  }

  @Override
  public void onUpdated( Iterable<CacheEntryEvent<...>> cacheEntryEvents )
      throws CacheEntryListenerException {

    printEvents( cacheEntryEvents );
  }

  @Override
  public void onRemoved( Iterable<CacheEntryEvent<...>> cacheEntryEvents )
      throws CacheEntryListenerException {

    printEvents( cacheEntryEvents );
  }

  @Override
  public void onExpired( Iterable<CacheEntryEvent<...>> cacheEntryEvents )
      throws CacheEntryListenerException {

    printEvents( cacheEntryEvents );
  }

  private void printEvents( Iterable<CacheEntryEvent<...>> cacheEntryEvents ) {
    Iterator<CacheEntryEvent<...>> iterator = cacheEntryEvents.iterator();
    while ( iterator.hasNext() ) {
      CacheEntryEvent<...> event = iterator.next();
      System.out.println( event.getEventType() );
    }
  }
}

ExpirePolicy

In JCache, javax.cache.expiry.ExpirePolicy implementations are used to automatically expire cache entries based on different rules.

Expiry timeouts are defined using javax.cache.expiry.Duration, which is a pair of java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit, which describes a time unit and a long, defining the timeout value. The minimum allowed TimeUnit is TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS. The long value durationAmount must be equal or greater than zero. A value of zero (or Duration.ZERO) indicates that the cache entry expires immediately.

By default, JCache delivers a set of predefined expiry strategies in the standard API.

• AccessedExpiryPolicy: Expires after a given set of time measured from creation of the cache entry, the expiry timeout is updated on accessing the key.
• CreatedExpiryPolicy: Expires after a given set of time measured from creation of the cache entry, the expiry timeout is never updated.
• EternalExpiryPolicy: Never expires, this is the default behavior, similar to ExpiryPolicy to be set to null.
• ModifiedExpiryPolicy: Expires after a given set of time measured from creation of the cache entry, the expiry timeout is updated on updating the key.
• TouchedExpiryPolicy: Expires after a given set of time measured from creation of the cache entry, the expiry timeout is updated on accessing or updating the key.

Because EternalExpirePolicy does not expire cache entries, it is still possible to evict values from memory if an underlying CacheLoader is defined.

Hazelcast JCache Extension - ICache

Hazelcast provides extension methods to Cache API through the interface com.hazelcast.cache.ICache.

It has two sets of extensions:

• Asynchronous version of all cache operations. See Async Operations.
• Cache operations with custom ExpiryPolicy parameter to apply on that specific operation. See Custom ExpiryPolicy.

Scoping to Join Clusters

As mentioned before, you can scope a CacheManager in the case of client to connect to multiple clusters. In the case of an embedded node, you can scope a CacheManager to join different clusters at the same time. This process is called scoping. To apply scoping, request a CacheManager by passing a java.net.URI instance to CachingProvider::getCacheManager. The java.net.URI instance must point to either a Hazelcast configuration or to the name of a named com.hazelcast.core.HazelcastInstance instance.

NOTE: Multiple requests for the same java.net.URI result in returning a CacheManager instance that shares the same HazelcastInstance as the CacheManager returned by the previous call.

Applying Configuration Scope

To connect or join different clusters, apply a configuration scope to the CacheManager. If the same URI is used to request a CacheManager that was created previously, those CacheManagers share the same underlying HazelcastInstance.

To apply a configuration scope, pass in the path of the configuration file using the location property HazelcastCachingProvider#HAZELCAST_CONFIG_LOCATION (which resolves to hazelcast.config.location) as a mapping inside a java.util.Properties instance to the CachingProvider#getCacheManager(uri, classLoader, properties) call.

Here is an example of using Configuration Scope.

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a Hazelcast config file
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty( HazelcastCachingProvider.HAZELCAST_CONFIG_LOCATION,
    "classpath://my-configs/scoped-hazelcast.xml" );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

Here is an example using HazelcastCachingProvider::propertiesByLocation helper method.

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a Hazelcast config file
String configFile = "classpath://my-configs/scoped-hazelcast.xml";
Properties properties = HazelcastCachingProvider
    .propertiesByLocation( configFile );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

The retrieved CacheManager is scoped to use the HazelcastInstance that was just created and was configured using the given XML configuration file.

Available protocols for config file URL include classpath:// to point to a classpath location, file:// to point to a filesystem location, http:// an https:// for remote web locations. In addition, everything that does not specify a protocol is recognized as a placeholder that can be configured using a system property.

String configFile = "my-placeholder";
Properties properties = HazelcastCachingProvider
    .propertiesByLocation( configFile );

You can set this on the command line.

-Dmy-placeholder=classpath://my-configs/scoped-hazelcast.xml

NOTE: No check is performed to prevent creating multiple CacheManagers with the same cluster configuration on different configuration files. If the same cluster is referred from different configuration files, multiple cluster members or clients are created.

NOTE: The configuration file location will not be a part of the resulting identity of the CacheManager. An attempt to create a CacheManager with a different set of properties but an already used name will result in undefined behavior.

Binding to a Named Instance

You can bind CacheManager to an existing and named HazelcastInstance instance. If the instanceName is specified in com.hazelcast.config.Config, it can be used directly by passing it to CachingProvider implementation. Otherwise (instanceName not set or instance is a client instance) you must get the instance name from HazelcastInstance instance via the String getName() method to pass the CachingProvider implementation. Please note that instanceName is not configurable for the client side HazelcastInstance instance and is auto-generated by using group name (if it is specified). In general, String getName() method over HazelcastInstance is safer and the preferable way to get the name of the instance. Multiple CacheManagers created using an equal java.net.URI will share the same HazelcastInstance.

A named scope is applied nearly the same way as the configuration scope: pass in the instance name using the HazelcastCachingProvider#HAZELCAST_INSTANCE_NAME (which resolves to hazelcast.instance.name) property as a mapping inside a java.util.Properties instance to the CachingProvider#getCacheManager(uri, classLoader, properties) call.

Here is an example of Named Instance Scope with specified name.

Config config = new Config();
config.setInstanceName( "my-named-hazelcast-instance" );
// Create a named HazelcastInstance
Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( config );

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a named HazelcastInstance
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty( HazelcastCachingProvider.HAZELCAST_INSTANCE_NAME,
     "my-named-hazelcast-instance" );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

Here is an example of Named Instance Scope with auto-generated name.

Config config = new Config();
// Create a auto-generated named HazelcastInstance
HazelcastInstance instance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( config );
String instanceName = instance.getName();

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a named HazelcastInstance
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty( HazelcastCachingProvider.HAZELCAST_INSTANCE_NAME, 
     instanceName );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

Here is an example of Named Instance Scope with auto-generated name on client instance.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientNetworkConfig networkConfig = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig();
networkConfig.addAddress("127.0.0.1", "127.0.0.2");

// Create a client side HazelcastInstance
HazelcastInstance instance = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient( clientConfig );
String instanceName = instance.getName();

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a named HazelcastInstance
Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.setProperty( HazelcastCachingProvider.HAZELCAST_INSTANCE_NAME, 
     instanceName );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

Here is an example using HazelcastCachingProvider::propertiesByInstanceName method.

Config config = new Config();
config.setInstanceName( "my-named-hazelcast-instance" );
// Create a named HazelcastInstance
Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( config );

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

// Create Properties instance pointing to a named HazelcastInstance
Properties properties = HazelcastCachingProvider
    .propertiesByInstanceName( "my-named-hazelcast-instance" );

URI cacheManagerName = new URI( "my-cache-manager" );
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider
    .getCacheManager( cacheManagerName, null, properties );

NOTE: The instanceName will not be a part of the resulting identity of the CacheManager. An attempt to create a CacheManager with a different set of properties but an already used name will result in undefined behavior.

Namespacing

The java.net.URIs that don't use the above mentioned Hazelcast specific schemes are recognized as namespacing. Those CacheManagers share the same underlying default HazelcastInstance created (or set) by the CachingProvider, but they cache with the same names and different namespaces on the CacheManager level, and therefore they won't share the same data. This is useful where multiple applications might share the same Hazelcast JCache implementation (e.g. on application or OSGi servers) but are developed by independent teams. To prevent interfering on caches using the same name, every application can use its own namespace when retrieving the CacheManager.

Here is an example of using namespacing.

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();

URI nsApp1 = new URI( "application-1" );
CacheManager cacheManagerApp1 = cachingProvider.getCacheManager( nsApp1, null );

URI nsApp2 = new URI( "application-2" );
CacheManager cacheManagerApp2 = cachingProvider.getCacheManager( nsApp2, null );

That way both applications share the same HazelcastInstance instance but not the same caches.

Retrieving an ICache Instance

Besides Scoping to Join Clusters and Namespacing, which are implemented using the URI feature of the specification, all other extended operations are required to retrieve the com.hazelcast.cache.ICache interface instance from the JCache javax.cache.Cache instance. For Hazelcast, both interfaces are implemented on the same object instance. It is recommended that you stay with the specification way to retrieve the ICache version, since ICache might be subject to change without notification.

To retrieve or unwrap the ICache instance, you can execute the following code example:

CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();
CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider.getCacheManager();
Cache<Object, Object> cache = cacheManager.getCache( ... );

ICache<Object, Object> unwrappedCache = cache.unwrap( ICache.class );

After unwrapping the Cache instance into an ICache instance, you have access to all of the following operations, e.g. ICache Async Methods and ICache Convenience Methods.

ICache Configuration

As mentioned in the JCache Declarative Configuration section, the Hazelcast ICache extension offers additional configuration properties over the default JCache configuration. These additional properties include internal storage format, backup counts, eviction policy and quorum reference.

The declarative configuration for ICache is a superset of the previously discussed JCache configuration:

<cache>
  <!-- ... default cache configuration goes here ... -->
  <backup-count>1</backup-count>
  <async-backup-count>1</async-backup-count>
  <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
  <eviction size="10000" max-size-policy="ENTRY_COUNT" eviction-policy="LRU" />
  <partition-lost-listeners>
     <partition-lost-listener>CachePartitionLostListenerImpl</partition-lost-listener>
 </partition-lost-listeners>
 <quorum-ref>quorum-name</quorum-ref>
</cache>

• backup-count: Number of synchronous backups. Those backups are executed before the mutating cache operation is finished. The mutating operation is blocked. backup-count default value is 1.
• async-backup-count: Number of asynchronous backups. Those backups are executed asynchronously so the mutating operation is not blocked and it will be done immediately. async-backup-count default value is 0.
• in-memory-format: Internal storage format. For more information, please see the In Memory Format section. Default is BINARY.
• eviction: Defines the used eviction strategies and sizes for the cache. For more information on eviction, please see the JCache Eviction.
  • size: Maximum number of records or maximum size in bytes depending on the max-size-policy property. Size can be any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. Default max-size-policy is ENTRY_COUNT and default size is 10.000.
  • max-size-policy: Maximum size. If maximum size is reached, the cache is evicted based on the eviction policy. Default max-size-policy is ENTRY_COUNT and default size is 10.000. The following eviction policies are available:
    • ENTRY_COUNT: Maximum number of cache entries in the cache. Available on heap based cache record store only.
    • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: Maximum used native memory size in megabytes per cache for each Hazelcast instance. Available on High-Density Memory cache record store only.
    • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: Maximum used native memory size percentage per cache for each Hazelcast instance. Available on High-Density Memory cache record store only.
    • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: Minimum free native memory size in megabytes for each Hazelcast instance. Available on High-Density Memory cache record store only.
    • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: Minimum free native memory size percentage for each Hazelcast instance. Available on High-Density Memory cache record store only.
  • eviction-policy: Eviction policy which compares values to find the best matching eviction candidate. Default is LRU.
    • LRU: Less Recently Used - finds the best eviction candidate based on the lastAccessTime.
    • LFU: Less Frequently Used - finds the best eviction candidate based on the number of hits.
• partition-lost-listeners : Defines listeners for dispatching partition lost events for the cache. For more information, please see the ICache Partition Lost Listener section.
• quorum-ref : Name of quorum configuration that you want this cache to use.

Since javax.cache.configuration.MutableConfiguration misses the above additional configuration properties, Hazelcast ICache extension provides an extended configuration class called com.hazelcast.config.CacheConfig. This class is an implementation of javax.cache.configuration.CompleteConfiguration and all the properties shown above can be configured using its corresponding setter methods.

NOTE: At the client side, ICache can be configured only programmatically.

ICache Async Methods

As another addition of Hazelcast ICache over the normal JCache specification, Hazelcast provides asynchronous versions of almost all methods, returning a com.hazelcast.core.ICompletableFuture. By using these methods and the returned future objects, you can use JCache in a reactive way by registering zero or more callbacks on the future to prevent blocking the current thread.

The asynchronous versions of the methods append the phrase Async to the method name. The example code below uses the method putAsync().

ICache<Integer, String> unwrappedCache = cache.unwrap( ICache.class );
ICompletableFuture<String> future = unwrappedCache.putAsync( 1, "value" );
future.andThen( new ExecutionCallback<String>() {
  public void onResponse( String response ) {
    System.out.println( "Previous value: " + response );
  }

  public void onFailure( Throwable t ) {
    t.printStackTrace();
  }
} );

Following methods are available in asynchronous versions:

• get(key):
  • getAsync(key)
  • getAsync(key, expiryPolicy)
• put(key, value):
  • putAsync(key, value)
  • putAsync(key, value, expiryPolicy)
• putIfAbsent(key, value):
  • putIfAbsentAsync(key, value)
  • putIfAbsentAsync(key, value, expiryPolicy)
• getAndPut(key, value):
  • getAndPutAsync(key, value)
  • getAndPutAsync(key, value, expiryPolicy)
• remove(key):
  • removeAsync(key)
• remove(key, value):
  • removeAsync(key, value)
• getAndRemove(key):
  • getAndRemoveAsync(key)
• replace(key, value):
  • replaceAsync(key, value)
  • replaceAsync(key, value, expiryPolicy)
• replace(key, oldValue, newValue):
  • replaceAsync(key, oldValue, newValue)
  • replaceAsync(key, oldValue, newValue, expiryPolicy)
• getAndReplace(key, value):
  • getAndReplaceAsync(key, value)
  • getAndReplaceAsync(key, value, expiryPolicy)

The methods with a given javax.cache.expiry.ExpiryPolicy are further discussed in the Defining a Custom ExpiryPolicy.

NOTE: Asynchronous versions of the methods are not compatible with synchronous events.

Defining a Custom ExpiryPolicy

The JCache specification has an option to configure a single ExpiryPolicy per cache. Hazelcast ICache extension offers the possibility to define a custom ExpiryPolicy per key by providing a set of method overloads with an expirePolicy parameter, as in the list of asynchronous methods in the Async Methods section. This means that you can pass custom expiry policies to a cache operation.

Here is how an ExpirePolicy is set on JCache configuration:

CompleteConfiguration<String, String> config =
    new MutableConfiguration<String, String>()
        setExpiryPolicyFactory(
            AccessedExpiryPolicy.factoryOf( Duration.ONE_MINUTE )
        );

To pass a custom ExpirePolicy, a set of overloads is provided. You can use them as shown in the following code example.

ICache<Integer, String> unwrappedCache = cache.unwrap( ICache.class );
unwrappedCache.put( 1, "value", new AccessedExpiryPolicy( Duration.ONE_DAY ) );

The ExpirePolicy instance can be pre-created, cached, and re-used, but only for each cache instance. This is because ExpirePolicy implementations can be marked as java.io.Closeable. The following list shows the provided method overloads over javax.cache.Cache by com.hazelcast.cache.ICache featuring the ExpiryPolicy parameter:

• get(key):
  • get(key, expiryPolicy)
• getAll(keys):
  • getAll(keys, expirePolicy)
• put(key, value):
  • put(key, value, expirePolicy)
• getAndPut(key, value):
  • getAndPut(key, value, expirePolicy)
• putAll(map):
  • putAll(map, expirePolicy)
• putIfAbsent(key, value):
  • putIfAbsent(key, value, expirePolicy)
• replace(key, value):
  • replace(key, value, expirePolicy)
• replace(key, oldValue, newValue):
  • replace(key, oldValue, newValue, expirePolicy)
• getAndReplace(key, value):
  • getAndReplace(key, value, expirePolicy)

Asynchronous method overloads are not listed here. Please see ICache Async Methods for the list of asynchronous method overloads.

JCache Eviction

Caches are generally not expected to grow to an infinite size. Implementing an expiry policy is one way you can prevent the infinite growth, but sometimes it is hard to define a meaningful expiration timeout. Therefore, Hazelcast JCache provides the eviction feature. Eviction offers the possibility to remove entries based on the cache size or amount of used memory (Hazelcast Enterprise Only) and not based on timeouts.

Eviction and Runtime

Since a cache is designed for high throughput and fast reads, Hazelcast put a lot of effort into designing the eviction system to be as predictable as possible. All built-in implementations provide an amortized O(1) runtime. The default operation runtime is rendered as O(1), but it can be faster than the normal runtime cost if the algorithm finds an expired entry while sampling.

Cache Types

Most importantly, typical production systems have two common types of caches:

• Reference Caches: Caches for reference data are normally small and are used to speed up the de-referencing as a lookup table. Those caches are commonly tend to be small and contain a previously known, fixed number of elements (e.g. states of the USA or abbreviations of elements).
• Active DataSet Caches: The other type of caches normally caches an active data set. These caches run to their maximum size and evict the oldest or not frequently used entries to keep in memory bounds. They sit in front of a database or HTML generators to cache the latest requested data.

Hazelcast JCache eviction supports both types of caches using a slightly different approach based on the configured maximum size of the cache. For detailed information, please see the Eviction Algorithm section.

Configuring Eviction Policies

Hazelcast JCache provides two commonly known eviction policies, LRU and LFU, but loosens the rules for predictable runtime behavior. LRU, normally recognized as Least Recently Used, is implemented as Less Recently Used, and LFU known as Least Frequently Used is implemented as Less Frequently Used. The details about this difference is explained in the Eviction Algorithm section.

Eviction Policies are configured by providing the corresponding abbreviation to the configuration as shown in the ICache Configuration section. As already mentioned, two built-in policies are available:

To configure the use of the LRU (Less Recently Used) policy:

<eviction size="10000" max-size-policy="ENTRY_COUNT" eviction-policy="LRU" />

And to configure the use of the LFU (Less Frequently Used) policy:

<eviction size="10000" max-size-policy="ENTRY_COUNT" eviction-policy="LFU" />

The default eviction policy is LRU. Therefore, Hazelcast JCache does not offer the possibility to perform no eviction.

Eviction Strategy

Eviction strategies implement the logic of selecting one or more eviction candidates from the underlying storage implementation and passing them to the eviction policies. Hazelcast JCache provides an amortized O(1) cost implementation for this strategy to select a fixed number of samples from the current partition that it is executed against.

The default implementation is com.hazelcast.cache.impl.eviction.impl.strategy.sampling.SamplingBasedEvictionStrategy which, as mentioned, samples random 15 elements. A detailed description of the algorithm will be explained in the next section.

Eviction Algorithm

The Hazelcast JCache eviction algorithm is specially designed for the use case of high performance caches and with predictability in mind. The built-in implementations provide an amortized O(1) runtime and therefore provide a highly predictable runtime behavior which does not rely on any kind of background threads to handle the eviction. Therefore, the algorithm takes some assumptions into account to prevent network operations and concurrent accesses.

As an explanation of how the algorithm works, let's examine the following flowchart step by step.

1. A new cache is created. Without any special settings, the eviction is configured to kick in when the cache exceeds 10.000 elements and an LRU (Less Recently Used) policy is set up.
2. The user puts in a new entry (e.g. a key-value pair).
3. For every put, the eviction strategy evaluates the current cache size and decides if an eviction is necessary or not. If not the entry is stored in step 10.
4. If eviction is required, a new sampling is started. The built-in sampler is implemented as an lazy iterator.
5. The sampling algorithm selects a random sample from the underlying data storage.
6. The eviction strategy tests the sampled entry to already be expired (lazy expiration). If expired, the sampling stops and the entry is removed in step 9.
7. If not yet expired, the entry (eviction candidate) is compared to the last best matching candidate (based on the eviction policy) and the new best matching candidate is remembered.
8. The sampling is repeated for 15 times and then the best matching eviction candidate is returned to the eviction strategy.
9. The expired or best matching eviction candidate is removed from the underlying data storage.
10. The new put entry is stored.
11. The put operation returns to the user.

As seen by the flowchart, the general eviction operation is easy. As long as the cache does not reach its maximum capacity or you execute updates (put/replace), no eviction is executed.

To prevent network operations and concurrent access, as mentioned earlier, the cache size is estimated based on the size of the currently handled partition. Due to the imbalanced partitions, the single partitions might start to evict earlier than the other partitions.

As mentioned in the Cache Types section, typically two types of caches are found in the production systems. For small caches, referred to as Reference Caches, the eviction algorithm has a special set of rules depending on the maximum configured cache size. Please see the Reference Caches section for details. The other type of cache is referred to as Active DataSet Cache, which in most cases makes heavy use of the eviction to keep the most active data set in the memory. Those kinds of caches using a very simple but efficient way to estimate the cluster-wide cache size.

All of the following calculations have a well known set of fixed variables:

• GlobalCapacity: User defined maximum cache size (cluster-wide).
• PartitionCount: Number of partitions in the cluster (defaults to 271).
• BalancedPartitionSize: Number of elements in a balanced partition state, BalancedPartitionSize := GlobalCapacity / PartitionCount.
• Deviation: An approximated standard deviation (tests proofed it to be pretty near), Deviation := sqrt(BalancedPartitionSize).

Reference Caches

A Reference Cache is typically small and the number of elements to store in the reference caches is normally known prior to creating the cache. Typical examples of reference caches are lookup tables for abbreviations or the states of a country. They tend to have a fixed but small element number and the eviction is an unlikely event and rather undesirable behavior.

Since an imbalanced partition is the worst problem in the small and mid-sized caches than for the caches with millions of entries, the normal estimation rule (as discussed in a bit) is not applied to these kinds of caches. To prevent unwanted eviction on the small and mid-sized caches, Hazelcast implements a special set of rules to estimate the cluster size.

To adjust the imbalance of partitions as found in the typical runtime, the actual calculated maximum cache size (as known as the eviction threshold) is slightly higher than the user defined size. That means more elements can be stored into the cache than expected by the user. This needs to be taken into account especially for large objects, since those can easily exceed the expected memory consumption!

Small caches:

If a cache is configured with no more than 4.000 element, this cache is considered to be a small cache. The actual partition size is derived from the number of elements (GlobalCapacity) and the deviation using the following formula:

MaxPartitionSize := Deviation * 5 + BalancedPartitionSize

This formula ends up with big partition sizes which summed up exceed the expected maximum cache size (set by the user), but since the small caches typically have a well known maximum number of elements, this is not a big issue. Only if the small caches are used for a use case other than using it as a reference cache, this needs to be taken into account.

Mid-sized caches

A mid-sized cache is defined as a cache with a maximum number of elements that is bigger than 4.000 but not bigger than 1.000.000 elements. The calculation of mid-sized caches is similar to that of the small caches but with a different multiplier. To calculate the maximum number of elements per partition, the following formula is used:

MaxPartitionSize := Deviation * 3 + BalancedPartitionSize

Active DataSet Caches

For large caches, where the maximum cache size is bigger than 1.000.000 elements, there is no additional calculation needed. The maximum partition size is considered to be equal to BalancedPartitionSize since statistically big partitions are expected to almost balance themselves. Therefore, the formula is as easy as the following:

MaxPartitionSize := BalancedPartitionSize

Cache Size Estimation

As mentioned earlier, Hazelcast JCache provides an estimation algorithm to prevent cluster-wide network operations, concurrent access to other partitions and background tasks. It also offers a highly predictable operation runtime when the eviction is necessary.

The estimation algorithm is based on the previously calculated maximum partition size (please see the Reference Caches section and Active DataSet Caches section) and is calculated against the current partition only.

The algorithm to reckon the number of stored entries in the cache (cluster-wide) and if the eviction is necessary is shown in the following pseudo-code example:

RequiresEviction[Boolean] := CurrentPartitionSize >= MaxPartitionSize

JCache Near Cache

Cache entries in Hazelcast are stored as partitioned across the cluster. When you try to read a record with the key k, if the current node is not the owner of that key (i.e. not the owner of partition that the key belongs to), Hazelcast sends a remote operation to the owner node. Each remote operation means lots of network trips. If your cache is used for mostly read operations, it is advised to use a near cache storage in front of the cache itself to read cache records faster and consume less network traffic.

NOTE: Near cache for JCache is only available for clients NOT members.

However, using near cache comes with some trade-off for some cases:

• There will be extra memory consumption for storing near cache records at local.
• If invalidation is enabled and entries are updated frequently, there will be many invalidation events across the cluster.
• Near cache does not give strong consistency but gives eventual consistency guarantees. It is possible to read stale data.

Configuring Invalidation Event Sending

Invalidation is the process of removing an entry from the near cache since the entry is not valid anymore (its value is updated or it is removed from actual cache). Near cache invalidation happens asynchronously at the cluster level, but synchronously in real-time at the current node. This means when an entry is updated (explicitly or via entry processor) or removed (deleted explicitly or via entry processor, evicted, expired), it is invalidated from all near caches asynchronously within the whole cluster but updated/removed at/from the current node synchronously. Generally, whenever the state of an entry changes in the record store by updating its value or removing it, the invalidation event is sent for that entry.

Invalidation events can be sent either individually or in batches. If there are lots of mutating operations such as put/remove on the cache, sending the events in batches is advised. This reduces the network traffic and keeps the eventing system less busy.

You can use the following system properties to configure the sending of invalidation events in batches:

• hazelcast.cache.invalidation.batch.enabled: Specifies whether the cache invalidation event batch sending is enabled or not. The default value is true.
• hazelcast.cache.invalidation.batch.size: Maximum number of cache invalidation events to be drained and sent to the event listeners in a batch. The default value is 100.
• hazelcast.cache.invalidation.batchfrequency.seconds: Cache invalidation event batch sending frequency in seconds. When event size does not reach to hazelcast.cache.invalidation.batch.size in the given time period, those events are gathered into a batch and sent to the target. The default value is 10 seconds.

So if there are so many clients or so many mutating operations, batching should remain enabled and the batch size should be configured with the hazelcast.cache.invalidation.batch.size system property to a suitable value.

JCache Near Cache Expiration

Expiration means the eviction of expired records. A record is expired:

• if it is not touched (accessed/read) for <max-idle-seconds>,
• <time-to-live-seconds> passed since it is put to near-cache.

Expiration is performed in two cases:

• When a record is accessed, it is checked about if it is expired or not. If it is expired, it is evicted and returns null to caller.
• In the background, there is an expiration task that periodically (currently 5 seconds) scans records and evicts the expired records.

Configuring JCache Near Cache Eviction

In the scope of near cache, eviction means evicting (clearing) the entries selected according to the given eviction-policy when the specified max-size-policy has been reached. Eviction is handled with max-size policy and eviction-policy elements. Please see Configuring JCache Near Cache.

max-size-policy

This element defines the state when near cache is full and whether the eviction should be triggered. The following policies for maximum cache size are supported by the near cache eviction:

• ENTRY_COUNT: Maximum size based on the entry count in the near cache. Available only for BINARY and OBJECT in-memory formats.
• USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: Maximum used native memory size of the specified near cache in MB to trigger the eviction. If the used native memory size exceeds this threshold, the eviction is triggered. Available only for NATIVE in-memory format. This is supported only by Hazelcast Enterprise.
• USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: Maximum used native memory percentage of the specified near cache to trigger the eviction. If the native memory usage percentage (relative to maximum native memory size) exceeds this threshold, the eviction is triggered. Available only for NATIVE in-memory format. This is supported only by Hazelcast Enterprise.
• FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE: Minimum free native memory size of the specified near cache in MB to trigger the eviction. If free native memory size goes down below of this threshold, eviction is triggered. Available only for NATIVE in-memory format. This is supported only by Hazelcast Enterprise.
• FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE: Minimum free native memory percentage of the specified near cache to trigger eviction. If free native memory percentage (relative to maximum native memory size) goes down below of this threshold, eviction is triggered. Available only for NATIVE in-memory format. This is supported only by Hazelcast Enterprise.

eviction-policy

Once a near cache is full (reached to its maximum size as specified with the max-size-policy element), an eviction policy determines which, if any, entries must be evicted. Currently, the following eviction policies are supported by near cache eviction:

• LRU (Least Recently Used)
• LFU (Least Frequently Used)

Configuring JCache Near Cache

The following are example configurations for JCache near cache.

Declarative:

<hazelcast-client>
    ...
    <near-cache name="myCache">
        <in-memory-format>BINARY</in-memory-format>
        <invalidate-on-change>true</invalidate-on-change>
        <cache-local-entries>false</cache-local-entries>
        <time-to-live-seconds>3600000</time-to-live-seconds>
        <max-idle-seconds>600000</max-idle-seconds>
        <eviction size="1000" max-size-policy="ENTRY_COUNT" eviction-policy="LFU"/>
    </near-cache>
    ...
</hazelcast-client>

Programmatic:

EvictionConfig evictionConfig = new EvictionConfig();
evictionConfig.setMaxSizePolicy(MaxSizePolicy.ENTRY_COUNT);
evictionConfig.setEvictionPolicy(EvictionPolicy.LFU);
evictionConfig.setSize(10000);

NearCacheConfig nearCacheConfig =
    new NearCacheConfig()
        .setName("myCache")
        .setInMemoryFormat(InMemoryFormat.BINARY)
        .setInvalidateOnChange(true)
        .setCacheLocalEntries(false)
        .setTimeToLiveSeconds(60 * 60 * 1000) // 1 hour TTL
        .setMaxIdleSeconds(10 * 60 * 1000) // 10 minutes max idle seconds
        .setEvictionConfig(evictionConfig); 
...

clientConfig.addNearCacheConfig(nearCacheConfig);

The following are the definitions of the configuration elements and attributes.

• in-memory-format: Storage type of near cache entries. Available values are BINARY, OBJECT and NATIVE_MEMORY. NATIVE_MEMORY is available only for Hazelcast Enterprise. Default value is BINARY.
• invalidate-on-change: Specifies whether the cached entries are evicted when the entries are changed (updated or removed) on the local and global. Available values are true and false. Default value is true.
• cache-local-entries: Specifies whether the local cache entries are stored eagerly (immediately) to near cache when a put operation from the local is performed on the cache. Available values are true and false. Default value is false.
• time-to-live-seconds: Maximum number of seconds for each entry to stay in the near cache. Entries that are older than <time-to-live-seconds> will be automatically evicted from the near cache. It can be any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. 0 means infinite. Default value is 0.
• max-idle-seconds: Maximum number of seconds each entry can stay in the near cache as untouched (not-read). Entries that are not read (touched) more than <max-idle-seconds> value will be removed from the near cache. It can be any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE. 0 means Integer.MAX_VALUE. Default is 0.
• eviction: Specifies when the eviction is triggered (max-size policy) and which eviction policy (LRU or LFU) is used for the entries to be evicted. The default value for max-size-policy is ENTRY_COUNT, default size is 10000 and default eviction-policy is LRU. For High-Density Memory Store near cache, since ENTRY_COUNT eviction policy is not supported yet, you must explicitly configure eviction with one of the supported policies:
  • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE
  • USED_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE
  • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_SIZE
  • FREE_NATIVE_MEMORY_PERCENTAGE.

Near cache can be configured only at the client side.

NOTE: It is recommended to specify a time-to-live-seconds value to guarantee the eventual eviction of invalidated near cache records.

Lookup for Client Near Cache Configuration

Near cache configuration can be defined at the client side (using hazelcast-client.xml or ClientConfig) as independent configuration (independent from the CacheConfig). Near cache configuration lookup is handled as described below:

• Look for near cache configuration with the name of the cache given in the client configuration.
• If a defined near cache configuration is found, use this near cache configuration defined at the client.
• Otherwise:
  • If there is a defined default near cache configuration is found, use this default near cache configuration.
  • If there is no default near cache configuration, it means there is no near cache configuration for cache.

ICache Convenience Methods

In addition to the operations explained in ICache Async Methods and Defining a Custom ExpiryPolicy, Hazelcast ICache also provides a set of convenience methods. These methods are not part of the JCache specification.

• size(): Returns the estimated size of the distributed cache.
• destroy(): Destroys the cache and removes the data from memory. This is different from the method javax.cache.Cache::close.
• getLocalCacheStatistics(): Returns a com.hazelcast.cache.CacheStatistics instance providing the same statistics data as the JMX beans. This method is not available yet on Hazelcast clients: the exception java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException is thrown when you use this method on a Hazelcast client.

Implementing BackupAwareEntryProcessor

Another feature, especially interesting for distributed environments like Hazelcast, is the JCache specified javax.cache.processor.EntryProcessor. For more general information, please see the Implementing EntryProcessor section.

Since Hazelcast provides backups of cached entries on other nodes, the default way to backup an object changed by an EntryProcessor is to serialize the complete object and send it to the backup partition. This can be a huge network overhead for big objects.

Hazelcast offers a sub-interface for EntryProcessor called com.hazelcast.cache.BackupAwareEntryProcessor. This allows you to create or pass another EntryProcessor to run on backup partitions and apply delta changes to the backup entries.

The backup partition EntryProcessor can either be the currently running processor (by returning this) or it can be a specialized EntryProcessor implementation (other from the currently running one) which does different operations or leaves out operations, e.g. sending emails.

If we again take the EntryProcessor example from the demonstration application provided in the Implementing EntryProcessor section, the changed code will look like the following snippet.

public class UserUpdateEntryProcessor
    implements BackupAwareEntryProcessor<Integer, User, User> {

  @Override
  public User process( MutableEntry<Integer, User> entry, Object... arguments )
      throws EntryProcessorException {

    // Test arguments length
    if ( arguments.length < 1 ) {
      throw new EntryProcessorException( "One argument needed: username" );
    }

    // Get first argument and test for String type
    Object argument = arguments[0];
    if ( !( argument instanceof String ) ) {
      throw new EntryProcessorException(
          "First argument has wrong type, required java.lang.String" );
    }

    // Retrieve the value from the MutableEntry
    User user = entry.getValue();

    // Retrieve the new username from the first argument
    String newUsername = ( String ) arguments[0];

    // Set the new username
    user.setUsername( newUsername );

    // Set the changed user to mark the entry as dirty
    entry.setValue( user );

    // Return the changed user to return it to the caller
    return user;
  }

  public EntryProcessor<K, V, T> createBackupEntryProcessor() {
    return this;
  }
}

You can use the additional method BackupAwareEntryProcessor::createBackupEntryProcessor to create or return the EntryProcessor implementation to run on the backup partition (in the example above, the same processor again).

NOTE: For the backup runs, the returned value from the backup processor is ignored and not returned to the user.

ICache Partition Lost Listener

You can listen to CachePartitionLostEvent instances by registering an implementation of CachePartitionLostListener, which is also a sub-interface of java.util.EventListener from ICache.

Let's consider the following example code:

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    CachingProvider cachingProvider = Caching.getCachingProvider();
    CacheManager cacheManager = cachingProvider.getCacheManager();
    Cache<Object, Object> cache = cacheManager.getCache( ... );

    ICache<Object, Object> unwrappedCache = cache.unwrap( ICache.class );

    unwrappedCache.addPartitionLostListener(new CachePartitionLostListener() {
     @Override
     public void partitionLost(CachePartitionLostEvent event) {
       System.out.println(event);
     }
    });
  }

Within this example code, a CachePartitionLostListener implementation is registered to a cache and assume that this cache is configured with 1 backup. For this particular cache and any of the partitions in the system, if the partition owner member and its first backup member crash simultaneously, the given CachePartitionLostListener receives a corresponding CachePartitionLostEvent. If only a single member crashes in the cluster, a CachePartitionLostEvent is not fired for this cache since backups for the partitions owned by the crashed member are kept on other members.

Please refer to the Partition Lost Listener section for more information about partition lost detection and partition lost events.

JCache Split-Brain

Split-Brain handling is internally supported as a service inside Hazelcast (see Network Partitioning for more details) and JCache uses same infrastructure with IMap to support Split-Brain. You can specify cache merge policy to determine which entry is used while merging. You can also provide your own cache merge policy implementations through CacheMergePolicyInterface.

NOTE: Split-Brain is only supported for heap based JCache but not for HD-JCache since merging high volume of data in consistent way may cause significant performance loss on the system.

CacheMergePolicy Interface

After split clusters are joined again, they merge their entries with each other. This merge process is handled over the CacheMergePolicy interface. The CacheMergePolicy instance takes two entries: the owned entry, and the merging entry which comes from the joined cluster. The CacheEntryView instance wraps the key, value, and some metadata about the entry (such as creation time, expiration time and access hit). Then the CacheMergePolicy instance selects one of the entries and returns it. The returned entry is used as the stored cache entry.

CacheEntryView

Wraps key, value and some metadata (such as expiration time, last access time and access hit of cache entry) and exposes them to outside as read only.

CacheMergePolicy

Policy for merging cache entries. Entries from joined clusters are merged by using this policy to select one of them from source and target. Passed CacheEntryView instances wrap the key and value as their original types, with conversion to object from their storage types. If the user doesn't need the original types of key and value, you should use StorageTypeAwareCacheMergePolicy which is a sub-type of this interface.

StorageTypeAwareCacheMergePolicy

Marker interface indicating that the key and value wrapped by CacheEntryView will be not converted to their original types. The motivation of this interface is that while merging cache entries, actual key and value are not usually not checked. Therefore, there is no need to convert them to their original types.

At worst case, value is returned from the merge method as selected, meaning that in all cases, value is accessed. So even if the the conversion is done as lazy, it will be processed at this point. But by default, key and value are converted to their original types unless this StorageTypeAwareCacheMergePolicy is used.

Another motivation for using this interface is that at the member side, there is no need to locate classes of stored entries. It means that entries can be put from the client with BINARY in-memory format and the classpath of the client can be different from the member. So in this case, if entries try to convert to their original types while merging, ClassNotFoundException is thrown here.

As a result, both for performance and for the ClassNotFoundException mentioned above, it is strongly recommended that you use this interface if the original values of key and values are not needed.

Configuration

There are four built-in cache merge policies:

• Pass Through: Merges cache entry from source to destination directly. You can specify this policy with its full class name as com.hazelcast.cache.merge.PassThroughCacheMergePolicy or with its constant name as PASS_THROUGH.
• Put If Absent: Merges cache entry from source to destination if it does not exist in the destination cache. You can specify this policy with its full class name as com.hazelcast.cache.merge.PutIfAbsentCacheMergePolicy or with its constant name as PUT_IF_ABSENT.
• Higher Hits: Merges cache entry from source to destination cache if source entry has more hits than the destination one. You can specify this policy with its full class name as com.hazelcast.cache.merge.HigherHitsCacheMergePolicy or with its constant name as HIGHER_HITS.
• Latest Access: Merges cache entry from source to destination cache if source entry has been accessed more recently than the destination entry. You can specify this policy with its full class name as com.hazelcast.cache.merge.LatestAccessCacheMergePolicy or with its constant name as LATEST_ACCESS.

You can access full class names or constant names of all build-in cache merge policies over com.hazelcast.cache.BuiltInCacheMergePolicies enum. You can specify merge policy configuration for cache declaratively or programmatically.

The following are example configurations for JCache Split-Brain.

Declarative:

<cache name="cacheWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsConstantName">
    ...
    <merge-policy>HIGHER_HITS</merge-policy>
    ...
</cache><cache name="cacheWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsFullClassName">
    ...
    <merge-policy>com.hazelcast.cache.merge.LatestAccessCacheMergePolicy</merge-policy>
    ...
</cache>
<cache name="cacheWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsCustomImpl">
    ...
    <merge-policy>com.mycompany.cache.merge.MyCacheMergePolicy</merge-policy>
    ...
</cache>

Programmatic:

CacheConfig cacheConfigWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsConstantName = new CacheConfig();
cacheConfig.setMergePolicy(BuiltInCacheMergePolicies.HIGGER_HITS.name());

CacheConfig cacheConfigWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsFullClassName = new CacheConfig();
cacheConfig.setMergePolicy(BuiltInCacheMergePolicies.LATEST_ACCESS.getImplementationClassName());

CacheConfig cacheConfigWithBuiltInMergePolicyAsCustomImpl = new CacheConfig();
cacheConfig.setMergePolicy("com.mycompany.cache.merge.MyCacheMergePolicy");

Testing for JCache Specification Compliance

Hazelcast JCache is fully compliant with the JSR 107 TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit), therefore it is officially a JCache implementation. This is tested by running the TCK against the Hazelcast implementation.

You can test Hazelcast JCache for compliance by executing the TCK. Just perform the instructions below:

1. Checkout the TCK from https://github.com/jsr107/jsr107tck.
2. Change the properties in tck-parent/pom.xml as shown below.
3. Run the TCK by mvn clean install.

<properties>
  <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
  <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>

  <CacheInvocationContextImpl>
    javax.cache.annotation.impl.cdi.CdiCacheKeyInvocationContextImpl
  </CacheInvocationContextImpl>

  <domain-lib-dir>${project.build.directory}/domainlib</domain-lib-dir>
  <domain-jar>domain.jar</domain-jar>


  <!-- ################################################################# -->
  <!-- Change the following properties on the command line
       to override with the coordinates for your implementation-->
  <implementation-groupId>com.hazelcast</implementation-groupId>
  <implementation-artifactId>hazelcast</implementation-artifactId>
  <implementation-version>3.4</implementation-version>

  <!-- Change the following properties to your CacheManager and
       Cache implementation. Used by the unwrap tests. -->
  <CacheManagerImpl>
    com.hazelcast.client.cache.impl.HazelcastClientCacheManager
  </CacheManagerImpl>
  <CacheImpl>com.hazelcast.cache.ICache</CacheImpl>
  <CacheEntryImpl>
    com.hazelcast.cache.impl.CacheEntry
  </CacheEntryImpl>

  <!-- Change the following to point to your MBeanServer, so that
       the TCK can resolve it. -->
  <javax.management.builder.initial>
    com.hazelcast.cache.impl.TCKMBeanServerBuilder
  </javax.management.builder.initial>
  <org.jsr107.tck.management.agentId>
    TCKMbeanServer
  </org.jsr107.tck.management.agentId>
  <jsr107.api.version>1.0.0</jsr107.api.version>

  <!-- ################################################################# -->
</properties>

This will run the tests using an embedded Hazelcast Member.

Integrated Clustering

In this chapter, we show you how Hazelcast is integrated with Hibernate 2nd level cache and Spring, and how Hazelcast helps with your Filter, Tomcat and Jetty based web session replications.

The Hibernate Second Level Cache section tells how you should configure both Hazelcast and Hibernate to integrate them. It explains the modes of Hazelcast that can be used by Hibernate and also provides how to perform advanced settings like accessing the underlying Hazelcast instance used by Hibernate.

The Web Session Replication section tells how to cluster user HTTP sessions automatically. You will learn how to enable session replication using filter based solution. In addition, Tomcat and Jetty specific modules will be explained.

The Spring Integration section tells how you can integrate Hazelcast into a Spring project by explaining the Hazelcast instance and client configurations with the hazelcast namespace. It also lists the supported Spring bean attributes.

Hibernate Second Level Cache

Hazelcast provides distributed second level cache for your Hibernate entities, collections and queries.

Sample Code for Hibernate

Please see our sample application for Hibernate Second Level Cache.

Supported Hibernate Versions

• hibernate 3.3.x+
• hibernate 4.x

Configuring Hibernate for Hazelcast

To configure Hibernate for Hazelcast:

• Add hazelcast-hibernate3-<hazelcastversion>.jar or hazelcast- hibernate4-<hazelcastversion>.jar into your classpath depending on your Hibernate version.
• Then add the following properties into your Hibernate configuration file (e.g. hibernate.cfg.xml).

Enabling Second Level Cache

<property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">true</property>

Configuring RegionFactory

You can configure Hibernate RegionFactory with HazelcastCacheRegionFactory or HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory.

HazelcastCacheRegionFactory

HazelcastCacheRegionFactory uses standard Hazelcast Distributed Maps to cache the data, so all cache operations go through the wire.

<property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">
   com.hazelcast.hibernate.HazelcastCacheRegionFactory
</property>

All operations like get, put, and remove will be performed using the Distributed Map logic. The only downside of using HazelcastCacheRegionFactory may be lower performance compared to HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory since operations are handled as distributed calls.

NOTE: If you use HazelcastCacheRegionFactory, you can see your maps on Management Center.

With HazelcastCacheRegionFactory, all of the following caches are distributed across Hazelcast Cluster.

• Entity Cache
• Collection Cache
• Timestamp Cache

HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory

You can use HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory which stores data in a local node and sends invalidation messages when an entry is updated/deleted locally.

<property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">
  com.hazelcast.hibernate.HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory
</property>

With HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory, each cluster member has a local map and each of them is registered to a Hazelcast Topic (ITopic). Whenever a put or remove operation is performed on a member, an invalidation message is generated on the ITopic and sent to the other members. Those other members remove the related key-value pair on their local maps as soon as they get these invalidation messages. The new value is only updated on this member when a get operation runs on that key. In the case of get operations, invalidation messages are not generated and reads are performed on the local map.

An illustration of the above logic is shown below.

If your operations are mostly reads, then this option gives better performance.

NOTE: If you use HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory, you cannot see your maps on Management Center.

With HazelcastLocalCacheRegionFactory, all of the following caches are not distributed and are kept locally in the Hazelcast Node.

• Entity Cache
• Collection Cache
• Timestamp Cache

Entity and Collection are invalidated on update. When they are updated on a node, an invalidation message is sent to all other nodes in order to remove the entity from their local cache. When needed, each node reads that data from the underlying DB.

Timestamp cache is replicated. On every update, a replication message is sent to all the other nodes.

Eviction support is limited to maximum size of the map (defined by max-size configuration element) and TTL only. When maximum size is hit, 20% of the entries will be evicted automatically.

Configuring Query Cache and Other Settings

• To enable use of query cache:

  <property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache">true</property>
  

• To force minimal puts into query cache:

  <property name="hibernate.cache.use_minimal_puts">true</property>
  

• To avoid NullPointerException when you have entities that have composite keys (using @IdClass):

  <property name="hibernate.session_factory_name">yourFactoryName</property>
  

NOTE: QueryCache is always LOCAL to the node and never distributed across Hazelcast Cluster.

Configuring Hazelcast for Hibernate

To configure Hazelcast for Hibernate, put the configuration file named hazelcast.xml into the root of your classpath. If Hazelcast cannot find hazelcast.xml, then it will use the default configuration from hazelcast.jar.

You can define a custom-named Hazelcast configuration XML file with one of these Hibernate configuration properties.

<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_configuration_file_resource_path">
  hazelcast-custom-config.xml
</property>

<property name="hibernate.cache.hazelcast.configuration_file_path">
  hazelcast-custom-config.xml
</property>

Hazelcast creates a separate distributed map for each Hibernate cache region. You can easily configure these regions via Hazelcast map configuration. You can define backup, eviction, TTL and Near Cache properties.

• Backup Configuration

• Eviction And TTL Configuration

• Near Cache Configuration

Setting P2P (Peer-to-Peer) for Hibernate

Hibernate Second Level Cache can use Hazelcast in two modes: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and Client/Server (next section).

With P2P mode, each Hibernate deployment launches its own Hazelcast Instance. You can also configure Hibernate to use an existing instance, instead of creating a new HazelcastInstance for each SessionFactory. To do this, set the hibernate.cache.hazelcast.instance_name Hibernate property to the HazelcastInstance's name. For more information, please see Named Instance Scope.

Disabling shutdown during SessionFactory.close()

You can disable shutting down HazelcastInstance during SessionFactory.close(). To do this, set the Hibernate property hibernate.cache.hazelcast.shutdown_on_session_factory_close to false. (In this case, you should not set the Hazelcast property hazelcast.shutdownhook.enabled to false.) The default value is true.

Setting Client/Server for Hibernate

You can set up Hazelcast to connect to the cluster as Native Client. Native client is not a member; it connects to one of the cluster members and delegates all cluster wide operations to it. Client instance started in the Native Client mode uses Smart Routing: when the relied cluster member dies, the client transparently switches to another live member. All client operations are Retry-able, meaning that the client resends the request as many as 10 times in case of a failure. After the 10th retry, it throws an exception. You cannot change the routing mode and retry-able operation configurations of the Native Client instance used by Hibernate 2nd Level Cache. Please see the Smart Routing section and Retry-able Operation Failure section for more details.

<property name="hibernate.cache.hazelcast.use_native_client">true</property>

To set up Native Client, add the Hazelcast group-name, group-password and cluster member address properties. Native Client will connect to the defined member and will get the addresses of all members in the cluster. If the connected member dies or leaves the cluster, the client will automatically switch to another member in the cluster.

<property name="hibernate.cache.hazelcast.native_client_address">10.34.22.15</property>
<property name="hibernate.cache.hazelcast.native_client_group">dev</property>
<property name="hibernate.cache.hazelcast.native_client_password">dev-pass</property>

NOTE: To use Native Client, add hazelcast-client-<version>.jar into your classpath. Refer to Hazelcast Java Client chapter for more information.

NOTE: To use Native Client, add hazelcast-all-<version>.jar into your remote cluster's classpath.

Configuring Cache Concurrency Strategy

Hibernate has four cache concurrency strategies: read-only, read-write, nonstrict-read-write and transactional. Hibernate does not force cache providers to support all those strategies. Hazelcast supports the first three: read-only, read-write, and nonstrict-read-write. It does not yet support transactional strategy.

If you are using XML based class configurations, add a cache element into your configuration with the usage attribute set to one of the read-only, read-write, or nonstrict-read-write strategies.

<class name="eg.Immutable" mutable="false">
  <cache usage="read-only"/>
  .... 
</class>

<class name="eg.Cat" .... >
  <cache usage="read-write"/>
  ....
  <set name="kittens" ... >
    <cache usage="read-write"/>
    ....
  </set>
</class>

If you are using Hibernate-Annotations, then you can add a class-cache or collection-cache element into your Hibernate configuration file with the usage attribute set to read only, read/write, or nonstrict read/write.

<class-cache usage="read-only" class="eg.Immutable"/>
<class-cache usage="read-write" class="eg.Cat"/>
<collection-cache collection="eg.Cat.kittens" usage="read-write"/>

Or alternatively, you can put Hibernate Annotation's @Cache annotation on your entities and collections.

@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.READ_WRITE)
public class Cat implements Serializable {
  ...
}

Advanced Settings

Accessing underlying HazelcastInstance

If you need to access HazelcastInstance used by Hibernate SessionFactory, you can give a name to the HazelcastInstance while configuring Hazelcast. Then it is possible to retrieve the instance using getHazelcastInstanceByName static method of Hazelcast.

Please refer to the Configuration Overview section to learn how to create a named Hazelcast instance.

Changing/setting lock timeout value of read-write strategy

You can set a lock timeout value using the hibernate.cache.hazelcast.lock_timeout_in_seconds Hibernate property. The value should be in seconds. The default value is 300 seconds.

Web Session Replication

This section explains how you can cluster your web sessions using Servlet Filter, Tomcat and Jetty based solutions. Each web session clustering is explained in the following subsections.

Please note that Tomcat and Jetty based web session replications are Hazelcast Enterprise modules.

Filter based web session replication has the option to use a map with High-Density Memory Store to keep your session objects. Note that High-Density Memory Store is available in Hazelcast Enterprise HD. Please refer to the High-Density Memory Store section for details on this feature.

Filter based web session replication is an open source feature. But if you have Hazelcast Enterprise, you can use this replication with a map that has High-Density Memory Store.

Filter Based Web Session Replication

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Filter Based Web Session Replication.

Assume that you have more than one web server (A, B, C) with a load balancer in front of it. If server A goes down, your users on that server will be directed to one of the live servers (B or C), but their sessions will be lost.

We need to have all these sessions backed up somewhere if we do not want to lose the sessions upon server crashes. Hazelcast Web Manager (WM) allows you to cluster user HTTP sessions automatically.

Session Clustering Requirements

The following are required before enabling Hazelcast Session Clustering:

• Target application or web server should support Java 1.6 or higher.

• Target application or web server should support Servlet 3.0 or higher spec.

• Session objects that need to be clustered have to be Serializable.

• In the client/server architecture, session classes do not have to be present in the server classpath.

Setting Up Session Clustering

To set up Hazelcast Session Clustering:

• Put the hazelcast and hazelcast-wm jars in your WEB-INF/lib folder. Optionally, if you wish to connect to a cluster as a client, add hazelcast-client as well.

• Put the following XML into the web.xml file. Make sure Hazelcast filter is placed before all the other filters if any; for example, you can put it at the top.

<filter>
  <filter-name>hazelcast-filter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>com.hazelcast.web.WebFilter</filter-class>
  <!--
    Name of the distributed map storing
    your web session objects
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>map-name</param-name>
    <param-value>my-sessions</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    TTL value of the distributed map storing
    your web session objects.
    Any integer between 0 and Integer.MAX_VALUE.
    Default is 1800 which is 30 minutes.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>session-ttl-seconds</param-name>
    <param-value>10</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    How is your load-balancer configured?
    sticky-session means all requests of a session
    is routed to the node where the session is first created.
    This is excellent for performance.
    If sticky-session is set to false, when a session is updated
    on a node, entry for this session on all other nodes is invalidated.
    You have to know how your load-balancer is configured before
    setting this parameter. Default is true.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>sticky-session</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Name of session id cookie
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>cookie-name</param-name>
    <param-value>hazelcast.sessionId</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Domain of session id cookie. Default is based on incoming request.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>cookie-domain</param-name>
    <param-value>.mywebsite.com</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Should cookie only be sent using a secure protocol? Default is false.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>cookie-secure</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Should HttpOnly attribute be set on cookie ? Default is false.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>cookie-http-only</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Are you debugging? Default is false.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>debug</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Configuration xml location;
      * as servlet resource OR
      * as classpath resource OR
      * as URL
    Default is one of hazelcast-default.xml
    or hazelcast.xml in classpath.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>config-location</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/hazelcast.xml</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Do you want to use an existing HazelcastInstance?
    Default is null.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>instance-name</param-name>
    <param-value>default</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Do you want to connect as a client to an existing cluster?
    Default is false.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>use-client</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Client configuration location;
      * as servlet resource OR
      * as classpath resource OR
      * as URL
    Default is null.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>client-config-location</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/hazelcast-client.xml</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Do you want to shutdown HazelcastInstance during
    web application undeploy process?
    Default is true.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>shutdown-on-destroy</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <!--
    Do you want to cache sessions locally in each instance?
    Default is false.
  -->
  <init-param>
    <param-name>deferred-write</param-name>
    <param-value>false</param-value>
  </init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>hazelcast-filter</filter-name>
  <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
  <dispatcher>INCLUDE</dispatcher>
  <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

<listener>
  <listener-class>com.hazelcast.web.SessionListener</listener-class>
</listener>

• Package and deploy your war file as you would normally do.

It is that easy. All HTTP requests will go through Hazelcast WebFilter and it will put the session objects into the Hazelcast distributed map if needed.

Using High-Density Memory Store

Hazelcast Enterprise HD

As you see in the above declarative configuration snippet, you provide the name of your map which will store the web session objects:

<init-param>
   <param-name>map-name</param-name>
   <param-value>my-sessions</param-value>
</init-param>

If you have Hazelcast Enterprise HD, you can configure your map to use Hazelcast's High-Density Memory Store. By this way, the filter based web session replication will use a High-Density Memory Store backed map.

Please refer to the Using High-Density Memory Store with Map section to learn how you can configure a map to use this feature.

Supporting Spring Security

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Spring Security Support.

If Spring based security is used for your application, you should use com.hazelcast.web.spring.SpringAwareWebFilter instead of com.hazelcast.web.WebFilter in your filter definition.

...

<filter>
  <filter-name>hazelcast-filter</filter-name>
  <filter-class>com.hazelcast.web.spring.SpringAwareWebFilter</filter-class>
    ...
</filter> 

...

SpringAwareWebFilter notifies Spring by publishing events to Spring context. The org.springframework.security.core.session.SessionRegistry instance uses these events.

As before, you must also define com.hazelcast.web.SessionListener in your web.xml. However, you do not need to define org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher in your web.xml as before, since SpringAwareWebFilter already informs Spring about session based events like create or destroy.

Client Mode vs. P2P Mode

Hazelcast Session Replication works as P2P by default. To switch to Client/Server architecture, you need to set the use-client parameter to true. P2P mode is more flexible and requires no configuration in advance; in Client/Server architecture, clients need to connect to an existing Hazelcast Cluster. In case of connection problems, clients will try to reconnect to the cluster. The default retry count is 3. In the client/server architecture, if servers goes down, Hazelcast web manager will keep the updates in the local and after servers come back, the clients will update the distributed map.

Note that, in the client/server mode of session replication, session-ttl-seconds configuration does not have any effect. The reason is that the filter based session replication uses IMap and a Hazelcast client cannot change the configuration of a distributed map. Instead, you should configure the max-idle-seconds element in your hazelcast.xml on the server side.

 ...
   <map name="my-sessions">
         <!--
            How much seconds do you want your session attributes to be stored on server?
            Default is 0.
          -->
        <max-idle-seconds>20</max-idle-seconds>
   </map>
 ...

Also make sure that name of the distributed map is same as the map-name parameter defined in your web.xml configuration file.

Caching Locally with deferred-write

If the value for deferred-write is set as true, Hazelcast will cache the session locally and will update the local session when an attribute is set or deleted. At the end of the request, it will update the distributed map with all the updates. It will not update the distributed map upon each attribute update, but will only call it once at the end of the request. It will also cache it, i.e. whenever there is a read for the attribute, it will read it from the cache.

Updating an attribute when deferred-write=false:

If deferred-write is false, any update (i.e. setAttribute) on the session will directly be available in the cluster. One exception to this behavior is the changes to the session attribute objects. To update an attribute cluster-wide, setAttribute must be called after changes are made to the attribute object.

The following example explains how to update an attribute in the case of deferred-write=false setting:

session.setAttribute("myKey", new ArrayList());
List list1 = session.getAttribute("myKey");
list1.add("myValue"); 
session.setAttribute("myKey", list1); // changes updated in the cluster

SessionId Generation

SessionId generation is done by the Hazelcast Web Session Module if session replication is configured in the web application. The default cookie name for the sessionId is hazelcast.sessionId. This name is configurable with a cookie-name parameter in the web.xml file of the application. hazelcast.sessionId is just a UUID prefixed with “HZ” characters and without a “-“ character, e.g. HZ6F2D036789E4404893E99C05D8CA70C7.

When called by the target application, the value of HttpSession.getId() is the same as the value of hazelcast.sessionId.

Defining Session Expiry

Hazelcast automatically removes sessions from the cluster if the sessions are expired on the Web Container. This removal is done by com.hazelcast.web.SessionListener, which is an implementation of javax.servlet.http.HttpSessionListener.

Default session expiration configuration depends on the Servlet Container that is being used. You can also define it in your web.xml.

    <session-config>
        <session-timeout>60</session-timeout>
    </session-config>

Using Sticky Sessions

Hazelcast holds whole session attributes in a distributed map and in a local HTTP session. Local session is required for fast access to data and distributed map is needed for fail-safety.

• If sticky-session is not used, whenever a session attribute is updated in a node (in both node local session and clustered cache), that attribute should be invalidated in all other nodes' local sessions, because now they have dirty values. Therefore, when a request arrives at one of those other nodes, that attribute value is fetched from clustered cache.

• To overcome the performance penalty of sending invalidation messages during updates, you can use sticky sessions. If Hazelcast knows sessions are sticky, invalidation will not be sent because Hazelcast assumes there is no other local session at the moment. When a server is down, requests belonging to a session hold in that server will routed to other server, and that server will fetch session data from clustered cache. That means that when using sticky sessions, you will not suffer the performance penalty of accessing clustered data and can benefit recover from a server failure.

Marking Transient Attributes

If you have some attributes that you do not want to be distributed, you can mark those attributes as transient. Transient attributes are kept in and when the server is shutdown, you lose the attribute values. You can set the transient attributes in your web.xml file. Here is an example:

...
   <init-param>
            <param-name>transient-attributes</param-name>
            <param-value>key1,key2,key3</param-value>
   </init-param>
...

Tomcat Based Web Session Replication

Hazelcast Enterprise

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Tomcat Based Web Session Replication.

Hazelcast Tomcat Features and Requirements

Session Replication with Hazelcast Enterprise is a container specific module that enables session replication for JEE Web Applications without requiring changes to the application.

Features

• Seamless Tomcat 6, 7 & 8 integration. (Tomcat 8 is supported for Hazelcast Enterprise 3.5 or higher.)
• Support for sticky and non-sticky sessions.
• Tomcat failover.
• Deferred write for performance boost.
  
  

Supported Containers

Tomcat Web Session Replication Module has been tested against the following containers.

• Tomcat 6.0.x - It can be downloaded here.
• Tomcat 7.0.x - It can be downloaded here.
• Tomcat 8.0.x - It can be downloaded here.

The latest tested versions are 6.0.39, 7.0.40 and 8.0.20.

Requirements

• Tomcat instance must be running with Java 1.6 or higher.
• Session objects that need to be clustered have to be Serializable.

How Tomcat Session Replication Works

Tomcat Session Replication in Hazelcast Enterprise is a Hazelcast Module where each created HttpSession Object is kept in the Hazelcast Distributed Map. If configured with Sticky Sessions, each Tomcat Instance has its own local copy of the session for performance boost.

Since the sessions are in Hazelcast Distributed Map, you can use all the available features offered by Hazelcast Distributed Map implementation, such as MapStore and WAN Replication.

Tomcat Web Sessions run in two different modes:

• P2P: all Tomcat instances launch its own Hazelcast Instance and join to the Hazelcast Cluster and,
• Client/Server: all Tomcat instances put/retrieve the session data to/from an existing Hazelcast Cluster.

Deploying P2P (Peer-to-Peer) for Tomcat

P2P deployment launches an embedded Hazelcast Node in each server instance.

This type of deployment is simple: just configure your Tomcat and launch. There is no need for an external Hazelcast cluster.

The following steps configure a sample P2P for Hazelcast Session Replication.

1. Go to hazelcast.com and download the latest Hazelcast Enterprise.
2. Unzip the Hazelcast Enterprise zip file into the folder $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT.
3. Update $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/hazelcast.xml with the provided Hazelcast Enterprise License Key.

4. Put $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-all-<version>.jar, $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-<tomcatversion>-<version>.jar and hazelcast.xml in the folder $CATALINA_HOME/lib/.

5. Put a <Listener> element into the file $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/server.xml as shown below.

        <Server>
            ...
            <Listener className="com.hazelcast.session.P2PLifecycleListener"/>
            ...
        </Server>
   

6. Put a <Manager> element into the file $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/context.xml as shown below.

        <Context>
            ...
            <Manager className="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager"/>
            ...
        </Context>
   

7. Start Tomcat instances with a configured load balancer and deploy the web application.

Optional Attributes for Listener Element

Optionally, you can add a configLocation attribute into the <Listener> element. If not provided, hazelcast.xml in the classpath is used by default. URL or full filesystem path as a configLocation value is supported.

Deploying Client/Server for Tomcat

In this deployment type, Tomcat instances work as clients on an existing Hazelcast Cluster.

Features

• The existing Hazelcast cluster is used as the Session Replication Cluster.
• Offloading Session Cache from Tomcat to the Hazelcast Cluster.
• The architecture is completely independent. Complete reboot of Tomcat instances.
  
  

The following steps configure a sample Client/Server for Hazelcast Session Replication.

1. Go to hazelcast.com and download the latest Hazelcast Enterprise.
2. Unzip the Hazelcast Enterprise zip file into the folder $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT.

3. Put $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-client-<version>.jar, $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-<version>.jar and $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-<tomcatversion>-<version>.jar in the folder $CATALINA_HOME/lib/.

4. Put a <Listener> element into the $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/server.xml as shown below.

        <Server>
            ...
            <Listener className="com.hazelcast.session.ClientServerLifecycleListener"/>
            ...
        </Server>
   

5. Update the <Manager> element in the $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/context.xml as shown below.

        <Context>
             <Manager className="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager"
              clientOnly="true"/>
        </Context>
   

6. Launch a Hazelcast Instance using $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/server.sh or $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/server.bat.

7. Start Tomcat instances with a configured load balancer and deploy the web application.

Optional Attributes for Listener Element

Optionally, you can add configLocation attribute into the <Listener> element. If not provided, hazelcast-client-default.xml in hazelcast-client-<version>.jar file is used by default. Any client XML file in the classpath, URL or full filesystem path as a configLocation value is also supported.

Configuring Manager Element for Tomcat

<Manager> element is used both in P2P and Client/Server mode. You can use the following attributes to configure Tomcat Session Replication Module to better serve your needs.

• Add mapName attribute into <Manager> element. Its default value is default Hazelcast Distributed Map. Use this attribute if you have a specially configured map for special cases like WAN Replication, Eviction, MapStore, etc.
• Add sticky attribute into <Manager> element. Its default value is true.
• Add processExpiresFrequency attribute into <Manager> element. It specifies the frequency of session validity check, in seconds. Its default value is 6 and the minimum value that you can set is 1.
• Add deferredWrite attribute into <Manager> element. Its default value is true.

Controlling Session Caching with deferredWrite

Tomcat Web Session Replication Module has its own nature of caching. Attribute changes during the HTTP Request/HTTP Response cycle is cached by default. Distributing those changes to the Hazelcast Cluster is costly. Because of that, Session Replication is only done at the end of each request for updated and deleted attributes. The risk in this approach is losing data if a Tomcat crash happens in the middle of the HTTP Request operation.

You can change that behavior by setting deferredWrite=false in your <Manager> element. By disabling it, all updates that are done on session objects are directly distributed into Hazelcast Cluster.

Setting Session Expiration Checks

Based on Tomcat configuration or sessionTimeout setting in web.xml, sessions are expired over time. This requires a cleanup on the Hazelcast Cluster since there is no need to keep expired sessions in the cluster.

processExpiresFrequency, which is defined in <Manager>, is the only setting that controls the behavior of session expiry policy in the Tomcat Web Session Replication Module. By setting this, you can set the frequency of the session expiration checks in the Tomcat Instance.

Enabling Session Replication in Multi-App Environment

Tomcat can be configured in two ways to enable Session Replication for deployed applications.

• Server Context.xml Configuration
• Application Context.xml Configuration

Server Context.xml Configuration

By configuring $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/context.xml, you can enable session replication for all applications deployed in the Tomcat Instance.

Application Context.xml Configuration

By configuring $CATALINA_HOME/conf/[enginename]/[hostname]/[applicationName].xml, you can enable Session Replication per deployed application.

Sticky Sessions and Tomcat

Sticky Sessions (default)

Sticky Sessions are used to improve the performance since the sessions do not move around the cluster.

Requests always go to the same instance where the session was firstly created. By using a sticky session, you mostly eliminate session replication problems, except for the failover cases. In case of failovers, Hazelcast helps you to not lose existing sessions.

Non-Sticky Sessions

Non-Sticky Sessions are not good for performance because you need to move session data all over the cluster every time a new request comes in.

However, load balancing might be super easy with Non-Sticky caches. In case of heavy load, you can distribute the request to the least used Tomcat instance. Hazelcast supports Non-Sticky Sessions as well.

Tomcat Failover and the jvmRoute Parameter

Each HTTP Request is redirected to the same Tomcat instance if sticky sessions are enabled. The parameter jvmRoute is added to the end of session ID as a suffix, to make Load Balancer aware of the target Tomcat instance.

When Tomcat Failure happens and Load Balancer cannot redirect the request to the owning instance, it sends a request to one of the available Tomcat instances. Since the jvmRoute parameter of session ID is different than that of the target Tomcat instance, Hazelcast Session Replication Module updates the session ID of the session with the new jvmRoute parameter. That means that the Session is moved to another Tomcat instance and Load Balancer will redirect all subsequent HTTP Requests to the new Tomcat Instance.

NOTE: If stickySession is enabled, jvmRoute parameter must be set in $CATALINA_HOME$/conf/server.xml and unique among Tomcat instances in the cluster.

 <Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="tomcat-8080">

Jetty Based Web Session Replication

Hazelcast Enterprise

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Jetty Based Web Session Replication.

Hazelcast Jetty Features and Requirements

Jetty Web Session Replication with Hazelcast Enterprise is a container specific module that enables session replication for JEE Web Applications without requiring changes to the application.

Features

• Jetty 7 & 8 & 9 support
• Support for sticky and non-sticky sessions
• Jetty failover
• Deferred write for performance boost
• Client/Server and P2P modes
• Declarative and programmatic configuration

Supported Containers

Jetty Web Session Replication Module has been tested against the following containers.

• Jetty 7 - It can be downloaded here.
• Jetty 8 - It can be downloaded here.
• Jetty 9 - It can be downloaded here.

Latest tested versions are 7.6.16.v20140903, 8.1.16.v20140903 and 9.2.3.v20140905

Requirements

• Jetty instance must be running with Java 1.6 or higher.
• Session objects that need to be clustered have to be Serializable.
• Hazelcast Jetty-based Web Session Replication is built on top of the jetty-nosql module. This module (jetty-nosql-<*jettyversion*>.jar) needs to be added to $JETTY_HOME/lib/ext. This module can be found here.

How Jetty Session Replication Works

Jetty Session Replication in Hazelcast Enterprise is a Hazelcast Module where each created HttpSession Object's state is kept in Hazelcast Distributed Map.

Since the session data are in Hazelcast Distributed Map, you can use all the available features offered by Hazelcast Distributed Map implementation, such as MapStore and WAN Replication.

Jetty Web Session Replication runs in two different modes:

• P2P: all Jetty instances launch its own Hazelcast Instance and join to the Hazelcast Cluster and,
• Client/Server: all Jetty instances put/retrieve the session data to/from an existing Hazelcast Cluster.

Deploying P2P (Peer-to-Peer) for Jetty

P2P deployment launches embedded Hazelcast Node in each server instance.

This type of deployment is simple: just configure your Jetty and launch. There is no need for an external Hazelcast cluster.

The following steps configure a sample P2P for Hazelcast Session Replication.

1. Go to hazelcast.com and download the latest Hazelcast Enterprise.
2. Unzip the Hazelcast Enterprise zip file into the folder $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT.
3. Update $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/hazelcast.xml with the provided Hazelcast Enterprise License Key.
4. Put hazelcast.xml in the folder $JETTY_HOME/etc.
5. Put $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-all-<version>.jar, $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-<jettyversion>-<version>.jar in the folder $JETTY_HOME/lib/ext.

6. Configure the Session ID Manager. You need to configure a com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionIdManager instance in jetty.xml. Add the following lines to your jetty.xml.

        <Set name="sessionIdManager">
            <New id="hazelcastIdMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionIdManager">
                <Arg><Ref id="Server"/></Arg>
                <Set name="configLocation">etc/hazelcast.xml</Set>
            </New>
        </Set>
   

7. Configure the Session Manager. You can configure HazelcastSessionManager from a context.xml file. Each application has a context file in the $CATALINA_HOME$/contexts folder. You need to create this context file if it does not exist. The context filename must be the same as the application name, e.g. example.war should have a context file named example.xml. The file context.xml should have the following content.

        <Ref name="Server" id="Server">
            <Call id="hazelcastIdMgr" name="getSessionIdManager"/>
        </Ref>
        <Set name="sessionHandler">
            <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler">
                <Arg>
                    <New id="hazelcastMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager">
                        <Set name="idManager">
                            <Ref id="hazelcastIdMgr"/>
                        </Set>
                    </New>
                </Arg>
            </New>
        </Set>
   

8. Start Jetty instances with a configured load balancer and deploy the web application.

NOTE: In Jetty 9, there is no folder with the name contexts. You have to put the file context.xml under the webapps directory. And you need to add the following lines to context.xml.:

        <Ref name="Server" id="Server">
            <Call id="hazelcastIdMgr" name="getSessionIdManager"/>
        </Ref>
        <Set name="sessionHandler">
            <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler">
                <Arg>
                    <New id="hazelcastMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager">
                        <Set name="sessionIdManager">
                            <Ref id="hazelcastIdMgr"/>
                        </Set>
                    </New>
                </Arg>
            </New>
        </Set>

Deploying Client/Server for Jetty

In client/server deployment type, Jetty instances work as clients to an existing Hazelcast Cluster.

• Existing Hazelcast cluster is used as the Session Replication Cluster.
• The architecture is completely independent. Complete reboot of Jetty instances without losing data.
  
  

The following steps configure a sample Client/Server for Hazelcast Session Replication.

1. Go to hazelcast.com and download the latest Hazelcast Enterprise.
2. Unzip the Hazelcast Enterprise zip file into the folder $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT.
3. Update $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/hazelcast.xml with the provided Hazelcast Enterprise License Key.
4. Put hazelcast.xml in the folder $JETTY_HOME/etc.
5. Put $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-all-<version>.jar, $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/lib/hazelcast-enterprise-<jettyversion>-<version>.jar in the folder $JETTY_HOME/lib/ext.

6. Configure the Session ID Manager. You need to configure a com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionIdManager instance in jetty.xml. Add the following lines to your jetty.xml.

        <Set name="sessionIdManager">
            <New id="hazelcastIdMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionIdManager">
                <Arg><Ref id="Server"/></Arg>
                <Set name="configLocation">etc/hazelcast.xml</Set>
                <Set name="clientOnly">true</Set>
            </New>
        </Set>
   

7. Configure the Session Manager. You can configure HazelcastSessionManager from a context.xml file. Each application has a context file under the $CATALINA_HOME$/contexts folder. You need to create this context file if it does not exist. The context filename must be the same as the application name, e.g. example.war should have a context file named example.xml.

            <Ref name="Server" id="Server">
                <Call id="hazelcastIdMgr" name="getSessionIdManager"/>
            </Ref>    
            <Set name="sessionHandler">
                <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler">
                    <Arg>
                        <New id="hazelMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager">
                            <Set name="idManager">
                                <Ref id="hazelcastIdMgr"/>
                            </Set>
                        </New>
                    </Arg>
                </New>
            </Set>
   

NOTE: In Jetty 9, there is no folder with name contexts. You have to put the file context.xml file under webapps directory. And you need to add below lines to context.xml.

            <Ref name="Server" id="Server">
                <Call id="hazelcastIdMgr" name="getSessionIdManager"/>
            </Ref>    
            <Set name="sessionHandler">
                <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler">
                    <Arg>
                        <New id="hazelMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionManager">
                            <Set name="sessionIdManager">
                                <Ref id="hazelcastIdMgr"/>
                            </Set>
                        </New>
                    </Arg>
                </New>
            </Set>

1. Launch a Hazelcast Instance using $HAZELCAST_ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/server.sh or $HAZELCAST_ ENTERPRISE_ROOT/bin/server.bat.

2. Start Tomcat instances with a configured load balancer and deploy the web application.

Configuring HazelcastSessionIdManager for Jetty

HazelcastSessionIdManager is used both in P2P and Client/Server mode. Use the following parameters to configure the Jetty Session Replication Module to better serve your needs.

• workerName: Set this attribute to a unique value for each Jetty instance to enable session affinity with a sticky-session configured load balancer.
• cleanUpPeriod: Defines the working period of session clean-up task in milliseconds.
• configLocation: specifies the location of hazelcast.xml.

Configuring HazelcastSessionManager for Jetty

HazelcastSessionManager is used both in P2P and Client/Server mode. Use the following parameters to configure Jetty Session Replication Module to better serve your needs.

• savePeriod: Sets the interval of saving session data to the Hazelcast cluster. Jetty Web Session Replication Module has its own nature of caching. Attribute changes during the HTTP Request/HTTP Response cycle are cached by default. Distributing those changes to the Hazelcast Cluster is costly, so Session Replication is only done at the end of each request for updated and deleted attributes. The risk with this approach is losing data if a Jetty crash happens in the middle of the HTTP Request operation. You can change that behavior by setting the savePeriod attribute.

Notes:

• If savePeriod is set to -2, HazelcastSessionManager.save method is called for every doPutOrRemove operation.
• If it is set to -1, the same method is never called if Jetty is not shut down.
• If it is set to 0 (the default value), the same method is called at the end of request.
• If it is set to 1, the same method is called at the end of request if session is dirty.

Setting Session Expiration

Based on Tomcat configuration or sessionTimeout setting in web.xml, the sessions are expired over time. This requires a cleanup on Hazelcast Cluster, since there is no need to keep expired sessions in it.

cleanUpPeriod, which is defined in HazelcastSessionIdManager, is the only setting that controls the behavior of session expiry policy in Jetty Web Session Replication Module. By setting this, you can set the frequency of the session expiration checks in the Jetty Instance.

Sticky Sessions and Jetty

HazelcastSessionIdManager can work in sticky and non-sticky setups.

The clustered session mechanism works in conjunction with a load balancer that supports stickiness. Stickiness can be based on various data items, such as source IP address, or characteristics of the session ID, or a load-balancer specific mechanism. For those load balancers that examine the session ID, HazelcastSessionIdManager appends a node ID to the session ID, which can be used for routing. You must configure the HazelcastSessionIdManager with a workerName that is unique across the cluster. Typically the name relates to the physical node on which the instance is executed. If this name is not unique, your load balancer might fail to distribute your sessions correctly. If sticky sessions are enabled, the workerName parameter has to be set, as shown below.

<Set name="sessionIdManager">
    <New id="hazelcastIdMgr" class="com.hazelcast.session.HazelcastSessionIdManager">
        <Arg><Ref id="Server"/></Arg>
        <Set name="configLocation">etc/hazelcast.xml</Set>
        <Set name="workerName">unique-worker-1</Set>
    </New>
</Set>

Spring Integration

You can integrate Hazelcast with Spring and this chapter explains the configuration of Hazelcast within Spring context.

Supported Versions

• Spring 2.5+

Configuring Spring

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Spring Configuration.

Declaring Beans by Spring beans Namespace

Classpath Configuration

This configuration requires the following jar file in the classpath:

• hazelcast-<version>.jar

Bean Declaration

You can declare Hazelcast Objects using the default Spring beans namespace. Example code for a Hazelcast Instance declaration is listed below.

<bean id="instance" class="com.hazelcast.core.Hazelcast" factory-method="newHazelcastInstance">
  <constructor-arg>
    <bean class="com.hazelcast.config.Config">
      <property name="groupConfig">
        <bean class="com.hazelcast.config.GroupConfig">
          <property name="name" value="dev"/>
          <property name="password" value="pwd"/>
        </bean>
      </property>
      <!-- and so on ... -->
    </bean>
  </constructor-arg>
</bean>

<bean id="map" factory-bean="instance" factory-method="getMap">
  <constructor-arg value="map"/>
</bean>

Declaring Beans by hazelcast Namespace

Configuring Classpath

Hazelcast-Spring integration requires the following JAR files in the classpath:

• hazelcast-spring-<version>.jar
• hazelcast-<version>.jar

or

• hazelcast-all-<version>.jar

Declaring Beans

Hazelcast has its own namespace hazelcast for bean definitions. You can easily add the namespace declaration xmlns:hz="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring" to the beans element in the context file so that hz namespace shortcut can be used as a bean declaration.

Here is an example schema definition for Hazelcast 3.3.x:

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:hz="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
                http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
                http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring
                http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring/hazelcast-spring.xsd">

Supported Configurations with hazelcast Namespace

• Configuring Hazelcast Instance

<hz:hazelcast id="instance">
  <hz:config>
    <hz:group name="dev" password="password"/>
    <hz:network port="5701" port-auto-increment="false">
      <hz:join>
        <hz:multicast enabled="false"
                      multicast-group="224.2.2.3"
                      multicast-port="54327"/>
        <hz:tcp-ip enabled="true">
          <hz:members>10.10.1.2, 10.10.1.3</hz:members>
        </hz:tcp-ip>
      </hz:join>
    </hz:network>
    <hz:map name="map"
            backup-count="2"
            max-size="0"
            eviction-percentage="30"
            read-backup-data="true"
            eviction-policy="NONE"
            merge-policy="com.hazelcast.map.merge.PassThroughMergePolicy"/>
  </hz:config>
</hz:hazelcast>

• Configuring Hazelcast Client

<hz:client id="client">
  <hz:group name="${cluster.group.name}" password="${cluster.group.password}" />
  <hz:network connection-attempt-limit="3"
              connection-attempt-period="3000"
              connection-timeout="1000"
              redo-operation="true"
              smart-routing="true">
    <hz:member>10.10.1.2:5701</hz:member>
    <hz:member>10.10.1.3:5701</hz:member>
  </hz:network>
</hz:client>

• Hazelcast Supported Type Configurations and Examples

  • map
  • multiMap
  • replicatedmap
  • queue
  • topic
  • set
  • list
  • executorService
  • idGenerator
  • atomicLong
  • atomicReference
  • semaphore
  • countDownLatch
  • lock

<hz:map id="map" instance-ref="client" name="map" lazy-init="true" />
<hz:multiMap id="multiMap" instance-ref="instance" name="multiMap"
    lazy-init="false" />
<hz:replicatedmap id="replicatedmap" instance-ref="instance" 
    name="replicatedmap" lazy-init="false" />
<hz:queue id="queue" instance-ref="client" name="queue" 
    lazy-init="true" depends-on="instance"/>
<hz:topic id="topic" instance-ref="instance" name="topic" 
    depends-on="instance, client"/>
<hz:set id="set" instance-ref="instance" name="set" />
<hz:list id="list" instance-ref="instance" name="list"/>
<hz:executorService id="executorService" instance-ref="client" 
    name="executorService"/>
<hz:idGenerator id="idGenerator" instance-ref="instance" 
    name="idGenerator"/>
<hz:atomicLong id="atomicLong" instance-ref="instance" name="atomicLong"/>
<hz:atomicReference id="atomicReference" instance-ref="instance" 
    name="atomicReference"/>
<hz:semaphore id="semaphore" instance-ref="instance" name="semaphore"/>
<hz:countDownLatch id="countDownLatch" instance-ref="instance" 
    name="countDownLatch"/>
<hz:lock id="lock" instance-ref="instance" name="lock"/>

• Supported Spring Bean Attributes

Hazelcast also supports lazy-init, scope and depends-on bean attributes.

<hz:hazelcast id="instance" lazy-init="true" scope="singleton">
  ...
</hz:hazelcast>
<hz:client id="client" scope="prototype" depends-on="instance">
  ...
</hz:client>

• Configuring MapStore and NearCache

For map-store, you should set either the class-name or the implementation attribute.

<hz:config>
  <hz:map name="map1">
    <hz:near-cache time-to-live-seconds="0" max-idle-seconds="60"
        eviction-policy="LRU" max-size="5000"  invalidate-on-change="true"/>

    <hz:map-store enabled="true" class-name="com.foo.DummyStore"
        write-delay-seconds="0"/>
  </hz:map>

  <hz:map name="map2">
    <hz:map-store enabled="true" implementation="dummyMapStore"
        write-delay-seconds="0"/>
  </hz:map>

  <bean id="dummyMapStore" class="com.foo.DummyStore" />
</hz:config>

Enabling SpringAware Objects

You can mark Hazelcast Distributed Objects with @SpringAware if the object wants:

• to apply bean properties,
• to apply factory callbacks such as ApplicationContextAware, BeanNameAware,
• to apply bean post-processing annotations such as InitializingBean, @PostConstruct.

Hazelcast Distributed ExecutorService, or more generally any Hazelcast managed object, can benefit from these features. To enable SpringAware objects, you must first configure HazelcastInstance using hazelcast namespace as explained in Configuring Spring and add <hz:spring-aware /> tag.

SpringAware Examples

• Configure a Hazelcast Instance (3.3.x) via Spring Configuration and define someBean as Spring Bean.
• Add <hz:spring-aware /> to Hazelcast configuration to enable @SpringAware.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
       xmlns:hz="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
                http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
                http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
                http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd
                http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring
                http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/spring/hazelcast-spring.xsd">

  <context:annotation-config />

  <hz:hazelcast id="instance">
    <hz:config>
      <hz:spring-aware />
      <hz:group name="dev" password="password"/>
      <hz:network port="5701" port-auto-increment="false">
        <hz:join>
          <hz:multicast enabled="false" />
          <hz:tcp-ip enabled="true">
            <hz:members>10.10.1.2, 10.10.1.3</hz:members>
          </hz:tcp-ip>
        </hz:join>
      </hz:network>
      ...
    </hz:config>
  </hz:hazelcast>

  <bean id="someBean" class="com.hazelcast.examples.spring.SomeBean"
      scope="singleton" />
  ...
</beans>

Distributed Map SpringAware Example:

• Create a class called SomeValue which contains Spring Bean definitions like ApplicationContext and SomeBean.

@SpringAware
@Component("someValue")
@Scope("prototype")
public class SomeValue implements Serializable, ApplicationContextAware {

  private transient ApplicationContext context;

  private transient SomeBean someBean;

  private transient boolean init = false;

  public void setApplicationContext( ApplicationContext applicationContext )
    throws BeansException {
    context = applicationContext;
  }

  @Autowired
  public void setSomeBean( SomeBean someBean)  {
    this.someBean = someBean;
  }

  @PostConstruct
  public void init() {
    someBean.doSomethingUseful();
    init = true;
  }
  ...
}

• Get SomeValue Object from Context and put it into Hazelcast Distributed Map on Node-1.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = 
    (HazelcastInstance) context.getBean( "hazelcast" );
SomeValue value = (SomeValue) context.getBean( "someValue" )
IMap<String, SomeValue> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "values" );
map.put( "key", value );

• Read SomeValue Object from Hazelcast Distributed Map and assert that init method is called since it is annotated with @PostConstruct.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = 
    (HazelcastInstance) context.getBean( "hazelcast" );
IMap<String, SomeValue> map = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "values" );
SomeValue value = map.get( "key" );
Assert.assertTrue( value.init );

ExecutorService SpringAware Example:

• Create a Callable Class called SomeTask which contains Spring Bean definitions like ApplicationContext, SomeBean.

@SpringAware
public class SomeTask
    implements Callable<Long>, ApplicationContextAware, Serializable {

  private transient ApplicationContext context;

  private transient SomeBean someBean;

  public Long call() throws Exception {
    return someBean.value;
  }

  public void setApplicationContext( ApplicationContext applicationContext )
      throws BeansException {
    context = applicationContext;
  }

  @Autowired
  public void setSomeBean( SomeBean someBean ) {
    this.someBean = someBean;
  }
}

• Submit SomeTask to two Hazelcast Members and assert that someBean is autowired.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance =
    (HazelcastInstance) context.getBean( "hazelcast" );
SomeBean bean = (SomeBean) context.getBean( "someBean" );

Future<Long> f = hazelcastInstance.getExecutorService().submit(new SomeTask());
Assert.assertEquals(bean.value, f.get().longValue());

// choose a member
Member member = hazelcastInstance.getCluster().getMembers().iterator().next();

Future<Long> f2 = (Future<Long>) hazelcast.getExecutorService()
    .submitToMember(new SomeTask(), member);
Assert.assertEquals(bean.value, f2.get().longValue());

NOTE: Spring managed properties/fields are marked as transient.

Adding Caching to Spring

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Spring Cache.

As of version 3.1, Spring Framework provides support for adding caching into an existing Spring application. Spring 3.2 and later versions support JCache compliant caching providers. You can also use JCache caching backed by Hazelcast if your Spring version supports JCache.

Declarative Spring Cache Configuration

<cache:annotation-driven cache-manager="cacheManager" />

<hz:hazelcast id="hazelcast">
  ...
</hz:hazelcast>

<bean id="cacheManager" class="com.hazelcast.spring.cache.HazelcastCacheManager">
  <constructor-arg ref="instance"/>
</bean>

Hazelcast uses its Map implementation for underlying cache. You can configure a map with your cache's name if you want to set additional configuration such as ttl.

<cache:annotation-driven cache-manager="cacheManager" />

<hz:hazelcast id="hazelcast">
  <hz:config>
    ...

    <hz:map name="city" time-to-live-seconds="0" in-memory-format="BINARY" />
</hz:hazelcast>

<bean id="cacheManager" class="com.hazelcast.spring.cache.HazelcastCacheManager">
  <constructor-arg ref="instance"/>
</bean>

public interface IDummyBean {
  @Cacheable("city")
  String getCity();
}

Declarative Hazelcast JCache Based Caching Configuration

<cache:annotation-driven cache-manager="cacheManager" />

<hz:hazelcast id="hazelcast">
  ...
</hz:hazelcast>

<hz:cache-manager id="hazelcastJCacheCacheManager" instance-ref="instance" name="hazelcastJCacheCacheManager"/>

<bean id="cacheManager" class="org.springframework.cache.jcache.JCacheCacheManager">
    <constructor-arg ref="hazelcastJCacheCacheManager" />
</bean>

You can use JCache implementation in both member and client mode. A cache manager should be bound to an instance. Instance can be referenced by instance-ref attribute or provided by hazelcast.instance.name property which is passed to CacheManager. Instance should be specified using one of these methods.

NOTE: Instance name provided in properties overrides instance-ref attribute.

You can specify a uri for each cache manager with uri attribute.

<hz:cache-manager id="cacheManager2" name="cacheManager2" uri="testURI">
    <hz:properties>
        <hz:property name="hazelcast.instance.name">named-spring-hz-instance</hz:property>
        <hz:property name="testProperty">testValue</hz:property>
    </hz:properties>
</hz:cache-manager>

Annotation-Based Spring Cache Configuration

Annotation-Based Configuration does not require any XML definition. To perform Annotation-Based Configuration:

• Implement a CachingConfiguration class with related Annotations.

@Configuration
@EnableCaching
public class CachingConfiguration implements CachingConfigurer{
    @Bean
    public CacheManager cacheManager() {
        ClientConfig config = new ClientConfig();
        HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient(config);
        return new HazelcastCacheManager(client);
    }
    @Bean
    public KeyGenerator keyGenerator() {
        return null;
    }

• Launch Application Context and register CachingConfiguration.

AnnotationConfigApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext();
context.register(CachingConfiguration.class);
context.refresh();

For more information about Spring Cache, please see Spring Cache Abstraction.

Configuring Hibernate Second Level Cache

Sample Code: Please see our sample application for Hibernate 2nd Level Cache Config.

If you are using Hibernate with Hazelcast as a second level cache provider, you can easily create RegionFactory instances within Spring configuration (by Spring version 3.1). That way, you can use the same HazelcastInstance as Hibernate L2 cache instance.

<hz:hibernate-region-factory id="regionFactory" instance-ref="instance"
    mode="LOCAL" />
...
<bean id="sessionFactory" 
      class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean" 
      scope="singleton">
  <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
  <property name="cacheRegionFactory" ref="regionFactory" />
  ...
</bean>

Hibernate RegionFactory Modes

• LOCAL
• DISTRIBUTED

Please refer to Hibernate Configuring RegionFactory for more information.

Best Practices

Spring tries to create a new Map/Collection instance and fill the new instance by iterating and converting values of the original Map/Collection (IMap, IQueue, etc.) to required types when generic type parameters of the original Map/Collection and the target property/attribute do not match.

Since Hazelcast Maps/Collections are designed to hold very large data which a single machine cannot carry, iterating through whole values can cause out of memory errors.

To avoid this issue, the target property/attribute can be declared as un-typed Map/Collection as shown below.

public class SomeBean {
  @Autowired
  IMap map; // instead of IMap<K, V> map

  @Autowired
  IQueue queue; // instead of IQueue<E> queue

  ...
}

Or, parameters of injection methods (constructor, setter) can be un-typed as shown below.

public class SomeBean {

  IMap<K, V> map;

  IQueue<E> queue;

  // Instead of IMap<K, V> map
  public SomeBean(IMap map) {
    this.map = map;
  }

  ...

  // Instead of IQueue<E> queue
  public void setQueue(IQueue queue) {
    this.queue = queue;
  }
  ...
}

RELATED INFORMATION

For more information please see Spring issue-3407.

Storage

This chapter describes Hazelcast's High-Density Memory Store and Hot Restart Persistence features along with their configurations, and gives recommendations on the storage sizing.

High-Density Memory Store

Hazelcast Enterprise HD

Hazelcast High-Density Memory Store is Hazelcast's enterprise grade backend storage solution. By default, Hazelcast offers a production ready, low garbage collection (GC) pressure, storage backend. Serialized keys and values are still stored in the standard Java map, such as data structures on the heap. The data structures are stored in serialized form for the highest data compaction, and are still subject to Java Garbage Collection.

In Hazelcast Enterprise HD, the High-Density Memory Store is built around a pluggable memory manager which enables multiple memory stores. These memory stores are all accessible using a common access layer that scales up to Terabytes of main memory on a single JVM. At the same time, by further minimizing the GC pressure, High-Density Memory Store enables predictable application scaling and boosts performance and latency while minimizing pauses for Java Garbage Collection.

This foundation includes, but is not limited to, storing keys and values next to the heap in a native memory region.

High-Density Memory Store is currently provided for the following Hazelcast features and implementations:

• Map and near cache
• JCache Implementation
• Hot Restart Persistence
• Java Client, when using the near cache for client
• Web Session Replications
• Hibernate 2nd Level Caching

Configuring High-Density Memory Store

To use the High-Density memory storage, the native memory usage must be enabled using the programmatic or declarative configuration. Also, you can configure its size, memory allocator type, minimum block size, page size and metadata space percentage.

• size: Size of the total native memory to allocate. Default value is 512 MB.

• allocator type: Type of the memory allocator. Available values are:

  • STANDARD: allocate/free memory using default OS memory manager.
  • POOLED: manage memory blocks in thread local pools.

  Default value is POOLED.

• minimum block size: Minimum size of the blocks in bytes to split and fragment a page block to assign to an allocation request. It is used only by the POOLED memory allocator. Default value is 16.
• page size: Size of the page in bytes to allocate memory as a block. It is used only by the POOLED memory allocator. Default value is 1 << 22 = 4194304 Bytes, about 4 MB.
• metadata space percentage: Defines the percentage of the allocated native memory that is used for the metadata such as indexes, offsets, etc. It is used only by the POOLED memory allocator. Default value is 12.5.

The following is the programmatic configuration example.

MemorySize memorySize = new MemorySize(512, MemoryUnit.MEGABYTES);
NativeMemoryConfig nativeMemoryConfig =
                new NativeMemoryConfig()
                        .setAllocatorType(NativeMemoryConfig.MemoryAllocatorType.POOLED)
                        .setSize(memorySize)
                        .setEnabled(true)
                        .setMinBlockSize(16)
                        .setPageSize(1 << 20);

The following is the declarative configuration example.

<native-memory enabled="true" allocator-type="POOLED">
  <size value="512" unit="MEGABYTES"/>
</native-memory>

Sizing Practices

Data in Hazelcast is both active data and backup data for high availability, so the total memory footprint is the size of active data plus the size of backup data. If you use a single backup, it means the total memory footprint is two times the active data (active data + backup data). If you use, for example, two backups, then the total memory footprint is three times the active data (active data + backup data + backup data).

If you use only heap memory, each Hazelcast node with a 4 GB heap should accommodate a maximum of 3.5 GB of total data (active and backup). If you use the High-Density Memory Store, up to 75% of your physical memory footprint may be used for active and backup data, with headroom of 25% for normal fragmentation. In both cases, however, you should also keep some memory headroom available to handle any node failure or explicit node shutdown. When a node leaves the cluster, the data previously owned by the newly offline node will be distributed among the remaining members. For this reason, we recommend that you plan to use only 60% of available memory, with 40% headroom to handle node failure or shutdown.

Hot Restart Persistence

Hazelcast Enterprise HD

This chapter explains the Hazelcast's Hot Restart Persistence feature, introduced with Hazelcast 3.6, which provides fast cluster restarts by storing the states of the cluster members on the disk. This feature is currently provided for the Hazelcast map data structure and the Hazelcast JCache implementation.

Hot Restart Persistence Overview

Hot Restart Persistence enables you to get your cluster up and running swiftly after a cluster restart. A restart can be caused by a planned shutdown (including rolling upgrades) or a sudden cluster-wide crash (e.g. power outage). For Hot Restart Persistence, required states for Hazelcast clusters and members are introduced. Please refer to the Managing Cluster and Member States section for information on the cluster and member states.

Hot Restart Types

The Hot Restart feature is supported for the following restart types:

• Restart after a planned shutdown:

  • The cluster is shutdown completely and restarted with the exact same previous setup and data.

    You can shutdown the cluster completely using the method HazelcastInstance.getCluster().shutdown() or you can manually change the cluster state to PASSIVE and then shut down each member one by one. When you send the command to shut the cluster down, i.e. HazelcastInstance.getCluster().shutdown(), the members that are not in the PASSIVE state change their states to PASSIVE. Then, each member shuts itself down by calling the method HazelcastInstance.shutdown().

  • Rolling upgrade: The cluster is restarted intentionally member by member. For example, this could be done to install an operating system patch or new hardware.

    To be able to shutdown the cluster member by member as part of a planned restart, each member in the cluster should be in the FROZEN or PASSIVE state. After the cluster state is changed to FROZEN or PASSIVE, you can manually shutdown each member by calling the method HazelcastInstance.shutdown(). When that member is restarted, it will rejoin the running cluster. After all members are restarted, the cluster state can be changed back to ACTIVE.

• Restart after a cluster crash: The cluster is restarted after its all members crashed at the same time due to a power outage, networking interruptions, etc.

The Restart Process

During the restart process, each member waits to load data until all the members in the partition table are started. During this process, no operations are allowed. Once all cluster members are started, Hazelcast changes the cluster state to PASSIVE and starts to load data. When all data is loaded, Hazelcast changes the cluster state to its previous known state before shutdown and starts to accept the operations which are allowed by the restored cluster state.

If a member fails to either start, join the cluster in time (within the timeout), or load its data, then that member will be terminated immediately. After the problems causing the failure are fixed, that member can be restarted. If the cluster start cannot be completed in time, then all members will fail to start. Please refer to the Configuring Hot Restart section for defining timeouts.

In the case of a restart after a cluster crash, the Hot Restart feature realizes that it was not a clean shutdown and Hazelcast tries to restart the cluster with the last saved data following the process explained above. In some cases, specifically when the cluster crashes while it has an ongoing partition migration process, currently it is not possible to restore the last saved state.

Force Start

It can happen that a node can crash permanently and cannot recover from the failure. In that case, restart process cannot be completed since some of the members do not start or fail to load their own data. In that case, you can force the cluster to clean its persisted data and make a fresh start. This process is called force start.

You can trigger the force start process using the Management Center, REST API and cluster management scripts. Force start process is managed by the master member. Therefore, you should trigger the force start on master member.

Please refer to the Hot Restart functionality of the Management Center section to learn how you can perform a force start using the Management Center.

Configuring Hot Restart

You can configure Hot Restart programmatically or declaratively. The configuration includes elements to enable/disable the feature, to specify the directory where the Hot Restart data will be stored, and to define timeout values.

Hot Restart Configuration Elements

The following are the descriptions of the Hot Restart configuration elements.

• hot-restart-persistence: The configuration that enables the Hot Restart feature and includes the element base-dir used to specify the directory where the Hot Restart data will be stored. Its default value is hot-restart. You can use the default value, or you can specify the value of another folder containing the Hot Restart configuration, but it is mandatory that this hot-restart element has a value. This directory will be created automatically if not exists yet.
• validation-timeout-seconds: Validation timeout for the Hot Restart process when validating the cluster members expected to join and the partition table on the whole cluster.
• data-load-timeout-seconds: Data load timeout for the Hot Restart process. All members in the cluster should finish restoring their local data before this timeout.
• hot-restart: The configuration that enables or disables the Hot Restart feature per data structure. This element is used for the supported data structures (in the above examples, you can see that it is included in map and cache). Turning on fsync guarantees that data is persisted to the disk device when a write operation returns successful response to the caller. By default, it's turned off. That means data will be persisted to the disk device eventually, not on every disk write, which in general provides a better performance.

Hot Restart Configuration Examples

The following are example configurations for a Hazelcast map and JCache implementation.

Declarative Configuration:

An example configuration is shown below.

<hazelcast>
   ...
   <hot-restart-persistence enabled="true">
       <base-dir>/mnt/hot-restart</base-dir>
       <validation-timeout-seconds>120</validation-timeout-seconds>
       <data-load-timeout-seconds>900</data-load-timeout-seconds>
   </hot-restart-persistence>
   ...
   <map>
       <hot-restart enabled="true">
           <fsync>false</fsync>
       </hot-restart>
   </map>
   ...
   <cache>
       <hot-restart enabled="true">
           <fsync>false</fsync>
       </hot-restart>
   </cache>
   ...
</hazelcast>

Programmatic Configuration:

The programmatic equivalent of the above declarative configuration is shown below.

HotRestartPersistenceConfig hotRestartPersistenceConfig = new HotRestartPersistenceConfig();
hotRestartPersistenceConfig.setEnabled(true);
hotRestartPersistenceConfig.setBaseDir(new File("/mnt/hot-restart"));
hotRestartPersistenceConfig.setValidationTimeoutSeconds(120);
hotRestartPersistenceConfig.setDataLoadTimeoutSeconds(900);
config.setHotRestartPersistenceConfig(hotRestartPersistenceConfig);

...
MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig();
mapConfig.getHotRestartConfig().setEnabled(true);

...
CacheConfig cacheConfig = new CacheConfig();
cacheConfig.getHotRestartConfig().setEnabled(true);

Hot Restart and IP Address-Port

Hazelcast relies on the IP address-port pair as a unique identifier for a cluster member. The member must restart with these address-port settings the same as before shutdown. Otherwise, Hot Restart fails.

Hot Restart Persistence Design Details

Hazelcast's Hot Restart Persistence uses the log-structured storage approach. The following is a top-level design description:

• The only kind of update operation on persistent data is appending.
• What is appended are facts about events that happened to the data model represented by the store; either a new value was assigned to a key or a key was removed.
• Each record associated with a key makes the previous record associated with the same key stale.
• Stale records contribute to the amount of garbage present in the persistent storage.
• Measures are taken to remove garbage from the storage.

This kind of design focuses almost all of the system's complexity into the garbage collection (GC) process, stripping down the client's operation to the bare necessity of guaranteeing persistent behavior: a simple file append operation. Consequently, the latency of operations is close to the theoretical minimum in almost all cases. Complications arise only during prolonged periods of maximum load; this is where the details of the GC process begin to matter.

Concurrent, Incremental, Generational GC

In order to maintain the lowest possible footprint in the update operation latency, the following properties are built into the garbage collection process:

• A dedicated thread performs the GC. In Hazelcast terms, this thread is called the Collector and the application thread is called the Mutator.
  
  
• On each update there is metadata to be maintained; this is done asynchronously by the Collector thread. The Mutator enqueues update events to the Collector's work queue.
  
  
• The Collector keeps draining its work queue at all times, including while it goes through the GC cycle. Updates are taken into account at each stage in the GC cycle, preventing the copying of already dead records into compacted files.
  
  
• All GC-induced I/O competes for the same resources as the Mutator's update operations. Therefore, measures are taken to minimize the impact of I/O done during GC:
  • data is never read from files, but from RAM;
  • a heuristic scheme is employed which minimizes the number of bytes written to disk for each kilobyte of reclaimed garbage;
  • measures are also taken to achieve a good interleaving of Collector and Mutator operations, minimizing latency outliers perceived by the Mutator.

I/O Minimization Scheme

The success of this scheme is subject to a bet on the Weak Generational Garbage Hypothesis, which states that a new record entering the system is likely to become garbage soon. In other words, a key updated now is more likely than average to be updated again soon.

The scheme was taken from the seminal Sprite LFS paper, Rosenblum, Ousterhout, The Design and Implementation of a Log-Structured File System. The following is the outline:

• Data is not written to one huge file, but to many files of moderate size (8 MB) called "chunks".
• Garbage is collected incrementally, i.e. by choosing several chunks, then copying all their live data to new chunks, then deleting the old ones.
• I/O is minimized using a collection technique which results in a bimodal distribution of chunks with respect to their garbage content: most files are either almost all live data or they are all garbage.
• The technique consists of two main principles:
  1. Chunks are selected based on their Cost-Benefit factor (see below).
  2. Records are sorted by age before copying to new chunks.

Cost-Benefit Factor

The Cost-Benefit factor of a chunk consists of two components multiplied together:

1. The ratio of benefit (amount of garbage that can be collected) to I/O cost (amount of live data to be written).
2. The age of the data in the chunk, measured as the age of the youngest record it contains.

The essence is in the second component: given equal amount of garbage in all chunks, it will make the young ones less attractive to the Collector. Assuming the generational garbage hypothesis, this will allow the young chunks to quickly accumulate more garbage. On the flip side, it will also ensure that even files with little garbage are GC'd eventually, removing garbage which would otherwise linger on, thinly spread across many chunk files.

Sorting records by age will group young records together in a single chunk and will do the same for older records. Therefore the chunks will either tend to keep their data live for a longer time, or quickly become full of garbage.

Hazelcast Java Client

There are currently three ways to connect to a running Hazelcast cluster:

• Native Clients (Java, C++, .NET)
• Memcache Client
• REST Client

Native Clients enable you to perform almost all Hazelcast operations without being a member of the cluster. It connects to one of the cluster members and delegates all cluster wide operations to it (dummy client), or it connects to all of them and delegates operations smartly (smart client). When the relied cluster member dies, the client will transparently switch to another live member.

Hundreds or even thousands of clients can be connected to the cluster. By default, there are core count 10* threads on the server side that will handle all the requests (e.g. if the server has 4 cores, there will be 40 threads).

Imagine a trading application where all the trading data are stored and managed in a Hazelcast cluster with tens of nodes. Swing/Web applications at the traders' desktops can use Native Clients to access and modify the data in the Hazelcast cluster.

Currently, Hazelcast has Native Java, C++ and .NET Clients available. This chapter describes the Java Client.

IMPORTANT: Starting with the Hazelcast 3.5. release, a new Java Native Client Library is introduced in the release package: hazelcast-client-new-<version>.jar. This library contains clients which use the new Hazelcast Binary Client Protocol. This library does not exist for the releases before 3.5.

Hazelcast Clients Feature Comparison

Before detailing the Java Client, this section provides the below comparison matrix to show which features are supported by the Hazelcast clients.

Feature	Java Client	.NET Client	C++ Client
Map	Yes	Yes	Yes
Queue	Yes	Yes	Yes
Set	Yes	Yes	Yes
List	Yes	Yes	Yes
MultiMap	Yes	Yes	Yes
Replicated Map	Yes	No	No
Topic	Yes	Yes	Yes
MapReduce	Yes	No	No
Lock	Yes	Yes	Yes
Semaphore	Yes	Yes	Yes
AtomicLong	Yes	Yes	Yes
AtomicReference	Yes	Yes	Yes
IdGenerator	Yes	Yes	Yes
CountDownLatch	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transactional Map	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transactional MultiMap	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transactional Queue	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transactional List	Yes	Yes	Yes
Transactional Set	Yes	Yes	Yes
JCache	Yes	No	No
Ringbuffer	Yes	No	No
Reliable Topic	Yes	No	No
Hot Restart	Yes (with a near cache)	No	No
Client Configuration Import	Yes	No	No
Hazelcast Client Protocol	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fail Fast on Invalid Conviguration	Yes	No	No
Sub-Listener Interfaces for Map ListenerMap	Yes	No	No
Continuous Query	Yes	No	No
Listener with Predicate	Yes	Yes	No
Distributed Executor Service	Yes	No	No
Query	Yes	Yes	Yes
Near Cache	Yes	Yes	No
Heartbeat	Yes	Yes	Yes
Declarative Configuration	Yes	Yes	No
Programmatic Configuration	Yes	Yes	Yes
SSL Support	Yes	No	No
XA Transactions	Yes	No	No
Smart Client	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dummy Client	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lifecycle Service	Yes	Yes	Yes
Event Listeners	Yes	Yes	Yes
DataSerializable	Yes	Yes	Yes
IdentifiedDataSerializable	Yes	Yes	Yes
Portable	Yes	Yes	Yes

Java Client Overview

The Java client is the most full featured Hazelcast native client. It is offered both with Hazelcast and Hazelcast Enterprise. The main idea behind the Java client is to provide the same Hazelcast functionality by proxying each operation through a Hazelcast node. It can access and change distributed data, and it can listen to distributed events of an already established Hazelcast cluster from another Java application.

Including Dependencies for Java Clients

You should include two dependencies in your classpath to start using the Hazelcast client: hazelcast.jar and hazelcast-client.jar.

After adding these dependencies, you can start using the Hazelcast client as if you are using the Hazelcast API. The differences are discussed in the below sections.

If you prefer to use maven, add the following lines to your pom.xml.

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
    <artifactId>hazelcast-client</artifactId>
    <version>$LATEST_VERSION$</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId>
    <artifactId>hazelcast</artifactId>
    <version>$LATEST_VERSION$</version>
</dependency>

Getting Started with Client API

The first step is configuration. You can configure the Java client declaratively or programmatically. We will use the programmatic approach throughout this tutorial. Please refer to the Java Client Declarative Configuration section for details.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.getGroupConfig().setName("dev").setPassword("dev-pass");
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().addAddress("10.90.0.1", "10.90.0.2:5702");

The second step is to initialize the HazelcastInstance to be connected to the cluster.

HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient(clientConfig);

This client interface is your gateway to access all Hazelcast distributed objects.

Let's create a map and populate it with some data.

IMap<String, Customer> mapCustomers = client.getMap("customers"); //creates the map proxy

mapCustomers.put("1", new Customer("Joe", "Smith"));
mapCustomers.put("2", new Customer("Ali", "Selam"));
mapCustomers.put("3", new Customer("Avi", "Noyan"));

As a final step, if you are done with your client, you can shut it down as shown below. This will release all the used resources and will close connections to the cluster.

client.shutdown();

Java Client Operation Modes

The client has two operation modes because of the distributed nature of the data and cluster.

Smart Client: In smart mode, clients connect to each cluster node. Since each data partition uses the well known and consistent hashing algorithm, each client can send an operation to the relevant cluster node, which increases the overall throughput and efficiency. Smart mode is the default mode.

Dummy Client: For some cases, the clients can be required to connect to a single node instead of to each node in the cluster. Firewalls, security, or some custom networking issues can be the reason for these cases.

In dummy client mode, the client will only connect to one of the configured addresses. This single node will behave as a gateway to the other nodes. For any operation requested from the client, it will redirect the request to the relevant node and return the response back to the client returned from this node.

Handling Failures

There are two main failure cases you should be aware of, and configurations you can perform to achieve proper behavior.

Handling Client Connection Failure

While the client is trying to connect initially to one of the members in the ClientNetworkConfig.addressList, all the members might be not available. Instead of giving up, throwing an exception and stopping the client, the client will retry as many as connectionAttemptLimit times.

You can configure connectionAttemptLimit for the number of times you want the client to retry connecting. Please see Setting Connection Attempt Limit.

The client executes each operation through the already established connection to the cluster. If this connection(s) disconnects or drops, the client will try to reconnect as configured.

Handling Retry-able Operation Failure

While sending the requests to related nodes, operations can fail due to various reasons. Read-only operations are retried by default. If you want to enable retry for the other operations, set the redoOperation to true. Please see Enabling Redo Operation.

The number of retries is given with the property hazelcast.client.request.retry.count in ClientProperties. The client will resend the request as many as RETRY-COUNT, then it will throw an exception. Please see the Client System Properties section.

Using Supported Distributed Data Structures

Most of the Distributed Data Structures are supported by the Java client. When you use clients in other languages, you should check for the exceptions.

As a general rule, you configure these data structures on the server side and access them through a proxy on the client side.

Using Map with Java Client

You can use any Distributed Map object with the client, as shown below.

Imap<Integer, String> map = client.getMap(“myMap”);

map.put(1, “Ali”);
String value= map.get(1);
map.remove(1);

Locality is ambiguous for the client, so addLocalEntryListener and localKeySet are not supported. Please see the Distributed Map section for more information.

Using MultiMap with Java Client

A MultiMap usage example is shown below.

MultiMap<Integer, String> multiMap = client.getMultiMap("myMultiMap");

multiMap.put(1,”ali”);
multiMap.put(1,”veli”);

Collection<String> values = multiMap.get(1);

addLocalEntryListener, localKeySet and getLocalMultiMapStats are not supported because locality is ambiguous for the client. Please see the Distributed MultiMap section for more information.

Using Queue with Java Client

A sample usage is shown below.

IQueue<String> myQueue = client.getQueue(“theQueue”);
myQueue.offer(“ali”)

getLocalQueueStats is not supported because locality is ambiguous for the client. Please see the Distributed Queue section for more information.

Using Topic with Java Client

getLocalTopicStats is not supported because locality is ambiguous for the client.

Using Other Supported Distributed Structures

The distributed data structures listed below are also supported by the client. Since their logic is the same in both the node side and client side, you can refer to their sections as listed below.

• Replicated Map
• MapReduce
• List
• Set
• IAtomicLong
• IAtomicReference
• ICountDownLatch
• ISemaphore
• IdGenerator
• Lock

Using Client Services

Hazelcast provides the services discussed below for some common functionalities on the client side.

Using Distributed Executor Service

The distributed executor service is for distributed computing. It can be used to execute tasks on the cluster on a designated partition or on all the partitions. It can also be used to process entries. Please see the Distributed Executor Service section for more information.

IExecutorService executorService = client.getExecutorService("default");

After getting an instance of IExecutorService, you can use the instance as the interface with the one provided on the server side. Please see the Distributed Computing chapter for detailed usage.

NOTE: This service is only supported by the Java client.

Listening to Client Connection

If you need to track clients and you want to listen to their connection events, you can use the clientConnected and clientDisconnected methods of the ClientService class. This class must be run on the node side. The following is an example code.

final ClientService clientService = hazelcastInstance.getClientService();
final Collection<Client> connectedClients = clientService.getConnectedClients();

clientService.addClientListener(new ClientListener() {
    @Override
    public void clientConnected(Client client) {
    //Handle client connected event
    }

    @Override
    public void clientDisconnected(Client client) {
      //Handle client disconnected event
    }
});

Finding the Partition of a Key

You use partition service to find the partition of a key. It will return all partitions. See the example code below.

PartitionService partitionService = client.getPartitionService();

//partition of a key
Partition partition = partitionService.getPartition(key);

//all partitions
Set<Partition> partitions = partitionService.getPartitions();

Handling Lifecycle

Lifecycle handling performs the following:

• checks to see if the client is running,
• shuts down the client gracefully,
• terminates the client ungracefully (forced shutdown), and
• adds/removes lifecycle listeners.

LifecycleService lifecycleService = client.getLifecycleService();

if(lifecycleService.isRunning()){
    //it is running
}

//shutdown client gracefully
lifecycleService.shutdown();

Client Listeners

You can configure listeners to listen to various event types on the client side. You can configure global events not relating to any distributed object through Client ListenerConfig. You should configure distributed object listeners like map entry listeners or list item listeners through their proxies. You can refer to the related sections under each distributed data structure in this reference manual.

Client Transactions

Transactional distributed objects are supported on the client side. Please see the Transactions chapter on how to use them.

Configuring Java Client

You can configure Hazelcast Java Client declaratively (XML) or programmatically (API).

For declarative configuration, the Hazelcast client looks at the following places for the client configuration file.

• System property: The client first checks if hazelcast.client.config system property is set to a file path, e.g. -Dhazelcast.client.config=C:/myhazelcast.xml.

• Classpath: If config file is not set as a system property, the client checks the classpath for hazelcast-client.xml file.

If the client does not find any configuration file, it starts with the default configuration (hazelcast-client-default.xml) located in the hazelcast-client.jar library. Before configuring the client, please try to work with the default configuration to see if it works for you. The default should be just fine for most users. If not, then consider custom configuration for your environment.

If you want to specify your own configuration file to create a Config object, the Hazelcast client supports the following.

• Config cfg = new XmlClientConfigBuilder(xmlFileName).build();

• Config cfg = new XmlClientConfigBuilder(inputStream).build();

For programmatic configuration of the Hazelcast Java Client, just instantiate a ClientConfig object and configure the desired aspects. An example is shown below.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.setGroupConfig(new GroupConfig("dev","dev-pass”);
clientConfig.setLoadBalancer(yourLoadBalancer);
...
...

Configuring Client Network

All network related configuration of Hazelcast Java Client is performed via the network element in the declarative configuration file, or in the class ClientNetworkConfig when using programmatic configuration. Let's first give the examples for these two approaches. Then we will look at its sub-elements and attributes.

Declarative Client Network Configuration

Here is an example of configuring network for Java Client declaratively.

<hazelcast-client xsi:schemaLocation=
    "http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/client-config hazelcast-client-config-<version>.xsd"
                  xmlns="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/client-config"
                  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
...
<network>
  <cluster-members>
    <address>127.0.0.1</address>
    <address>127.0.0.2</address>
  </cluster-members>
  <smart-routing>true</smart-routing>
  <redo-operation>true</redo-operation>
  <socket-interceptor enabled="true">
    <class-name>com.hazelcast.XYZ</class-name>
    <properties>
      <property name="kerberos-host">kerb-host-name</property>
      <property name="kerberos-config-file">kerb.conf</property>
    </properties>
   </socket-interceptor>
  <aws enabled="true" connection-timeout-seconds="11">
    <inside-aws>false</inside-aws>
    <access-key>my-access-key</access-key>
    <secret-key>my-secret-key</secret-key>
    <iam-role>s3access</iam-role>
    <region>us-west-1</region>
    <host-header>ec2.amazonaws.com</host-header>
    <security-group-name>hazelcast-sg</security-group-name>
    <tag-key>type</tag-key>
    <tag-value>hz-nodes</tag-value>
  </aws>
</network>

Programmatic Client Network Configuration

Here is an example of configuring network for Java Client programmatically.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientNetworkConfig networkConfig = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig();

Configuring Address List

Address List is the initial list of cluster addresses to which the client will connect. The client uses this list to find an alive node. Although it may be enough to give only one address of a node in the cluster (since all nodes communicate with each other), it is recommended that you give the addresses for all the nodes.

Declarative:

<hazelcast-client>
  ...
  <network>
    <cluster-members>
      <address>10.1.1.21</address>
      <address>10.1.1.22:5703</address>
    </cluster-members>
  ...
  </network>
...
</hazelcast-client>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientNetworkConfig networkConfig = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig();
networkConfig().addAddress("10.1.1.21", "10.1.1.22:5703");

If the port part is omitted, then 5701, 5702, and 5703 will be tried in random order.

You can provide multiple addresses with ports provided or not, as seen above. The provided list is shuffled and tried in random order. Default value is localhost.

Setting Smart Routing

Smart routing defines whether the client mode is smart or dummy. The following are example configurations.

Declarative:

...
<network>
...
  <smart-routing>true</smart-routing>
...
</network>
...

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientNetworkConfig networkConfig = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig();
networkConfig().setSmartRouting(true);

The default is smart client mode.

Enabling Redo Operation

It enables/disables redo-able operations as described in Handling Retry-able Operation Failure. The following are the example configurations.

Declarative:

...
<network>
...  
  <redo-operation>true</redo-operation>
...
</network>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientNetworkConfig networkConfig = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig();
networkConfig().setRedoOperation(true);

Default is disabled.

Setting Connection Timeout

Connection timeout is the timeout value in milliseconds for nodes to accept client connection requests. The following are the example configurations.

Declarative:

...
<network>
...
  <connection-timeout>5000</connection-timeout>
...
</network>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().setConnectionTimeout(5000);

The default value is 5000 milliseconds.

Setting Connection Attempt Limit

While the client is trying to connect initially to one of the members in the ClientNetworkConfig.addressList, all members might be not available. Instead of giving up, throwing an exception and stopping the client, the client will retry as many as ClientNetworkConfig.connectionAttemptLimit times. This is also the case when an existing client-member connection goes down. The following are example configurations.

Declarative:

...
<network>
...
  <connection-attempt-limit>5</connection-attempt-limit>
...
</network>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().setConnectionAttemptLimit(5);

Default value is 2.

Setting Connection Attempt Period

Connection timeout period is the duration in milliseconds between the connection attempts defined by ClientNetworkConfig.connectionAttemptLimit. The following are example configurations.

Declarative:

...
<network>
...
  <connection-attempt-period>5000</connection-attempt-period>
...
</network>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().setConnectionAttemptPeriod(5000);

Default value is 3000.

Setting a Socket Interceptor

Following is a client configuration to set a socket intercepter. Any class implementing com.hazelcast.nio.SocketInterceptor is a socket interceptor.

public interface SocketInterceptor {
    void init(Properties properties);
    void onConnect(Socket connectedSocket) throws IOException;
}

SocketInterceptor has two steps. First, it will be initialized by the configured properties. Second, it will be informed just after the socket is connected using onConnect.

SocketInterceptorConfig socketInterceptorConfig = clientConfig
               .getNetworkConfig().getSocketInterceptorConfig();

MyClientSocketInterceptor myClientSocketInterceptor = new MyClientSocketInterceptor();

socketInterceptorConfig.setEnabled(true);
socketInterceptorConfig.setImplementation(myClientSocketInterceptor);

If you want to configure the socket connector with a class name instead of an instance, see the example below.

SocketInterceptorConfig socketInterceptorConfig = clientConfig
            .getNetworkConfig().getSocketInterceptorConfig();

MyClientSocketInterceptor myClientSocketInterceptor = new MyClientSocketInterceptor();

socketInterceptorConfig.setEnabled(true);

//These properties are provided to interceptor during init
socketInterceptorConfig.setProperty("kerberos-host","kerb-host-name");
socketInterceptorConfig.setProperty("kerberos-config-file","kerb.conf");

socketInterceptorConfig.setClassName(myClientSocketInterceptor);

RELATED INFORMATION

Please see the Socket Interceptor section for more information.

Configuring Network Socket Options

You can configure the network socket options using SocketOptions. It has the following methods.

• socketOptions.setKeepAlive(x): Enables/disables the SO_KEEPALIVE socket option. The default value is true.

• socketOptions.setTcpNoDelay(x): Enables/disables the TCP_NODELAY socket option. The default value is true.

• socketOptions.setReuseAddress(x): Enables/disables the SO_REUSEADDR socket option. The default value is true.

• socketOptions.setLingerSeconds(x): Enables/disables SO_LINGER with the specified linger time in seconds. The default value is 3.

• socketOptions.setBufferSize(x): Sets the SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF options to the specified value in KB for this Socket. The default value is 32.

SocketOptions socketOptions = clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().getSocketOptions();
socketOptions.setBufferSize(32);
socketOptions.setKeepAlive(true);
socketOptions.setTcpNoDelay(true);
socketOptions.setReuseAddress(true);
socketOptions.setLingerSeconds(3);

Enabling Client SSL

You can use SSL to secure the connection between the client and the nodes. If you want SSL enabled for the client-cluster connection, you should set SSLConfig. Once set, the connection (socket) is established out of an SSL factory defined either by a factory class name or factory implementation. Please see the SSLConfig class in the com.hazelcast.config package at the JavaDocs page of the Hazelcast Documentation web site.

Configuring Client for AWS

The example declarative and programmatic configurations below show how to configure a Java client for connecting to a Hazelcast cluster in AWS.

Declarative:

...
<network>
  <aws enabled="true">
    <inside-aws>false</inside-aws>
    <access-key>my-access-key</access-key>
    <secret-key>my-secret-key</secret-key>
    <iam-role>s3access</iam-role>
    <region>us-west-1</region>
    <host-header>ec2.amazonaws.com</host-header>
    <security-group-name>hazelcast-sg</security-group-name>
    <tag-key>type</tag-key>
    <tag-value>hz-nodes</tag-value>
  </aws>
...
</network>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ClientAwsConfig clientAwsConfig = new ClientAwsConfig();
clientAwsConfig.setInsideAws( false )
               .setAccessKey( "my-access-key" )
               .setSecretKey( "my-secret-key" )
               .setRegion( "us-west-1" )
               .setHostHeader( "ec2.amazonaws.com" )
               .setSecurityGroupName( ">hazelcast-sg" )
               .setTagKey( "type" )
               .setTagValue( "hz-nodes" );
               .setIamRole( "s3access" );
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().setAwsConfig( clientAwsConfig );
HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient( clientConfig );

You can refer to the aws element section for the descriptions of above AWS configuration elements except inside-aws and iam-role, which are explained below.

If the inside-aws element is not set, the private addresses of cluster members will always be converted to public addresses. Also, the client will use public addresses to connect to the members. In order to use private addresses, set the inside-aws parameter to true. Also note that, when connecting outside from AWS, setting the inside-aws parameter to true will cause the client to not be able to reach the members.

IAM roles are used to make secure requests from your clients. You can provide the name of your IAM role that you created previously on your AWS console using the iam-role or setIamRole() method.

Configuring Client Load Balancer

LoadBalancer allows you to send operations to one of a number of endpoints (Members). Its main purpose is to determine the next Member if queried. It is up to your implementation to use different load balancing policies. You should implement the interface com.hazelcast.client.LoadBalancer for that purpose.

If the client is configured in smart mode, only the operations that are not key-based will be routed to the endpoint that is returned by the LoadBalancer. If the client is not a smart client, LoadBalancer will be ignored.

The following are example configurations.

Declarative:

<hazelcast-client>
  ...
  <load-balancer type=“random”>
    yourLoadBalancer
  </load-balancer>
  ...
</hazelcast-client>

Programmatic:

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.setLoadBalancer(yourLoadBalancer);

Configuring Client Near Cache

Hazelcast distributed map has a Near Cache feature to reduce network latencies. Since the client always requests data from the cluster nodes, it can be helpful for some of your use cases to configure a near cache on the client side. The client supports the same Near Cache that is used in Hazelcast distributed map.

You can create Near Cache on the client side by providing a configuration per map name, as shown below.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
CacheConfig nearCacheConfig = new NearCacheConfig();
nearCacheConfig.setName("mapName");
clientConfig.addNearCacheConfig(nearCacheConfig);

You can use wildcards for the map name, as shown below.

nearCacheConfig.setName("map*");
nearCacheConfig.setName("*map");

The following is an example declarative configuration for Near Cache.

</hazelcast-client>
    ...
    ...
    <near-cache name="MENU">
        <max-size>2000</max-size>
        <time-to-live-seconds>0</time-to-live-seconds>
        <max-idle-seconds>0</max-idle-seconds>
        <eviction-policy>LFU</eviction-policy>
        <invalidate-on-change>true</invalidate-on-change>
        <in-memory-format>OBJECT</in-memory-format>
    </near-cache>
    ...
</hazelcast-client>

Name of Near Cache on the client side must be the same as the name of IMap on the server for which this Near Cache is being created.

Near Cache can have its own in-memory-format which is independent of the in-memory-format of the servers.

Client Group Configuration

Clients should provide a group name and password in order to connect to the cluster. You can configure them using GroupConfig, as shown below.

clientConfig.setGroupConfig(new GroupConfig("dev","dev-pass"));

Client Security Configuration

In the cases where the security established with GroupConfig is not enough and you want your clients connecting securely to the cluster, you can use ClientSecurityConfig. This configuration has a credentials parameter to set the IP address and UID. Please see ClientSecurityConfig.java in our code.

Client Serialization Configuration

For the client side serialization, use Hazelcast configuration. Please refer to the Serialization chapter.

Configuring Client Listeners

You can configure global event listeners using ListenerConfig as shown below.

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ListenerConfig listenerConfig = new ListenerConfig(LifecycleListenerImpl);
clientConfig.addListenerConfig(listenerConfig);

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
ListenerConfig listenerConfig = new ListenerConfig("com.hazelcast.example.MembershipListenerImpl");
clientConfig.addListenerConfig(listenerConfig);

You can add three types of event listeners.

• LifecycleListener
• MembershipListener
• DistributedObjectListener

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to LifecycleListener, MembershipListener and DistributedObjectListener.

ExecutorPoolSize

Hazelcast has an internal executor service (different from the data structure Executor Service) that has threads and queues to perform internal operations such as handling responses. This parameter specifies the size of the pool of threads which perform these operations laying in the executor's queue. If not configured, this parameter has the value as 5 * core size of the client (i.e. it is 20 for a machine that has 4 cores).

ClassLoader

You can configure a custom classLoader. It will be used by the serialization service and to load any class configured in configuration, such as event listeners or ProxyFactories.

Client System Properties

There are some advanced client configuration properties to tune some aspects of Hazelcast Client. You can set them as property name and value pairs through declarative configuration, programmatic configuration, or JVM system property. Please see the System Properties section to learn how to set these properties.

The table below lists the client configuration properties with their descriptions.

Property Name	Default Value	Type	Description
hazelcast.client.event.queue.capacity	1000000	string	The default value of the capacity of executor that handles incoming event packets.
hazelcast.client.event.thread.count	5	string	The thread count for handling incoming event packets.
hazelcast.client.heartbeat.interval	10000	string	The frequency of heartbeat messages sent by the clients to the members.
hazelcast.client.heartbeat.timeout	300000	string	Timeout for the heartbeat messages sent by the client to members. If no messages pass between client and member within the given time via this property in milliseconds, the connection will be closed.
hazelcast.client.invocation.timeout.seconds	120	string	Time to give up the invocation when a member in the member list is not reachable.
hazelcast.client.shuffle.member.list	true	string	The client shuffles the given member list to prevent all clients to connect to the same node when this property is false. When it is set to true, the client tries to connect to the nodes in the given order.

Sample Codes for Client

Please refer to Client Code Samples.

Other Client Implementations

This chapter describes the clients other than the Hazelcast Java Client.

C++ Client

You can use Native C++ Client to connect to Hazelcast cluster members and perform almost all operations that a member can perform. Clients differ from members in that clients do not hold data. The C++ Client is by default a smart client, i.e. it knows where the data is and asks directly for the correct member. You can disable this feature (using the ClientConfig::setSmart method) if you do not want the clients to connect to every member.

The features of C++ Clients are:

• Access to distributed data structures (IMap, IQueue, MultiMap, ITopic, etc.).
• Access to transactional distributed data structures (TransactionalMap, TransactionalQueue, etc.).
• Ability to add cluster listeners to a cluster and entry/item listeners to distributed data structures.
• Distributed synchronization mechanisms with ILock, ISemaphore and ICountDownLatch.

Setting Up C++ Client

Hazelcast C++ Client is shipped with 32/64 bit, shared and static libraries. You only need to include the boost shared_ptr.hpp header in your compilation since the API makes use of the boost shared_ptr.

The downloaded release folder consists of:

• Mac_64/
• Windows_32/
• Windows_64/
• Linux_32/
• Linux_64/
• docs/ (HTML Doxygen documents are here)

Each of the folders above contains the following:

• examples/

  • testApp.exe => example command line client tool to connect hazelcast servers.
  • TestApp.cpp => code of the example command line tool.

• hazelcast/

  • lib/ => Contains both shared and static library of hazelcast.
  • include/ => Contains headers of client.

• external/

  • include/ => Contains headers of dependencies. (boost::shared_ptr)

Installing C++ Client

The C++ Client is tested on Linux 32/64-bit, Mac 64-bit and Windows 32/64-bit machines. For each of the headers above, it is assumed that you are in the correct folder for your platform. Folders are Mac_64, Windows_32, Windows_64, Linux_32 or Linux_64.

Linux C++ Client

For Linux, there are two distributions: 32 bit and 64 bit.

Here is an example script to build with static library:

g++ main.cpp -pthread -I./external/include -I./hazelcast/include ./hazelcast/lib/libHazelcastClientStatic_64.a

Here is an example script to build with shared library:

g++ main.cpp -lpthread -Wl,–no-as-needed -lrt -I./external/include -I./hazelcast/include -L./hazelcast/lib -lHazelcastClientShared_64

Mac C++ Client

For Mac, there is one distribution: 64 bit.

Here is an example script to build with static library:

g++ main.cpp -I./external/include -I./hazelcast/include ./hazelcast/lib/libHazelcastClientStatic_64.a

Here is an example script to build with shared library:

g++ main.cpp -I./external/include -I./hazelcast/include -L./hazelcast/lib -lHazelcastClientShared_64

Windows C++ Client

For Windows, there are two distributions; 32 bit and 64 bit. The static library is located in a folder named "static" while the dynamic library(dll) is in the folder named as "shared".

When compiling for Windows environment the user should specify one of the following flags: HAZELCAST_USE_STATIC: You want the application to use the static Hazelcast library. HAZELCAST_USE_SHARED: You want the application to use the shared Hazelcast library.

C++ Client Code Examples

You can try the following C++ client code examples. You need to have a Hazelcast client member running for the code examples to work.

C++ Client Map Example

#include <hazelcast/client/HazelcastAll.h>
#include <iostream>

using namespace hazelcast::client;

int main() {
  ClientConfig clientConfig;
  Address address( "localhost", 5701 );
  clientConfig.addAddress( address );

  HazelcastClient hazelcastClient( clientConfig );

  IMap<int,int> myMap = hazelcastClient.getMap<int ,int>( "myIntMap" );
  myMap.put( 1,3 );
  boost::shared_ptr<int> value = myMap.get( 1 );
  if( value.get() != NULL ) {
    //process the item
  }

  return 0;
}

C++ Client Queue Example

#include <hazelcast/client/HazelcastAll.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace hazelcast::client;

int main() {
  ClientConfig clientConfig;
  Address address( "localhost", 5701 );
  clientConfig.addAddress( address );

  HazelcastClient hazelcastClient( clientConfig );

  IQueue<std::string> queue = hazelcastClient.getQueue<std::string>( "q" );
  queue.offer( "sample" );
  boost::shared_ptr<std::string> value = queue.poll();
  if( value.get() != NULL ) {
    //process the item
  }
  return 0;
}

C++ Client Entry Listener Example

#include "hazelcast/client/ClientConfig.h"
#include "hazelcast/client/EntryEvent.h"
#include "hazelcast/client/IMap.h"
#include "hazelcast/client/Address.h"
#include "hazelcast/client/HazelcastClient.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace hazelcast::client;

class SampleEntryListener {
  public:

  void entryAdded( EntryEvent<std::string, std::string> &event ) {
    std::cout << "entry added " <<  event.getKey() << " "
        << event.getValue() << std::endl;
  };

  void entryRemoved( EntryEvent<std::string, std::string> &event ) {
    std::cout << "entry added " <<  event.getKey() << " " 
        << event.getValue() << std::endl;
  }

  void entryUpdated( EntryEvent<std::string, std::string> &event ) {
    std::cout << "entry added " <<  event.getKey() << " " 
        << event.getValue() << std::endl;
  }

  void entryEvicted( EntryEvent<std::string, std::string> &event ) {
    std::cout << "entry added " <<  event.getKey() << " " 
        << event.getValue() << std::endl;
  }
};


int main( int argc, char **argv ) {
  ClientConfig clientConfig;
  Address address( "localhost", 5701 );
  clientConfig.addAddress( address );

  HazelcastClient hazelcastClient( clientConfig );

  IMap<std::string,std::string> myMap = hazelcastClient
      .getMap<std::string ,std::string>( "myIntMap" );
  SampleEntryListener *  listener = new SampleEntryListener();

  std::string id = myMap.addEntryListener( *listener, true );
  // Prints entryAdded
  myMap.put( "key1", "value1" );
  // Prints updated
  myMap.put( "key1", "value2" );
  // Prints entryRemoved
  myMap.remove( "key1" );
  // Prints entryEvicted after 1 second
  myMap.put( "key2", "value2", 1000 );

  // WARNING: deleting listener before removing it from hazelcast leads to crashes.
  myMap.removeEntryListener( id );
  // Delete listener after remove it from hazelcast.
  delete listener;
  return 0;
};

C++ Client Serialization Example

Assume that you have the following two classes in Java and you want to use them with a C++ client.

class Foo implements Serializable {
  private int age;
  private String name;
}

class Bar implements Serializable {
  private float x;
  private float y;
}

First, let them implement Portable or IdentifiedDataSerializable as shown below.

class Foo implements Portable {
  private int age;
  private String name;

  public int getFactoryId() {
    // a positive id that you choose
    return 123;
  }

  public int getClassId() {
    // a positive id that you choose
    return 2;     
  }

  public void writePortable( PortableWriter writer ) throws IOException {
    writer.writeUTF( "n", name );
    writer.writeInt( "a", age );
  }

  public void readPortable( PortableReader reader ) throws IOException {
    name = reader.readUTF( "n" );
    age = reader.readInt( "a" );
  }
}

class Bar implements IdentifiedDataSerializable {
  private float x;
  private float y;

  public int getFactoryId() {
    // a positive id that you choose
    return 4;     
  }

  public int getId() {
    // a positive id that you choose
    return 5;    
  }

  public void writeData( ObjectDataOutput out ) throws IOException {
    out.writeFloat( x );
    out.writeFloat( y );
  }

  public void readData( ObjectDataInput in ) throws IOException {
    x = in.readFloat();
    y = in.readFloat();
  }
}

Then, implement the corresponding classes in C++ with same factory and class ID as shown below.

class Foo : public Portable {
  public:
  int getFactoryId() const {
    return 123;
  };

  int getClassId() const {
    return 2;
  };

  void writePortable( serialization::PortableWriter &writer ) const {
    writer.writeUTF( "n", name );
    writer.writeInt( "a", age );
  };

  void readPortable( serialization::PortableReader &reader ) {
    name = reader.readUTF( "n" );
    age = reader.readInt( "a" );
  };

  private:
  int age;
  std::string name;
};

class Bar : public IdentifiedDataSerializable {
  public:
  int getFactoryId() const {
    return 4;
  };

  int getClassId() const {
    return 2;
  };

  void writeData( serialization::ObjectDataOutput& out ) const {
    out.writeFloat(x);
    out.writeFloat(y);
  };

  void readData( serialization::ObjectDataInput& in ) {
    x = in.readFloat();
    y = in.readFloat();
  };

  private:
  float x;
  float y;
};

Now, you can use the classes Foo and Bar in distributed structures. For example, you can use as Key or Value of IMap or as an Item in IQueue.

.NET Client

You can use the native .NET client to connect to Hazelcast client members. You need to add HazelcastClient3x.dll into your .NET project references. The API is very similar to the Java native client.

.NET Client has the following distributed objects.

• IMap<K,V>
• IMultiMap<K,V>
• IQueue<E>
• ITopic<E>
• IHList<E>
• IHSet<E>
• IIdGenerator
• ILock
• ISemaphore
• ICountDownLatch
• IAtomicLong
• ITransactionContext
• IRingbuffer

ITransactionContext can be used to obtain:

• ITransactionalMap<K,V>
• ITransactionalMultiMap<K,V>
• ITransactionalList<E>
• ITransactionalSet<E>
• ITransactionalQueue<E>

At present the following features are not available in the .NET Client as they are in the Java Client:

• Distributed Executor Service
• Replicated Map
• JCache

A code example is shown below.

using Hazelcast.Config;
using Hazelcast.Client;
using Hazelcast.Core;
using Hazelcast.IO.Serialization;

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace Hazelcast.Client.Example
{
  public class SimpleExample
  {

    public static void Test()
    {
      var clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
      clientConfig.GetNetworkConfig().AddAddress( "10.0.0.1" );
      clientConfig.GetNetworkConfig().AddAddress( "10.0.0.2:5702" );

      // Portable Serialization setup up for Customer Class
      clientConfig.GetSerializationConfig()
          .AddPortableFactory( MyPortableFactory.FactoryId, new MyPortableFactory() );

      IHazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.NewHazelcastClient( clientConfig );
      // All cluster operations that you can do with ordinary HazelcastInstance
      IMap<string, Customer> mapCustomers = client.GetMap<string, Customer>( "customers" );
      mapCustomers.Put( "1", new Customer( "Joe", "Smith" ) );
      mapCustomers.Put( "2", new Customer( "Ali", "Selam" ) );
      mapCustomers.Put( "3", new Customer( "Avi", "Noyan" ) );

      ICollection<Customer> customers = mapCustomers.Values();
      foreach (var customer in customers)
      {
        //process customer
      }
    }
  }

  public class MyPortableFactory : IPortableFactory
  {
    public const int FactoryId = 1;

    public IPortable Create( int classId ) {
      if ( Customer.Id == classId )
        return new Customer();
      else
        return null;
    }
  }

  public class Customer : IPortable
  {
    private string name;
    private string surname;

    public const int Id = 5;

    public Customer( string name, string surname )
    {
      this.name = name;
      this.surname = surname;
    }

    public Customer() {}

    public int GetFactoryId()
    {
      return MyPortableFactory.FactoryId;
    }

    public int GetClassId()
    {
      return Id;
    }

    public void WritePortable( IPortableWriter writer )
    {
      writer.WriteUTF( "n", name );
      writer.WriteUTF( "s", surname );
    }

    public void ReadPortable( IPortableReader reader )
    {
      name = reader.ReadUTF( "n" );
      surname = reader.ReadUTF( "s" );
    }
  }
}

Configuring .NET Client

You can configure the Hazelcast .NET client via API or XML. To start the client, you can pass a configuration or leave it empty to use default values.

NOTE: .NET and Java clients are similar in terms of configuration. Therefore, you can refer to Java Client section for configuration aspects. Please also refer to the .NET API documentation.

Starting .NET Client

After configuration, you can obtain a client using one of the static methods of Hazelcast, as shown below.

IHazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.NewHazelcastClient(clientConfig);

...


IHazelcastInstance defaultClient = HazelcastClient.NewHazelcastClient();

...

IHazelcastInstance xmlConfClient = Hazelcast
    .NewHazelcastClient(@"..\Hazelcast.Net\Resources\hazelcast-client.xml");

The IHazelcastInstance interface is the starting point where all distributed objects can be obtained.

var map = client.GetMap<int,string>("mapName");

...

var lock= client.GetLock("thelock");

REST Client

Hazelcast provides a REST interface, i.e. it provides an HTTP service in each cluster member (node) so that you can access your map and queue using HTTP protocol. Assuming mapName and queueName are already configured in your Hazelcast, its structure is shown below.

http://node IP address:port/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName/key

http://node IP address:port/hazelcast/rest/queues/queueName

For the operations to be performed, standard REST conventions for HTTP calls are used.

REST Client GET/POST/DELETE Examples

In the following GET, POST, and DELETE examples, assume that your cluster members are as shown below.

Members [5] {
  Member [10.20.17.1:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.2:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.4:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.3:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.5:5701]
}

---

NOTE: All of the requests below can return one of the following responses in case of a failure.

• If the HTTP request syntax is not known, the following response will be returned.

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Length: 0

• In case of an unexpected exception, the following response will be returned.

< HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
< Content-Length: 0

---

Creating/Updating Entries in a Map for REST Client

You can put a new key1/value1 entry into a map by using POST call to http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/ rest/maps/mapName/key1 URL. This call's content body should contain the value of the key. Also, if the call contains the MIME type, Hazelcast stores this information, too.

A sample POST call is shown below.

$ curl -v -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" -d "bar" 
    http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName/foo

It will return the following response if successful:

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 0

Retrieving Entries from a Map for REST Client

If you want to retrieve an entry, you can use a GET call to http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName/key1. You can also retrieve this entry from another member of your cluster, such as http://10.20.17.3:5701/hazelcast/rest/ maps/mapName/key1.

An example of a GET call is shown below.

$ curl -X GET http://10.20.17.3:5701/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName/foo

It will return the following response if there is a corresponding value:

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 3
bar

This GET call returned a value, its length, and also the MIME type (text/plain) since the POST call example shown above included the MIME type.

It will return the following if there is no mapping for the given key:

< HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
< Content-Length: 0

Removing Entries from a Map for REST Client

You can use a DELETE call to remove an entry. A sample DELETE call is shown below with its response.

$ curl -v -X DELETE http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName/foo

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 0

If you leave the key empty as follows, DELETE will delete all entries from the map.

$ curl -v -X DELETE http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/maps/mapName

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 0

Offering Items on a Queue for REST Client

You can use a POST call to create an item on the queue. A sample is shown below.

$ curl -v -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" -d "foo" 
    http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/queues/myEvents

The above call is equivalent to HazelcastInstance#getQueue("myEvents").offer("foo");.

It will return the following if successful:

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 0

It will return the following if the queue is full and the item is not able to be offered to the queue:

< HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable
< Content-Length: 0

Retrieving Items from a Queue for REST Client

You can use a DELETE call for retrieving items from a queue. Note that you should state the poll timeout while polling for queue events by an extra path parameter.

An example is shown below (10 being the timeout value).

$ curl -v -X DELETE \http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/queues/myEvents/10

The above call is equivalent to HazelcastInstance#getQueue("myEvents").poll(10, SECONDS);. Below is the response.

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 3
foo

When the timeout is reached, the response will be No Content success, i.e. there is no item on the queue to be returned.

< HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
< Content-Length: 0

Getting the size of the queue for REST Client

$ curl -v -X GET \http://10.20.17.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/queues/myEvents/size

The above call is equivalent to HazelcastInstance#getQueue("myEvents").size();. Below is a sample response.

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Content-Length: 1
5

---

Checking the Status of the Cluster for REST Client

Besides the above operations, you can check the status of your cluster, a sample of which is shown below.

$ curl -v http://127.0.0.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/cluster

The return will be similar to the following:

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Length: 119

Members [5] {
  Member [10.20.17.1:5701] this
  Member [10.20.17.2:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.4:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.3:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.5:5701]
}

ConnectionCount: 5
AllConnectionCount: 20

---

RESTful access is provided through any member of your cluster. You can even put an HTTP load-balancer in front of your cluster members for load balancing and fault tolerance.

NOTE: REST client request listener service is not enabled by default. You should enable it on your cluster members to use REST client. It can be enabled using the system property hazelcast.rest.enabled. Please refer to the System Properties section for the definition of this property and how to set a system property.

NOTE: You need to handle the failures on REST polls as there is no transactional guarantee.

Memcache Client

NOTE: Hazelcast Memcache Client only supports ASCII protocol. Binary Protocol is not supported.

A Memcache client written in any language can talk directly to a Hazelcast cluster. No additional configuration is required.

Memcache Client Code Examples

Assume that your cluster members are as shown below.

Members [5] {
  Member [10.20.17.1:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.2:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.4:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.3:5701]
  Member [10.20.17.5:5701]
}

Assume that you have a PHP application that uses PHP Memcache client to cache things in Hazelcast. All you need to do is have your PHP Memcache client connect to one of these members. It does not matter which member the client connects to because the Hazelcast cluster looks like one giant machine (Single System Image). Here is a PHP client code example.

<?php
  $memcache = new Memcache;
  $memcache->connect( '10.20.17.1', 5701 ) or die ( "Could not connect" );
  $memcache->set( 'key1', 'value1', 0, 3600 );
  $get_result = $memcache->get( 'key1' ); // retrieve your data
  var_dump( $get_result ); // show it
?>

Notice that Memcache client connects to 10.20.17.1 and uses port 5701. Here is a Java client code example with SpyMemcached client:

MemcachedClient client = new MemcachedClient(
    AddrUtil.getAddresses( "10.20.17.1:5701 10.20.17.2:5701" ) );
client.set( "key1", 3600, "value1" );
System.out.println( client.get( "key1" ) );

If you want your data to be stored in different maps (e.g. to utilize per map configuration), you can do that with a map name prefix as in the following example code.

MemcachedClient client = new MemcachedClient(
    AddrUtil.getAddresses( "10.20.17.1:5701 10.20.17.2:5701" ) );
client.set( "map1:key1", 3600, "value1" ); // store to *hz_memcache_map1
client.set( "map2:key1", 3600, "value1" ); // store to hz_memcache_map2
System.out.println( client.get( "key1" ) ); // get from hz_memcache_map1
System.out.println( client.get( "key2" ) ); // get from hz_memcache_map2

hz_memcache prefix_ separates Memcache maps from Hazelcast maps. If no map name is given, it will be stored in a default map named hz_memcache_default.

An entry written with a Memcache client can be read by another Memcache client written in another language.

Unsupported Operations for Memcache

• CAS operations are not supported. In operations that get CAS parameters, such as append, CAS values are ignored.

• Only a subset of statistics are supported. Below is the list of supported statistic values.

  • cmd_set
  • cmd_get
  • incr_hits
  • incr_misses
  • decr_hits
  • decr_misses

NOTE: Memcache client request listener service is not enabled by default. You should enable it on your cluster members to use Memcache client. It can be enabled using the system property hazelcast.memcache.enabled. Please refer to the System Properties section for the definition of this property and how to set a system property.

Serialization

Hazelcast needs to serialize the Java objects that you put into Hazelcast because Hazelcast is a distributed system. The data and its replicas are stored in different partitions on multiple cluster members. The data you need may not be present on the local member, and in that case, Hazelcast retrieves that data from another member. This requires serialization.

Hazelcast serializes all your objects into an instance of com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.Data. Data is the binary representation of an object.

Serialization is used when:

• key/value objects are added to a map,
• items are put in a queue/set/list,
• a runnable is sent using an executor service,
• an entry processing is performed within a map,
• an object is locked, and
• a message is sent to a topic.

Hazelcast optimizes the serialization for the basic types and their array types. You cannot override this behavior.

Default Types;

• Byte, Boolean, Character, Short, Integer, Long, Float, Double, String
• byte[], boolean[], char[], short[], int[], long[], float[], double[], String[]
• java.util.Date, java.math.BigInteger, java.math.BigDecimal, java.lang.Class, java.lang.Enum

Hazelcast optimizes all of the above object types. You do not need to worry about their (de)serializations.

Serialization Interface Types

For complex objects, use the following interfaces for serialization and deserialization.

• java.io.Serializable: Please see the Implementing Java Serializable and Externalizable section.

• java.io.Externalizable: Please see the Implementing Java Externalizable section.

• com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.DataSerializable: Please see the Implementing DataSerializable section.

• com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.IdentifiedDataSerializable: Please see the IdentifiedDataSerializable section.

• com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.Portable: Please see the Implementing Portable Serialization section.

• Custom Serialization (using StreamSerializer and ByteArraySerializer).

• Global Serializer: Please see the Global Serializer section for details.

**When Hazelcast serializes an object into Data:

(1) It first checks whether the object is null.

(2) If the above check fails, then Hazelcast checks if it is an instance of com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.DataSerializable or com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.IdentifiedDataSerializable.

(3) If the above check fails, then Hazelcast checks if it is an instance of com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.Portable.

(4) If the above check fails, then Hazelcast checks if it is an instance of one of the default types (see the Serialization chapter introduction for default types).

(5) If the above check fails, then Hazelcast looks for a user-specified Custom Serializer, i.e. an implementation of ByteArraySerializer or StreamSerializer. Custom serializer is searched using the input Object's Class and its parent class up to Object. If parent class search fails, all interfaces implemented by the class are also checked (excluding java.io.Serializable and java.io.Externalizable).

(6) If the above check fails, then Hazelcast checks if it is an instance of java.io.Serializable or java.io.Externalizable and a Global Serializer is not registered with Java Serialization Override feature.

(7) If the above check fails, Hazelcast will use the registered Global Serializer if one exists.

If all of the above checks fail, then serialization will fail. When a class implements multiple interfaces, the above steps are important to determine the serialization mechanism that Hazelcast will use. When a class definition is required for any of these serializations, you need to have all the classes needed by the application on your classpath because Hazelcast does not download them automatically.

Comparing Serialization Interfaces

The table below provides a comparison between the interfaces listed in the previous section to help you in deciding which interface to use in your applications.

Serialization Interface	Advantages	Drawbacks
Serializable	- A standard and basic Java interface - Requires no implementation	- More time and CPU usage - More space occupancy - Not supported by Native clients
Externalizable	- A standard Java interface - More CPU and memory usage efficient than Serializable	- Serialization interface must be implemented - Not supported by Native clients
DataSerializable	- More CPU and memory usage efficient than Serializable	- Specific to Hazelcast - Not supported by Native clients
IdentifiedDataSerializable	- More CPU and memory usage efficient than Serializable - Reflection is not used during deserialization - Supported by all Native Clients	- Specific to Hazelcast - Serialization interface must be implemented - A Factory and configuration must be implemented
Portable	- More CPU and memory usage efficient than Serializable - Reflection is not used during deserialization - Versioning is supported Partial deserialization is supported during Queries - Supported by all Native Clients	- Specific to Hazelcast - Serialization interface must be implemented - A Factory and configuration must be implemented - Class definition is also sent with data but stored only once per class
Custom Serialization	- Does not require class to implement an interface - Convenient and flexible - Can be based on StreamSerializer ByteArraySerializer	- Serialization interface must be implemented - Plug in and configuration is required

Let's dig into the details of the above serialization mechanisms in the following sections.

Implementing Java Serializable and Externalizable

A class often needs to implement the java.io.Serializable interface; native Java serialization is the easiest way to do serialization.

Let's take a look at the example code below for Java Serializable.

public class Employee implements Serializable { 
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
  private String surname;

  public Employee( String surname ) { 
    this.surname = surname;
  } 
}

Here, the fields that are non-static and non-transient are automatically serialized. To eliminate class compatibility issues, it is recommended that you add a serialVersionUID, as shown above. Also, when you are using methods that perform byte-content comparisons (e.g. IMap.replace()) and if byte-content of equal objects is different, you may face unexpected behaviors. For example, if the class relies on a hash map, the replace method may fail. The reason for this is the hash map is a serialized data structure with unreliable byte-content.

Implementing Java Externalizable

Hazelcast also supports java.io.Externalizable. This interface offers more control on the way fields are serialized or deserialized. Compared to native Java serialization, it also can have a positive effect on performance. With java.io.Externalizable, there is no need to add serialVersionUID.

Let's take a look at the example code below.

public class Employee implements Externalizable { 
  private String surname;
  public Employee(String surname) { 
        this.surname = surname;
  }

  @Override
  public void readExternal( ObjectInput in )
      throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
    this.surname = in.readUTF();
  }

  @Override
  public void writeExternal( ObjectOutput out )
      throws IOException {
    out.writeUTF(surname); 
  }
}

You explicitly perform writing and reading of fields. Perform reading in the same order as writing.

Implementing DataSerializable

As mentioned in Implementing Java Serializable & Externalizable, Java serialization is an easy mechanism. However, it does not control how fields are serialized or deserialized. Moreover, Java serialization can lead to excessive CPU loads since it keeps track of objects to handle the cycles and streams class descriptors. These are performance decreasing factors; thus, serialized data may not have an optimal size.

The DataSerializable interface of Hazelcast overcomes these issues. Here is an example of a class implementing the com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.DataSerializable interface.

public class Address implements DataSerializable {
  private String street;
  private int zipCode;
  private String city;
  private String state;

  public Address() {}

  //getters setters..

  public void writeData( ObjectDataOutput out ) throws IOException {
    out.writeUTF(street);
    out.writeInt(zipCode);
    out.writeUTF(city);
    out.writeUTF(state);
  }

  public void readData( ObjectDataInput in ) throws IOException {
    street = in.readUTF();
    zipCode = in.readInt();
    city = in.readUTF();
    state = in.readUTF();
  }
}

Reading and Writing and DataSerializable

Let's take a look at another example which encapsulates a DataSerializable field.

Since the address field itself is DataSerializable, it calls address.writeData(out) when writing and address.readData(in) when reading. Also note that you should have writing and reading of the fields occur in the same order. When Hazelcast serializes a DataSerializable, it writes the className first. When Hazelcast deserializes it, className is used to instantiate the object using reflection.

public class Employee implements DataSerializable {
  private String firstName;
  private String lastName;
  private int age;
  private double salary;
  private Address address; //address itself is DataSerializable

  public Employee() {}

  //getters setters..

  public void writeData( ObjectDataOutput out ) throws IOException {
    out.writeUTF(firstName);
    out.writeUTF(lastName);
    out.writeInt(age);
    out.writeDouble (salary);
    address.writeData (out);
  }

  public void readData( ObjectDataInput in ) throws IOException {
    firstName = in.readUTF();
    lastName = in.readUTF();
    age = in.readInt();
    salary = in.readDouble();
    address = new Address();
    // since Address is DataSerializable let it read its own internal state
    address.readData(in);
  }
}

As you can see, since the address field itself is DataSerializable, it calls address.writeData(out) when writing and address.readData(in) when reading. Also note that you should have writing and reading of the fields occur in the same order. While Hazelcast serializes a DataSerializable, it writes the className first. When Hazelcast deserializes it, className is used to instantiate the object using reflection.

NOTE: Since Hazelcast needs to create an instance during deserialization,DataSerializable class has a no-arg constructor.

NOTE: DataSerializable is a good option if serialization is only needed for in-cluster communication.

NOTE: DataSerializable is not supported by non-Java clients as it uses Java reflection. If you need non-Java clients, please use IdentifiedDataSerializable or Portable.

IdentifiedDataSerializable

For a faster serialization of objects, avoiding reflection and long class names, Hazelcast recommends you implement com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.IdentifiedDataSerializable which is a slightly better version of DataSerializable.

DataSerializable uses reflection to create a class instance, as mentioned in Implementing DataSerializable. But IdentifiedDataSerializable uses a factory for this purpose and it is faster during deserialization, which requires new instance creations.

getID and getFactoryId Methods

IdentifiedDataSerializable extends DataSerializable and introduces two new methods.

• int getId();
• int getFactoryId();

IdentifiedDataSerializable uses getId() instead of class name, and it uses getFactoryId() to load the class when given the Id. To complete the implementation, you should also implement com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.DataSerializableFactory and register it into SerializationConfig, which can be accessed from Config.getSerializationConfig(). Factory's responsibility is to return an instance of the right IdentifiedDataSerializable object, given the Id. This is currently the most efficient way of Serialization that Hazelcast supports off the shelf.

Implementing IdentifiedDataSerializable

Let's take a look at the following example code and configuration to see IdentifiedDataSerializable in action.

public class Employee
    implements IdentifiedDataSerializable {

  private String surname;

  public Employee() {}

  public Employee( String surname ) { 
    this.surname = surname;
  }

  @Override
  public void readData( ObjectDataInput in ) 
      throws IOException {
    this.surname = in.readUTF();
  }

  @Override
  public void writeData( ObjectDataOutput out )
      throws IOException { 
    out.writeUTF( surname );
  }

  @Override
  public int getFactoryId() { 
    return EmployeeDataSerializableFactory.FACTORY_ID;
  }

  @Override
  public int getId() { 
    return EmployeeDataSerializableFactory.EMPLOYEE_TYPE;
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return String.format( "Employee(surname=%s)", surname ); 
  }
}

The methods getId and getFactoryId return a unique positive number within the EmployeeDataSerializableFactory. Now, let's create an instance of this EmployeeDataSerializableFactory.

public class EmployeeDataSerializableFactory 
    implements DataSerializableFactory{

  public static final int FACTORY_ID = 1;

  public static final int EMPLOYEE_TYPE = 1;

  @Override
  public IdentifiedDataSerializable create(int typeId) {
    if ( typeId == EMPLOYEE_TYPE ) { 
      return new Employee();
    } else {
      return null; 
    }
  }
}

The only method you should implement is create, as seen in the above example. It is recommended that you use a switch-case statement instead of multiple if-else blocks if you have a lot of subclasses. Hazelcast throws an exception if null is returned for typeId.

Registering EmployeeDataSerializableFactory

As the last step, you need to register EmployeeDataSerializableFactory declaratively (declare in the configuration file hazelcast.xml) as shown below. Note that factory-id has the same value of FACTORY_ID in the above code. This is crucial to enable Hazelcast to find the correct factory.

<hazelcast> 
  ...
  <serialization>
    <data-serializable-factories>
      <data-serializable-factory factory-id="1">
        EmployeeDataSerializableFactory
      </data-serializable-factory>
    </data-serializable-factories>
  </serialization>
  ...
</hazelcast>

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Serialization Configuration Wrap-Up section for a full description of Hazelcast Serialization configuration.

Implementing Portable Serialization

As an alternative to the existing serialization methods, Hazelcast offers a language/platform independent Portable serialization that has the following advantages:

• Supports multi-version of the same object type.
• Fetches individual fields without having to rely on reflection.
• Queries and indexing support without deserialization and/or reflection.

In order to support these features, a serialized Portable object contains meta information like the version and the concrete location of the each field in the binary data. This way, Hazelcast navigates in the byte[] and deserializes only the required field without actually deserializing the whole object. This improves the Query performance.

With multi-version support, you can have two cluster members where each has different versions of the same object. Hazelcast will store both meta information and use the correct one to serialize and deserialize Portable objects depending on the member. This is very helpful when you are doing a rolling upgrade without shutting down the cluster.

Portable serialization is totally language independent and is used as the binary protocol between Hazelcast server and clients.

Portable Serialization Example Code

Here is example code for Portable implementation of a Foo class.

public class Foo implements Portable{
  final static int ID = 5;

  private String foo;

  public String getFoo() {
    return foo;
  }

  public void setFoo( String foo ) {
    this.foo = foo;
  }

  @Override
  public int getFactoryId() {
    return 1;
  }

  @Override
  public int getClassId() {
    return ID;
  }

  @Override
  public void writePortable( PortableWriter writer ) throws IOException {
    writer.writeUTF( "foo", foo );
  }

  @Override
  public void readPortable( PortableReader reader ) throws IOException {
    foo = reader.readUTF( "foo" );
  }
}

Similar to IdentifiedDataSerializable, a Portable Class must provide classId and factoryId. The Factory object creates the Portable object given the classId.

An example Factory could be implemented as follows:

public class MyPortableFactory implements PortableFactory {

  @Override
  public Portable create( int classId ) {
    if ( Foo.ID == classId )
      return new Foo();
    else
      return null;
  }
}

Registering the Portable Factory

The last step is to register the Factory to the SerializationConfig. Below are the programmatic and declarative configurations for this step.

Config config = new Config();
config.getSerializationConfig().addPortableFactory( 1, new MyPortableFactory() );

<hazelcast>
  <serialization>
    <portable-version>0</portable-version>
    <portable-factories>
      <portable-factory factory-id="1">
          com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.MyPortableFactory
      </portable-factory>
    </portable-factories>
  </serialization>
</hazelcast>

Note that the id that is passed to the SerializationConfig is the same as the factoryId that the Foo class returns.

Versioning for Portable Serialization

More than one version of the same class may need to be serialized and deserialized. For example, a client may have an older version of a class, and the node to which it is connected may have a newer version of the same class.

Portable serialization supports versioning. It is a global versioning, meaning that all portable classes that are serialized through a member get the globally configured portable version.

You can declare Version in the configuration file hazelcast.xml using the portable-version element, as shown below.

<serialization>
  <portable-version>1</portable-version>
  <portable-factories>
    <portable-factory factory-id="1">
        PortableFactoryImpl
    </portable-factory>
  </portable-factories>
</serialization>

You can also use the interface VersionedPortable which enables to upgrade the version per class, instead of global versioning. If you need to update only one class, you can use this interface. In this case, your class should implement VersionedPortable instead of Portable, and you can give the desired version using the method VersionedPortable.getClassVersion().

You should consider the following when you perform versioning.

• It is important to change the version whenever an update is performed in the serialized fields of a class (e.g. increment the version).
• If a client performs a Portable deserialization on a field, and then that Portable is updated by removing that field on the cluster side, this may lead to a problem.
• Portable serialization does not use reflection and hence, fields in the class and in the serialized content are not automatically mapped. Field renaming is a simpler process. Also, since the class ID is stored, renaming the Portable does not lead to problems.
• Types of fields need to be updated carefully. Hazelcast performs basic type upgradings (e.g. int to float).

Example Portable Versioning Scenarios

Assume that a new member joins to the cluster with a class that has been modified and class' version has been upgraded due to this modification.

• If you modified the class by adding a new field, the new member's put operations will include that new field. If this new member tries to get an object that was put from the older members, it will get null for the newly added field.
• If you modified the class by removing a field, the old members get null for the objects that are put by the new member.
• If you modified the class by changing the type of a field, the error IncompatibleClassChangeError is generated unless the change was made on a built-in type or the byte size of the new type is less than or equal to the old one. The following are example allowed type conversions:
  • long -> int, byte, char, short
  • int-> byte, char, short

If you have not modify a class at all, it will work as usual.

Null Portable Serialization

Be careful with serializing null portables. Hazelcast lazily creates a class definition of portable internally when the user first serializes. This class definition is stored and used later for deserializing that portable class. When the user tries to serialize a null portable when there is no class definition at the moment, Hazelcast throws an exception saying that com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.HazelcastSerializationException: Cannot write null portable without explicitly registering class definition!.

There are two solutions to get rid of this exception. Either put a non-null portable class of the same type before any other operation, or manually register a class definition in serialization configuration as shown below.

Config config = new Config();
final ClassDefinition classDefinition = new ClassDefinitionBuilder(Foo.factoryId, Foo.getClassId)
                       .addUTFField("foo").build();
config.getSerializationConfig().addClassDefinition(classDefinition);
Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);

DistributedObject Serialization

Putting a DistributedObject (Hazelcast Semaphore, Queue, etc.) in a cluster member and getting it from another one is not a straightforward operation. Passing the ID and type of the DistributedObject can be a solution. For deserialization, you can get the object from HazelcastInstance. For instance, if your object is an instance of IQueue, you can either use HazelcastInstance.getQueue(id) or Hazelcast.getDistributedObject.

You can use the HazelcastInstanceAware interface in the case of a deserialization of a Portable DistributedObject if it gets an ID to be looked up. HazelcastInstance is set after deserialization, so you first need to store the ID and then retrieve the DistributedObject using the setHazelcastInstance method.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Serialization Configuration Wrap-Up section for a full description of Hazelcast Serialization configuration.

Custom Serialization

Hazelcast lets you plug in a custom serializer for serializing your objects. You can use StreamSerializer and ByteArraySerializer interfaces for this purpose.

Implementing StreamSerializer

You can use a stream to serialize and deserialize data by using StreamSerializer. This is a good option for your own implementations. It can also be adapted to external serialization libraries like Kryo, JSON, and protocol buffers.

StreamSerializer Example Code 1

First, let's create a simple object.

public class Employee {
  private String surname;

  public Employee( String surname ) {
    this.surname = surname;
  }
}

Now, let's implement StreamSerializer for Employee class.

public class EmployeeStreamSerializer
    implements StreamSerializer<Employee> {

  @Override
  public int getTypeId () {
    return 1; 
  }

  @Override
  public void write( ObjectDataOutput out, Employee employee )
      throws IOException { 
    out.writeUTF(employee.getSurname());
  }

  @Override
  public Employee read( ObjectDataInput in ) 
      throws IOException { 
    String surname = in.readUTF();
    return new Employee(surname);
  }

  @Override
  public void destroy () { 
  }
}

In practice, classes may have many fields. Just make sure the fields are read in the same order as they are written. The type ID must be unique and greater than or equal to 1. Uniqueness of the type ID enables Hazelcast to determine which serializer will be used during deserialization.

As the last step, let's register the EmployeeStreamSerializer in the configuration file hazelcast.xml, as shown below.

<serialization>
  <serializers>
    <serializer type-class="Employee" class-name="EmployeeStreamSerializer" />
  </serializers>
</serialization>

NOTE: StreamSerializer cannot be created for well-known types (e.g. Long, String) and primitive arrays. Hazelcast already registers these types.

StreamSerializer Example Code 2

Let's take a look at another example implementing StreamSerializer.

public class Foo {
  private String foo;

  public String getFoo() {
    return foo;
  }

  public void setFoo( String foo ) {
    this.foo = foo;
  }
}

Assume that our custom serialization will serialize Foo into XML. First you need to implement a com.hazelcast.nio.serialization.StreamSerializer. A very simple one that uses XMLEncoder and XMLDecoder could look like the following:

public static class FooXmlSerializer implements StreamSerializer<Foo> {

  @Override
  public int getTypeId() {
    return 10;
  }

  @Override
  public void write( ObjectDataOutput out, Foo object ) throws IOException {
    ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    XMLEncoder encoder = new XMLEncoder( bos );
    encoder.writeObject( object );
    encoder.close();
    out.write( bos.toByteArray() );
  }

  @Override
  public Foo read( ObjectDataInput in ) throws IOException {
    InputStream inputStream = (InputStream) in;
    XMLDecoder decoder = new XMLDecoder( inputStream );
    return (Foo) decoder.readObject();
  }

  @Override
  public void destroy() {
  }
}

Configuring StreamSerializer

Note that typeId must be unique because Hazelcast will use it to look up the StreamSerializer while it deserializes the object. The last required step is to register the StreamSerializer in your Hazelcast configuration. Below are the programmatic and declarative configurations for this step.

SerializerConfig sc = new SerializerConfig()
    .setImplementation(new FooXmlSerializer())
    .setTypeClass(Foo.class);
Config config = new Config();
config.getSerializationConfig().addSerializerConfig(sc);

<hazelcast>
  <serialization>
    <serializers>
      <serializer type-class="com.www.Foo" class-name="com.www.FooXmlSerializer" />
    </serializers>
  </serialization>
</hazelcast>

From now on, this Hazelcast example will use FooXmlSerializer to serialize Foo objects. In this way, you can write an adapter (StreamSerializer) for any Serialization framework and plug it into Hazelcast.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Serialization Configuration Wrap-Up section for a full description of Hazelcast Serialization configuration.

Implementing ByteArraySerializer

ByteArraySerializer exposes the raw ByteArray used internally by Hazelcast. It is a good option if the serialization library you are using deals with ByteArrays instead of streams.

Let's implement ByteArraySerializer for the Employee class mentioned in Implementing StreamSerializer.

public class EmployeeByteArraySerializer
    implements ByteArraySerializer<Employee> {

  @Override
  public void destroy () { 
  }

  @Override
  public int getTypeId () {
    return 1; 
  }

  @Override
  public byte[] write( Employee object )
      throws IOException { 
    return object.getName().getBytes();
  }

  @Override
  public Employee read( byte[] buffer ) 
      throws IOException { 
    String surname = new String( buffer );
    return new Employee( surname );
  }
}

Configuring ByteArraySerializer

As usual, let's register the EmployeeByteArraySerializer in the configuration file hazelcast.xml, as shown below.

<serialization>
  <serializers>
    <serializer type-class="Employee">EmployeeByteArraySerializer</serializer>
  </serializers>
</serialization>

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Serialization Configuration Wrap-Up section for a full description of Hazelcast Serialization configuration.

Global Serializer

The global serializer is identical to custom serializers from the implementation perspective. The global serializer is registered as a fallback serializer to handle all other objects if a serializer cannot be located for them.

By default, the global serializer does not handle java.io.Serializable and java.io.Externalizable instances. However, you can configure it to be responsible for those instances.

A custom serializer should be registered for a specific class type. The global serializer will handle all class types if all the steps in searching for a serializer fail as described in Serialization Interface Types.

Use cases

• Third party serialization frameworks can be integrated using the global serializer.

• For your custom objects, you can implement a single serializer to handle all of them.

• You can replace the internal Java serialization by enabling the overrideJavaSerialization option of the global serializer configuration.

Any custom serializer can be used as the global serializer. Please refer to the Custom Serialization section for implementation details.

NOTE: To function properly, Hazelcast needs the Java serializable objects to be handled correctly. If the global serializer is configured to handle the Java serialization, the global serializer must properly serialize/deserialize the java.io.Serializable instances. Otherwise, it causes Hazelcast to malfunction.

Sample Global Serializer

A sample global serializer that integrates with a third party serializer is shown below.

public class GlobalStreamSerializer
    implements StreamSerializer<Object> {

  private SomeThirdPartySerializer someThirdPartySerializer;

  private init() {
    //someThirdPartySerializer  = ... 
  }

  @Override
  public int getTypeId () {
    return 123; 
  }

  @Override
  public void write( ObjectDataOutput out, Object object ) throws IOException { 
     byte[] bytes = someThirdPartySerializer.encode(object);
     out.writeByteArray(bytes);
  }

  @Override
  public Object read( ObjectDataInput in ) throws IOException { 
    byte[] bytes = in.readByteArray();
    return someThirdPartySerializer.decode(bytes);
  }

  @Override
  public void destroy () {
     someThirdPartySerializer.destroy();
  }
}

Now, we can register the global serializer in the configuration file hazelcast.xml, as shown below.

<serialization>
  <serializers>
    <global-serializer override-java-serialization="true">GlobalStreamSerializer</global-serializer>
  </serializers>
</serialization>

Implementing HazelcastInstanceAware

You can implement the HazelcastInstanceAware interface to access distributed objects for cases where an object is deserialized and needs access to HazelcastInstance.

Let's implement it for the Employee class mentioned in the Custom Serialization section.

public class Employee
    implements Serializable, HazelcastInstanceAware { 

  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
  private String surname;
  private transient HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance;

  public Person( String surname ) { 
    this.surname = surname;
  }

  @Override
  public void setHazelcastInstance( HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance ) {
    this.hazelcastInstance = hazelcastInstance;
    System.out.println( "HazelcastInstance set" ); 
  }

  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return String.format( "Person(surname=%s)", surname ); 
  }
}

After deserialization, the object is checked to see if it implements HazelcastInstanceAware and the method setHazelcastInstance is called. Notice the hazelcastInstance is transient. This is because this field should not be serialized.

It may be a good practice to inject a HazelcastInstance into a domain object (e.g. Employee in the above sample) when used together with Runnable/Callable implementations. These runnables/callables are executed by IExecutorService which sends them to another machine. And after a task is deserialized, run/call method implementations need to access HazelcastInstance.

We recommend you only set the HazelcastInstance field while using setHazelcastInstance method and you not execute operations on the HazelcastInstance. The reason is that when HazelcastInstance is injected for a HazelcastInstanceAware implementation, it may not be up and running at the injection time.

Serialization Configuration Wrap-Up

This section summarizes the configuration of serialization options, explained in the above sections, into all-in-one examples. The following are example serialization configurations.

Declarative:

<serialization>
   <portable-version>2</portable-version>
   <use-native-byte-order>true</use-native-byte-order>
   <byte-order>BIG_ENDIAN</byte-order>
   <enable-compression>true</enable-compression>
   <enable-shared-object>false</enable-shared-object>
   <allow-unsafe>true</allow-unsafe>
   <data-serializable-factories>
      <data-serializable-factory factory-id="1001">
          abc.xyz.Class
      </data-serializable-factory>
   </data-serializable-factories>
   <portable-factories>
      <portable-factory factory-id="9001">
         xyz.abc.Class
      </portable-factory>
   </portable-factories>
   <serializers>
      <global-serializer>abc.Class</global-serializer>
      <serializer type-class="Employee" class-name="com.EmployeeSerializer">
      </serializer>
   </serializers>
   <check-class-def-errors>true</check-class-def-errors>
</serialization>

Programmatic:

Config config = new Config();
SerializationConfig srzConfig = config.getSerializationConfig();
srzConfig.setPortableVersion( "2" ).setUseNativeByteOrder( true );
srzConfig.setAllowUnsafe( true ).setEnableCompression( true );
srzConfig.setCheckClassDefErrors( true );

GlobalSerializerConfig globSrzConfig = srzConfig.getGlobalSerializerConfig();
globSrzConfig.setClassName( "abc.Class" );

SerializerConfig serializerConfig = srzConfig.getSerializerConfig();
serializerConfig.setTypeClass( "Employee" )
                .setClassName( "com.EmployeeSerializer" );

Serialization configuration has the following elements.

• portable-version: Defines versioning of the portable serialization. Portable version differentiates two of the same classes that have changes, such as adding/removing field or changing a type of a field.
• use-native-byte-order: Set to true to use native byte order for the underlying platform.
• byte-order: Defines the byte order that the serialization will use: BIG_ENDIAN or LITTLE_ENDIAN. The default value is BIG_ENDIAN.
• enable-compression: Enables compression if default Java serialization is used.
• enable-shared-object: Enables shared object if default Java serialization is used.
• allow-unsafe: Set to true to allow unsafe to be used.
• data-serializable-factory: The DataSerializableFactory class to be registered.
• portable-factory: The PortableFactory class to be registered.
• global-serializer: The global serializer class to be registered if no other serializer is applicable.
• serializer: The class name of the serializer implementation.
• check-class-def-errors: When set to true, the serialization system will check for class definitions error at start and will throw a Serialization Exception with an error definition.

Management

This chapter provides information on managing and monitoring your Hazelcast cluster. It gives detailed instructions related to gathering statistics, monitoring via JMX protocol, and managing the cluster with useful utilities. It also explains how to use Hazelcast Management Center.

Getting Member Statistics from Distributed Data Structures

You can get various statistics from your distributed data structures via the Statistics API. Since the data structures are distributed in the cluster, the Statistics API provides statistics for the local portion (1/Number of Members in the Cluster) of data on each member (or node).

Map Statistics

To get local map statistics, use the getLocalMapStats() method from the IMap interface. This method returns a LocalMapStats object that holds local map statistics.

Below is example code where the getLocalMapStats() method and the getOwnedEntryCount() method get the number of entries owned by this member.

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IMap<String, Customer> customers = hazelcastInstance.getMap( "customers" );
LocalMapStats mapStatistics = customers.getLocalMapStats;
System.out.println( "number of entries owned on this node = "
    + mapStatistics.getOwnedEntryCount() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the LocalMapStats object.

/**
 * Returns the number of entries owned by this member.
 */
long getOwnedEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of backup entries hold by this member.
 */
long getBackupEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of backups per entry.
 */
int getBackupCount();

/**
 * Returns memory cost (number of bytes) of owned entries in this member.
 */
long getOwnedEntryMemoryCost();

/**
 * Returns memory cost (number of bytes) of backup entries in this member.
 */
long getBackupEntryMemoryCost();

/**
 * Returns the creation time of this map on this member.
 */
long getCreationTime();

/**
 * Returns the last access (read) time of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getLastAccessTime();

/**
 * Returns the last update time of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getLastUpdateTime();

/**
 * Returns the number of hits (reads) of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getHits();

/**
 * Returns the number of currently locked locally owned keys.
 */
long getLockedEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of entries that the member owns and are dirty (updated
 * but not persisted yet).
 * dirty entry count is meaningful when there is a persistence defined.
 */
long getDirtyEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of put operations.
 */
long getPutOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of get operations.
 */
long getGetOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of Remove operations.
 */
long getRemoveOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of put operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by number of puts
 */
long getTotalPutLatency();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of get operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getTotalGetLatency();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of remove operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getTotalRemoveLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of put operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of puts.
 */
long getMaxPutLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of get operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getMaxGetLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of remove operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getMaxRemoveLatency();

/**
 * Returns the number of Events Received.
 */
long getEventOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total number of Other Operations.
 */
long getOtherOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total number of total operations.
 */
long total();

/**
 * Cost of map & near cache & backup in bytes.
 * todo: in object mode, object size is zero.
 */
long getHeapCost();

/**
 * Returns statistics related to the Near Cache.
 */
NearCacheStats getNearCacheStats();

Near Cache Statistics

To get Near Cache statistics, use the getNearCacheStats() method from the LocalMapStats object. This method returns a NearCacheStats object that holds Near Cache statistics.

Below is example code where the getNearCacheStats() method and the getRatio method from NearCacheStats get a Near Cache hit/miss ratio.

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IMap<String, Customer> customers = node.getMap( "customers" );
LocalMapStats mapStatistics = customers.getLocalMapStats();
NearCacheStats nearCacheStatistics = mapStatistics.getNearCacheStats();
System.out.println( "near cache hit/miss ratio= "
    + nearCacheStatistics.getRatio() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the NearCacheStats object. This behavior applies to both client and node near caches.

/**
 * Returns the creation time of this NearCache on this member
 */
long getCreationTime();

/**
 * Returns the number of entries owned by this member.
 */
long getOwnedEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns memory cost (number of bytes) of entries in this cache.
 */
long getOwnedEntryMemoryCost();

/**
 * Returns the number of hits (reads) of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getHits();

/**
 * Returns the number of misses  of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getMisses();

/**
 * Returns the hit/miss ratio  of the locally owned entries.
 */
double getRatio();

Multimap Statistics

To get MultiMap statistics, use the getLocalMultiMapStats() method from the MultiMap interface. This method returns a LocalMultiMapStats object that holds local MultiMap statistics.

Below is example code where the getLocalMultiMapStats() method and the getLastUpdateTime method from LocalMultiMapStats get the last update time.

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
MultiMap<String, Customer> customers = node.getMultiMap( "customers" );
LocalMultiMapStats multiMapStatistics = customers.getLocalMultiMapStats();
System.out.println( "last update time =  "
    + multiMapStatistics.getLastUpdateTime() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the LocalMultiMapStats object.

/**
 * Returns the number of entries owned by this member.
 */
long getOwnedEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of backup entries hold by this member.
 */
long getBackupEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of backups per entry.
 */
int getBackupCount();

/**
 * Returns memory cost (number of bytes) of owned entries in this member.
 */
long getOwnedEntryMemoryCost();

/**
 * Returns memory cost (number of bytes) of backup entries in this member.
 */
long getBackupEntryMemoryCost();

/**
 * Returns the creation time of this map on this member.
 */
long getCreationTime();

/**
 * Returns the last access (read) time of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getLastAccessTime();

/**
 * Returns the last update time of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getLastUpdateTime();

/**
 * Returns the number of hits (reads) of the locally owned entries.
 */
long getHits();

/**
 * Returns the number of currently locked locally owned keys.
 */
long getLockedEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of entries that the member owns and are dirty (updated
 * but not persisted yet).
 * Dirty entry count is meaningful when a persistence is defined.
 */
long getDirtyEntryCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of put operations.
 */
long getPutOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of get operations.
 */
long getGetOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of Remove operations.
 */
long getRemoveOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of put operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of puts.
 */
long getTotalPutLatency();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of get operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getTotalGetLatency();

/**
 * Returns the total latency of remove operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getTotalRemoveLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of put operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of puts.
 */
long getMaxPutLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of get operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getMaxGetLatency();

/**
 * Returns the maximum latency of remove operations. To get the average latency,
 * divide by the number of gets.
 */
long getMaxRemoveLatency();

/**
 * Returns the number of Events Received.
 */
long getEventOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total number of Other Operations.
 */
long getOtherOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total number of total operations.
 */
long total();

/**
 * Cost of map & near cache  & backup in bytes.
 * todo: in object mode, object size is zero.
 */
long getHeapCost();

Queue Statistics

To get local queue statistics, use the getLocalQueueStats() method from the IQueue interface. This method returns a LocalQueueStats object that holds local queue statistics.

Below is example code where the getLocalQueueStats() method and the getAvgAge method from LocalQueueStats get the average age of items.

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IQueue<Order> orders = node.getQueue( "orders" );
LocalQueueStats queueStatistics = orders.getLocalQueueStats();
System.out.println( "average age of items = " 
    + queueStatistics.getAvgAge() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the LocalQueueStats object.

/**
 * Returns the number of owned items in this member.
 */
long getOwnedItemCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of backup items in this member.
 */
long getBackupItemCount();

/**
 * Returns the min age of the items in this member.
 */
long getMinAge();

/**
 * Returns the max age of the items in this member.
 */
long getMaxAge();

/**
 * Returns the average age of the items in this member.
 */
long getAvgAge();

/**
 * Returns the number of offer/put/add operations.
 * Offers returning false will be included.
 * #getRejectedOfferOperationCount can be used
 * to get the rejected offers.
 */
long getOfferOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of rejected offers. Offer
 * can be rejected because of max-size limit
 * on the queue.
 */
long getRejectedOfferOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of poll/take/remove operations.
 * Polls returning null (empty) will be included.
 * #getEmptyPollOperationCount can be used to get the
 * number of polls returned null.
 */
long getPollOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of null returning poll operations.
 * Poll operation might return null if the queue is empty.
 */
long getEmptyPollOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of other operations.
 */
long getOtherOperationsCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of event operations.
 */
long getEventOperationCount();

Topic Statistics

To get local topic statistics, use the getLocalTopicStats() method from the ITopic interface. This method returns a LocalTopicStats object that holds local topic statistics.

Below is example code where the getLocalTopicStats() method and the getPublishOperationCount method from LocalTopicStats get the number of publish operations.

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
ITopic<Object> news = node.getTopic( "news" );
LocalTopicStats topicStatistics = news.getLocalTopicStats();
System.out.println( "number of publish operations = " 
    + topicStatistics.getPublishOperationCount() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the LocalTopicStats object.

/**
 * Returns the creation time of this topic on this member.
 */
long getCreationTime();

/**
 * Returns the total number of published messages of this topic on this member.
 */
long getPublishOperationCount();

/**
 * Returns the total number of received messages of this topic on this member.
 */
long getReceiveOperationCount();

Executor Statistics

To get local executor statistics, use the getLocalExecutorStats() method from the IExecutorService interface. This method returns a LocalExecutorStats object that holds local executor statistics.

Below is example code where the getLocalExecutorStats() method and the getCompletedTaskCount method from LocalExecutorStats get the number of completed operations of the executor service.

HazelcastInstance node = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
IExecutorService orderProcessor = node.getExecutorService( "orderProcessor" );
LocalExecutorStats executorStatistics = orderProcessor.getLocalExecutorStats();
System.out.println( "completed task count = " 
    + executorStatistics.getCompletedTaskCount() );

Below is the list of metrics that you can access via the LocalExecutorStats object.

/**
 * Returns the number of pending operations of the executor service.
 */
long getPendingTaskCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of started operations of the executor service.
 */
long getStartedTaskCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of completed operations of the executor service.
 */
long getCompletedTaskCount();

/**
 * Returns the number of cancelled operations of the executor service.
 */
long getCancelledTaskCount();

/**
 * Returns the total start latency of operations started.
 */
long getTotalStartLatency();

/**
 * Returns the total execution time of operations finished.
 */
long getTotalExecutionLatency();

JMX API per Node

Hazelcast members expose various management beans which include statistics about distributed data structures and the states of Hazelcast node internals.

The metrics are local to the nodes, i.e. they do not reflect cluster wide values.

You can find the JMX API definition below with descriptions and the API methods in parenthesis.

Atomic Long (IAtomicLong)

• Name ( name )
• Current Value ( currentValue )
• Set Value ( set(v) )
• Add value and Get ( addAndGet(v) )
• Compare and Set ( compareAndSet(e,v) )
• Decrement and Get ( decrementAndGet() )
• Get and Add ( getAndAdd(v) )
• Get and Increment ( getAndIncrement() )
• Get and Set ( getAndSet(v) )
• Increment and Get ( incrementAndGet() )
• Partition key ( partitionKey )

Atomic Reference ( IAtomicReference )

• Name ( name )
• Partition key ( partitionKey)

Countdown Latch ( ICountDownLatch )

• Name ( name )
• Current count ( count)
• Countdown ( countDown() )
• Partition key ( partitionKey)

Executor Service ( IExecutorService )

• Local pending operation count ( localPendingTaskCount )
• Local started operation count ( localStartedTaskCount )
• Local completed operation count ( localCompletedTaskCount )
• Local cancelled operation count ( localCancelledTaskCount )
• Local total start latency ( localTotalStartLatency )
• Local total execution latency ( localTotalExecutionLatency )

List ( IList )

• Name ( name )
• Clear list ( clear )

Lock ( ILock )

• Name ( name )
• Lock Object ( lockObject )
• Partition key ( partitionKey )

Map ( IMap )

• Name ( name )
• Size ( size )
• Config ( config )
• Owned entry count ( localOwnedEntryCount )
• Owned entry memory cost ( localOwnedEntryMemoryCost )
• Backup entry count ( localBackupEntryCount )
• Backup entry cost ( localBackupEntryMemoryCost )
• Backup count ( localBackupCount )
• Creation time ( localCreationTime )
• Last access time ( localLastAccessTime )
• Last update time ( localLastUpdateTime )
• Hits ( localHits )
• Locked entry count ( localLockedEntryCount )
• Dirty entry count ( localDirtyEntryCount )
• Put operation count ( localPutOperationCount )
• Get operation count ( localGetOperationCount )
• Remove operation count ( localRemoveOperationCount )
• Total put latency ( localTotalPutLatency )
• Total get latency ( localTotalGetLatency )
• Total remove latency ( localTotalRemoveLatency )
• Max put latency ( localMaxPutLatency )
• Max get latency ( localMaxGetLatency )
• Max remove latency ( localMaxRemoveLatency )
• Event count ( localEventOperationCount )
• Other (keySet,entrySet etc..) operation count ( localOtherOperationCount )
• Total operation count ( localTotal )
• Heap Cost ( localHeapCost )
• Clear ( clear() )
• Values ( values(p))
• Entry Set ( entrySet(p) )

MultiMap ( MultiMap )

• Name ( name )
• Size ( size )
• Owned entry count ( localOwnedEntryCount )
• Owned entry memory cost ( localOwnedEntryMemoryCost )
• Backup entry count ( localBackupEntryCount )
• Backup entry cost ( localBackupEntryMemoryCost )
• Backup count ( localBackupCount )
• Creation time ( localCreationTime )
• Last access time ( localLastAccessTime )
• Last update time ( localLastUpdateTime )
• Hits ( localHits )
• Locked entry count ( localLockedEntryCount )
• Put operation count ( localPutOperationCount )
• Get operation count ( localGetOperationCount )
• Remove operation count ( localRemoveOperationCount )
• Total put latency ( localTotalPutLatency )
• Total get latency ( localTotalGetLatency )
• Total remove latency ( localTotalRemoveLatency )
• Max put latency ( localMaxPutLatency )
• Max get latency ( localMaxGetLatency )
• Max remove latency ( localMaxRemoveLatency )
• Event count ( localEventOperationCount )
• Other (keySet,entrySet etc..) operation count ( localOtherOperationCount )
• Total operation count ( localTotal )
• Clear ( clear() )

Replicated Map ( ReplicatedMap )

• Name ( name )
• Size ( size )
• Config ( config )
• Owned entry count ( localOwnedEntryCount )
• Creation time ( localCreationTime )
• Last access time ( localLastAccessTime )
• Last update time ( localLastUpdateTime )
• Hits ( localHits )
• Put operation count ( localPutOperationCount )
• Get operation count ( localGetOperationCount )
• Remove operation count ( localRemoveOperationCount )
• Total put latency ( localTotalPutLatency )
• Total get latency ( localTotalGetLatency )
• Total remove latency ( localTotalRemoveLatency )
• Max put latency ( localMaxPutLatency )
• Max get latency ( localMaxGetLatency )
• Max remove latency ( localMaxRemoveLatency )
• Event count ( localEventOperationCount )
• Replication event count ( localReplicationEventCount )
• Other (keySet,entrySet etc..) operation count ( localOtherOperationCount )
• Total operation count ( localTotal )
• Clear ( clear() )
• Values ( values())
• Entry Set ( entrySet() )

Queue ( IQueue )

• Name ( name )
• Config ( QueueConfig )
• Partition key ( partitionKey )
• Owned item count ( localOwnedItemCount )
• Backup item count ( localBackupItemCount )
• Minimum age ( localMinAge )
• Maximum age ( localMaxAge )
• Average age ( localAveAge )
• Offer operation count ( localOfferOperationCount )
• Rejected offer operation count ( localRejectedOfferOperationCount )
• Poll operation count ( localPollOperationCount )
• Empty poll operation count ( localEmptyPollOperationCount )
• Other operation count ( localOtherOperationsCount )
• Event operation count ( localEventOperationCount )
• Clear ( clear() )

Semaphore ( ISemaphore )

• Name ( name )
• Available permits ( available )
• Partition key ( partitionKey )
• Drain ( drain())
• Shrink available permits by given number ( reduce(v) )
• Release given number of permits ( release(v) )

Set ( ISet )

• Name ( name )
• Partition key ( partitionKey )
• Clear ( clear() )

Topic ( ITopic )

• Name ( name )
• Config ( config )
• Creation time ( localCreationTime )
• Publish operation count ( localPublishOperationCount )
• Receive operation count ( localReceiveOperationCount )

Hazelcast Instance ( HazelcastInstance )

• Name ( name )
• Version ( version )
• Build ( build )
• Configuration ( config )
• Configuration source ( configSource )
• Group name ( groupName )
• Network Port ( port )
• Cluster-wide Time ( clusterTime )
• Size of the cluster ( memberCount )
• List of members ( Members )
• Running state ( running )
• Shutdown the member ( shutdown() )

• Node ( HazelcastInstance.Node )
  • Address ( address )
  • Master address ( masterAddress )

• Event Service ( HazelcastInstance.EventService )
  • Event thread count ( eventThreadCount )
  • Event queue size ( eventQueueSize )
  • Event queue capacity ( eventQueueCapacity )

• Operation Service ( HazelcastInstance.OperationService )

  • Response queue size ( responseQueueSize )
  • Operation executor queue size ( operationExecutorQueueSize )
  • Running operation count ( runningOperationsCount )
  • Remote operation count ( remoteOperationCount )
  • Executed operation count ( executedOperationCount )
  • Operation thread count ( operationThreadCount )

• Proxy Service ( HazelcastInstance.ProxyService )

  • Proxy count ( proxyCount )

• Partition Service ( HazelcastInstance.PartitionService )

  • Partition count ( partitionCount )
  • Active partition count ( activePartitionCount )
  • Cluster Safe State ( isClusterSafe )
  • LocalMember Safe State ( isLocalMemberSafe )

• Connection Manager ( HazelcastInstance.ConnectionManager )

  • Client connection count ( clientConnectionCount )
  • Active connection count ( activeConnectionCount )
  • Connection count ( connectionCount )

• Client Engine ( HazelcastInstance.ClientEngine )

  • Client endpoint count ( clientEndpointCount )

• System Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• Operation Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• Async Executor (HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService)

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• Scheduled Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• Client Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• Query Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

• IO Executor ( HazelcastInstance.ManagedExecutorService )

  • Name ( name )
  • Work queue size ( queueSize )
  • Thread count of the pool ( poolSize )
  • Maximum thread count of the pool ( maximumPoolSize )
  • Remaining capacity of the work queue ( remainingQueueCapacity )
  • Is shutdown ( isShutdown )
  • Is terminated ( isTerminated )
  • Completed task count ( completedTaskCount )

Monitoring with JMX

You can monitor your Hazelcast members via the JMX protocol.

To achieve this, first add the following system properties to enable JMX agent:

• -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote
• -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=\_portNo\_ (to specify JMX port, the default is 1099) (optional)
• -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false (to disable JMX auth) (optional)

Then enable the Hazelcast property hazelcast.jmx (please refer to the System Properties section) using one of the following ways:

• By declarative configuration:

<properties>
   <property name="hazelcast.jmx">true</property>
</properties>

• By programmatic configuration:

config.setProperty(GroupProperty.ENABLE_JMX, "true");

• By Spring XML configuration:

<hz:properties>
  <hz: property name="hazelcast.jmx">true</hz:property>
</hz:properties>

• By setting the system property -Dhazelcast.jmx=true

MBean Naming for Hazelcast Data Structures

Hazelcast set the naming convention for MBeans as follows:

final ObjectName mapMBeanName = new ObjectName("com.hazelcast:instance=_hzInstance_1_dev,type=IMap,name=trial");

The MBeans name consists of the Hazelcast instance name, the type of the data structure, and that data structure's name. In the above sample, _hzInstance_1_dev is the instance name, we connect to an IMap with the name trial.

Connecting to JMX Agent

One of the ways you can connect to JMX agent is using jconsole, jvisualvm (with MBean plugin) or another JMX compliant monitoring tool.

The other way to connect is to use a custom JMX client.

First, you need to specify the URL where the Hazelcast JMX service is running. Please see the following sample code snippet. The port in this sample should be the one that you define while setting the JMX remote port number (if different than the default port 1099).

// Parameters for connecting to the JMX Service
int port = 1099;
String hostname = InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostName();
JMXServiceURL url = new JMXServiceURL("service:jmx:rmi://" + hostname + ":" + port + "/jndi/rmi://" + hostname + ":" + port + "/jmxrmi");

Then use the URL you acquired to connect to the JMX service and get the JMXConnector object. Using this object, get the MBeanServerConnection object. The MBeanServerConnection object will enable you to use the MBean methods. Please see the example code below.

// Connect to the JMX Service
JMXConnector jmxc = JMXConnectorFactory.connect(url, null);
MBeanServerConnection mbsc = jmxc.getMBeanServerConnection();

Once you get the MBeanServerConnection object, you can call the getter methods of MBeans as follows:

System.out.println("\nTotal entries on map " + mbsc.getAttribute(mapMBeanName, "name") + " : "
                + mbsc.getAttribute(mapMBeanName, "localOwnedEntryCount"));

Cluster Utilities

This section provides information on programmatic utilities you can use to listen to the cluster events, to change the state of your cluster, to check whether the cluster and/or members are safe before shutting down a member, and to define the minimum number of cluster members required for the cluster to remain up and running. It also gives information on the Hazelcast Lite Member.

Getting Member Events and Member Sets

Hazelcast allows you to register for membership events so you will be notified when members are added or removed. You can also get the set of cluster members.

The following example code does the above: registers for member events, notified when members are added or removed, and gets the set of cluster members.

import com.hazelcast.core.*;

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
Cluster cluster = hazelcastInstance.getCluster();
cluster.addMembershipListener( new MembershipListener() {
  public void memberAdded( MembershipEvent membershipEvent ) {
    System.out.println( "MemberAdded " + membershipEvent );
  }

  public void memberRemoved( MembershipEvent membershipEvent ) {
    System.out.println( "MemberRemoved " + membershipEvent );
  }
} );

Member localMember  = cluster.getLocalMember();
System.out.println ( "my inetAddress= " + localMember.getInetAddress() );

Set setMembers  = cluster.getMembers();
for ( Member member : setMembers ) {
  System.out.println( "isLocalMember " + member.localMember() );
  System.out.println( "member.inetaddress " + member.getInetAddress() );
  System.out.println( "member.port " + member.getPort() );
}

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Membership Listener section for more information on membership events.

Managing Cluster and Member States

With the release of 3.6, Hazelcast introduces cluster and member states in addition to the default ACTIVE state. This section explains these states of Hazelcast clusters and members which you can use to allow or restrict the designated cluster/member operations.

Cluster States

By changing the state of your cluster, you can allow/restrict several cluster operations or change the behavior of those operations. You can use the methods changeClusterState() and shutdown() which are in the Cluster interface to change your cluster's state.

Hazelcast clusters have the following states:

• ACTIVE: This is the default cluster state. Cluster continues to operate without restrictions.
  
  
• FROZEN:
  • In this state, the partition table is frozen and partition assignments are not performed.
  • Your cluster does not accept new members.
  • If a member leaves, it can join back. Its partition assignments (both primary and replica) remain the same until either it joins back or the cluster state is changed to ACTIVE. When it joins back to the cluster, it will own all previous partition assignments as it was. On the other hand, when the cluster state changes to ACTIVE, re-partitioning starts and unassigned partitions are assigned to the active members.
  • All other operations in the cluster, except migration, continue without restrictions.
  • You cannot change the state of a cluster to FROZEN when migration/replication tasks are being performed.
    
    
• PASSIVE:
  • In this state, the partition table is frozen and partition assignments are not performed.
  • Your cluster does not accept new members.
  • If a member leaves while the cluster is in this state, the member will be removed from the partition table if cluster state moves back to ACTIVE.
  • This state rejects ALL operations immediately EXCEPT the read-only operations like map.get() and cache.get(), replication and cluster heartbeat tasks.
  • You cannot change the state of a cluster to PASSIVE when migration/replication tasks are being performed.
    
    
• IN_TRANSITION:
  • This state shows that the state of the cluster is in transition.
  • You cannot set your cluster's state as IN_TRANSITION explicitly.
  • It is a temporary and intermediate state.
  • During this state, your cluster does not accept new members and migration/replication tasks are paused.

NOTE: All in-cluster methods are fail-fast, i.e. when a method fails in the cluster, it throws an exception immediately (it will not be retried).

The following snippet is from the Cluster interface showing the new methods used to manage your cluster's states.

public interface Cluster {
...
...
    ClusterState getClusterState();
    void changeClusterState(ClusterState newState);
    void changeClusterState(ClusterState newState, TransactionOptions transactionOptions);
    void shutdown();
    void shutdown(TransactionOptions transactionOptions);

Please refer to the Cluster interface for information on these methods.

Cluster Member States

Hazelcast cluster members have the following states:

• ACTIVE: This is the initial member state. The member can execute and process all operations. When the state of the cluster is ACTIVE or FROZEN, the members are in the ACTIVE state.
  
  
• PASSIVE: In this state, member rejects all operations EXCEPT the read-only ones, replication and migration operations, heartbeat operations, and the join operations as explained in the Cluster States section above. A member can go into this state when either of the following happens:
  1. Until the member's shutdown process is completed after the method Node.shutdown(boolean) is called. Note that, when the shutdown process is completed, member's state changes to SHUT_DOWN.
  2. Cluster's state is changed to PASSIVE using the method changeClusterState().
     
     
• SHUT_DOWN: A member goes into this state when the member's shutdown process is completed. The member in this state rejects all operations and invocations. A member in this state cannot be restarted.
  
  

Using the Script cluster.sh

The script cluster.sh that comes with the Hazelcast package is used to get/change the state of your cluster, to shutdown your cluster and to force your cluster to clean its persisted data and make a fresh start. The latter is the Force Start operation of Hazelcast's Hot Restart Persistence feature. Please refer to the Force Start section.

NOTE: The script cluster.sh uses curl command and curl must be installed to be able to use the script.

The script cluster.sh needs the following parameters to operate according to your needs. If these parameters are not provided, the default values are used.

Parameter	Default Value	Description
-o or --operation	get-state	Executes a cluster-wide operation. Operation can be get-state, change-state, shutdown and force-start.
-s or --state	None	Updates the state of the cluster to a new state. New state can be active, frozen, passive. It is used with the operation change-state and has no default value. You should provide a valid state.
-a or --address	127.0.0.1	Defines the IP address of a cluster member. If you want to manage your cluster remotely, you should provide the IP address of a member to the script.
-p or --port	5701	Defines on which port Hazelcast is running on the local or remote machine. Its default value is 5701.
-g or --groupname	dev	Defines the name of a cluster group which is used for a simple authentication. Please see the Creating Cluster Groups section.
-P or --password	dev-pass	Defines the password of a cluster group. Please see the Creating Cluster Groups section.

The script cluster.sh is self-documented; you can see the parameter descriptions using the command sh cluster.sh -h or sh cluster.sh --help.

NOTE: You can perform the above operations using the Hot Restart tab of Hazelcast Management Center or using the REST API. Please see the Hot Restart section and Using REST API for Cluster Management section.

Example Usages for cluster.sh

Let's say you have a cluster running on remote machines and one Hazelcast member is running on the IP 172.16.254.1 and on the port 5702. Group name and password of the cluster is test/test.

Getting the cluster state:

To get the state of the cluster, use the following command:

sh cluster.sh -o get-state -a 172.16.254.1 -p 5702 -g test -P test

The following also gets the cluster state, using the alternative parameter names (e.g. --port instead of -p):

sh cluster.sh --operation get-state --address 172.16.254.1 --port 5702 --groupname test --password test

Changing the cluster state:

To change the state of the cluster to frozen, use the following command:

sh cluster.sh -o change-state -s frozen -a 172.16.254.1 -p 5702 -g test -P test

Similarly, you can use the following command for the same purpose:

sh cluster.sh --operation change-state --state frozen --address 172.16.254.1 --port 5702 --groupname test --password test

Shutting down the cluster:

To shutdown the cluster, use the following command:

sh cluster.sh -o shutdown -a 172.16.254.1 -p 5702 -g test -P test

Similarly, you can use the following command for the same purpose:

sh cluster.sh --operation shutdown --address 172.16.254.1 --port 5702 --groupname test --password test

Force starting the cluster:

To force start the cluster, use the following command:

sh cluster.sh -o force-start -a 172.16.254.1 -p 5702 -g test -P test

Similarly, you can use the following command for the same purpose:

sh cluster.sh --operation force-start --address 172.16.254.1 --port 5702 --groupname test --password test

NOTE: Currently, this script is not supported on the Windows platforms.

Using REST API for Cluster Management

Besides the Management Center's Hot Restart tab and the script cluster.sh, you can also use REST API to manage your cluster's state. The following are the commands you can use.

Getting the cluster state:

To get the state of the cluster, use the following command:

curl --data "${GROUPNAME}&${PASSWORD}" http://127.0.0.1:5701/hazelcast/rest/management/cluster/state

Changing the cluster state:

To change the state of the cluster to frozen, use the following command:

curl --data "${GROUPNAME}&${PASSWORD}&${STATE}" http://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/hazelcast/rest/management/cluster/changeState

Shutting down the cluster:

To shutdown the cluster, use the following command:

curl --data "${GROUPNAME}&${PASSWORD}"  http://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/hazelcast/rest/management/cluster/shutdown

Force starting the cluster:

To force start the cluster, use the following command:

curl --data "${GROUPNAME}&${PASSWORD}" http://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/hazelcast/rest/management/cluster/forceStart/

NOTE: You can also perform the above operations using the Hot Restart tab of Hazelcast Management Center or using the script cluster.sh. Please see the Hot Restart section and Using the Script cluster.sh section.

Enabling Lite Members

Lite members are the Hazelcast cluster members that do not store data. These members are used mainly to execute tasks and register listeners, and they do not have partitions.

You can form your cluster to include the regular Hazelcast members to store data and Hazelcast lite members to run heavy computations. The presence of the lite members do not affect the operations performed on the other members in the cluster. You can directly submit your tasks to the lite members, register listeners on them and invoke operations for the Hazelcast data structures on them (e.g. map.put() and map.get()).

Configuring Lite Members

You can enable a cluster member to be a lite member using declarative or programmatic configuration.

Declarative Configuration

<hazelcast>
    <lite-member enabled="true">
</hazelcast>

Programmatic Configuration

Config config = new Config();
config.setLiteMember(true);

NOTE: Note that you cannot change a member's role at runtime.

Defining Member Attributes

You can define various member attributes on your Hazelcast members. You can use these member attributes to tag your members as your business logic requirements.

To define member attribute on a member, you can either:

• provide MemberAttributeConfig to your Config object,

• or provide member attributes at runtime via attribute setter methods on the Member interface.

For example, you can tag your members with their CPU characteristics and you can route CPU intensive tasks to those CPU-rich members.

MemberAttributeConfig fourCore = new MemberAttributeConfig();
memberAttributeConfig.setIntAttribute( "CPU_CORE_COUNT", 4 );
MemberAttributeConfig twelveCore = new MemberAttributeConfig();
memberAttributeConfig.setIntAttribute( "CPU_CORE_COUNT", 12 );
MemberAttributeConfig twentyFourCore = new MemberAttributeConfig();
memberAttributeConfig.setIntAttribute( "CPU_CORE_COUNT", 24 );

Config member1Config = new Config();
config.setMemberAttributeConfig( fourCore );
Config member2Config = new Config();
config.setMemberAttributeConfig( twelveCore );
Config member3Config = new Config();
config.setMemberAttributeConfig( twentyFourCore );

HazelcastInstance member1 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( member1Config );
HazelcastInstance member2 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( member2Config );
HazelcastInstance member3 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance( member3Config );

IExecutorService executorService = member1.getExecutorService( "processor" );

executorService.execute( new CPUIntensiveTask(), new MemberSelector() {
  @Override
  public boolean select(Member member) {
    int coreCount = (int) member.getIntAttribute( "CPU_CORE_COUNT" );
    // Task will be executed at either member2 or member3
    if ( coreCount > 8 ) { 
      return true;
    }
    return false;
  }
} );

HazelcastInstance member4 = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance();
// We can also set member attributes at runtime.
member4.setIntAttribute( "CPU_CORE_COUNT", 2 );

Safety Checking Cluster Members

To prevent data loss when shutting down a cluster member, Hazelcast provides a graceful shutdown feature. You perform this shutdown by calling the method HazelcastInstance.shutdown(). Once this method is called, it checks the following conditions to ensure the member is safe to shutdown.

• There is no active migration.
• At least one backup of partitions are synced with primary ones.

Even if the above conditions are not met, HazelcastInstance.shutdown() will force them to be completed. When this method eventually returns, the member has been brought to a safe state and it can be shut down without any data loss.

Ensuring Safe State with PartitionService

What if you want to be sure that your cluster is in a safe state, as in safe to shutdown without any data loss? For example, you may have some use cases like rolling upgrades, development/testing, or other logic that requires a cluster/member to be safe.

To provide this safety, Hazelcast offers the PartitionService interface with the methods isClusterSafe, isMemberSafe, isLocalMemberSafe and forceLocalMemberToBeSafe. These methods can be deemed as decoupled pieces from the method Hazelcast.shutdown.

public interface PartitionService {
   ...
   ...
    boolean isClusterSafe();
    boolean isMemberSafe(Member member);
    boolean isLocalMemberSafe();
    boolean forceLocalMemberToBeSafe(long timeout, TimeUnit unit);
}

The method isClusterSafe checks whether the cluster is in a safe state. It returns true if there are no active partition migrations and there are sufficient backups for each partition. Once it returns true, the cluster is safe and a node can be shut down without data loss.

The method isMemberSafe checks whether a specific member is in a safe state. This check controls if the first backups of partitions of the given member are synced with the primary ones. Once it returns true, the given member is safe and it can be shut down without data loss.

Similarly, the method isLocalMemberSafe does the same check for the local member. The method forceLocalMemberToBeSafe forces the owned and backup partitions to be synchronized, making the local member safe.

NOTE: These methods are available starting with Hazelcast 3.3.

Example PartitionService Code

PartitionService partitionService = hazelcastInstance.getPartitionService();
if (partitionService.isClusterSafe()) {
  hazelcastInstance.shutdown(); // or terminate
}

OR

PartitionService partitionService = hazelcastInstance.getPartitionService();
if (partitionService.isLocalMemberSafe()) {
  hazelcastInstance.shutdown(); // or terminate
}

RELATED INFORMATION

For more code samples please refer to PartitionService Code Samples.

Defining a Cluster Quorum

Hazelcast Cluster Quorum enables you to define the minimum number of machines required in a cluster for the cluster to remain in an operational state. If the number of machines is below the defined minimum at any time, the operations are rejected and the rejected operations return a QuorumException to their callers.

When a network partitioning happens, by default Hazelcast chooses to be available. With Cluster Quorum, you can tune your Hazelcast instance towards achieving better consistency by rejecting updates that do not pass a minimum threshold. This reduces the chance of concurrent updates to an entry from two partitioned clusters. Note that the consistency defined here is the best effort, it is not full or strong consistency. To prevent mutative operations in case of a split brain syndrome, you can define a minimum quorum that must be present in the cluster.

Hazelcast initiates a quorum when a change happens on the member list.

NOTE: Currently, cluster quorum only applies to the Map, Transactional Map and Cache; support for other data structures will be added soon. Also, lock methods in the IMap interface do not participate in a quorum.

Configuring a Cluster Quorum

You can set up Cluster Quorum using either declarative or programmatic configuration.

Assume that you have a 5-member Hazelcast Cluster and you want to set the minimum number of 3 members for the cluster to continue operating. The following examples are configurations for this scenario.

Declarative:

<hazelcast>
....
<quorum name="quorumRuleWithThreeMembers" enabled="true">
  <quorum-size>3</quorum-size>
</quorum>

<map name="default">
<quorum-ref>quorumRuleWithThreeNodes</quorum-ref>
</map>
....
</hazelcast>

Programmatic:

QuorumConfig quorumConfig = new QuorumConfig();
quorumConfig.setName("quorumRuleWithThreeNodes")
quorumConfig.setEnabled(true);
quorumConfig.setSize(3);

MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig();
mapConfig.setQuorumName("quorumRuleWithThreeNodes");

Config config = new Config();
config.addQuorumConfig(quorumConfig);
config.addMapConfig(mapConfig);

Quorum configuration has the following elements.

• quorum-size: Minimum number of members required in a cluster for the cluster to remain in an operational state. If the number of members is below the defined minimum at any time, the operations are rejected and the rejected operations return a QuorumException to their callers.
• quorum-type: Type of the cluster quorum. Available values are READ, WRITE and READ_WRITE.

Configuring Quorum Listeners

You can register quorum listeners to be notified about quorum results. Quorum listeners are local to the member where they are registered, so they receive only events that occurred on that local member.

Quorum listeners can be configured via declarative or programmatic configuration. The following examples are such configurations.

Declarative:

<hazelcast>
....
<quorum name="quorumRuleWithThreeMembers" enabled="true">
  <quorum-size>3</quorum-size>
  <quorum-listeners>
    <quorum-listener>com.company.quorum.ThreeMemberQuorumListener</quorum-listener>
  </quorum-listeners>
</quorum>

<map name="default">
  <quorum-ref>quorumRuleWithThreeMembers</quorum-ref>
</map>
....
</hazelcast>

Programmatic:

QuorumListenerConfig listenerConfig = new QuorumListenerConfig();
// You can either directly set quorum listener implementation of your own
listenerConfig.setImplementation(new QuorumListener() {
            @Override
            public void onChange(QuorumEvent quorumEvent) {
              if (QuorumResult.PRESENT.equals(quorumEvent.getType())) {
                // handle quorum presence
              } else if (QuorumResult.ABSENT.equals(quorumEvent.getType())) {
                // handle quorum absence
              }
            }
        });
// Or you can give the name of the class that implements QuorumListener interface.
listenerConfig.setClassName("com.company.quorum.ThreeMemberQuorumListener");

QuorumConfig quorumConfig = new QuorumConfig();
quorumConfig.setName("quorumRuleWithThreeMembers")
quorumConfig.setEnabled(true);
quorumConfig.setSize(3);
quorumConfig.addListenerConfig(listenerConfig);


MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig();
mapConfig.setQuorumName("quorumRuleWithThreeMembers");

Config config = new Config();
config.addQuorumConfig(quorumConfig);
config.addMapConfig(mapConfig);

Querying Quorum Results

Quorum service gives you the ability to query quorum results over the Quorum instances. Quorum instances let you query the quorum result of a particular quorum.

Here is a Quorum interface that you can interact with.

/**
 * {@link Quorum} provides access to the current status of a quorum.
 */
public interface Quorum {
    /**
     * Returns true if quorum is present, false if absent.
     *
     * @return boolean presence of the quorum
     */
    boolean isPresent();
}

You can retrieve the quorum instance for a particular quorum over the quorum service, as in the following example.

String quorumName = "at-least-one-storage-member";
QuorumConfig quorumConfig = new QuorumConfig();
quorumConfig.setName(quorumName)
quorumConfig.setEnabled(true);

MapConfig mapConfig = new MapConfig();
mapConfig.setQuorumName(quorumName);

Config config = new Config();
config.addQuorumConfig(quorumConfig);
config.addMapConfig(mapConfig);

HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(config);
QuorumService quorumService = hazelcastInstance.getQuorumService();
Quorum quorum = quorumService.getQuorum(quorumName);

boolean quorumPresence = quorum.isPresent();

Management Center

Hazelcast Management Center enables you to monitor and manage your cluster members running Hazelcast. In addition to monitoring overall state of your clusters, you can also analyze and browse your data structures in detail, update map configurations and take thread dumps from members. With its scripting and console module, you can run scripts (JavaScript, Groovy, etc.) and commands on your members.

Installing Management Center

You have two options for installing Hazelcast Management Center:

• deploy the mancenter-version.war application into your Java application server/container,
• or start Hazelcast Management Center from the command line and then have the Hazelcast cluster members communicate with that web application. This means that your members should know the URL of the mancenter application before they start.

Here are the steps.

• Download the latest Hazelcast ZIP from hazelcast.org. The ZIP contains the mancenter-version.war file.
• You can directly start mancenter-version.war file from the command line. The following command will start Hazelcast Management Center on port 8080 with context root 'mancenter' (http://localhost:8080/mancenter).

java -jar mancenter-*version*.war 8080 mancenter

• Or, instead of starting at the command line, you can deploy it to your web server (Tomcat, Jetty, etc.). Let us say it is running at http://localhost:8080/mancenter.
• After you perform the above steps, make sure that http://localhost:8080/mancenter is up.
• Configure your Hazelcast members by adding the URL of your web application to your hazelcast.xml. Hazelcast members will send their states to this URL.

<management-center enabled="true">
    http://localhost:8080/mancenter
</management-center>

• You can also set a frequency (in seconds) for which Management Center will take information from the Hazelcast cluster, using the element update-interval as shown below. update-interval is optional and its default value is 3 seconds.

<management-center enabled="true" update-interval="3">http://localhost:8080/
mancenter</management-center>

• Start your Hazelcast cluster.
• Browse to http://localhost:8080/mancenter and setup your administrator account explained in the next section.

Getting Started to Management Center

If you have the open source edition of Hazelcast, Management Center can be used for at most 2 members in the cluster. To use it for more members, you need to have either a Management Center license, Hazelcast Enterprise license or Hazelcast Enterprise HD license. This license should be entered within the Management Center as described in the following paragraphs.

NOTE: Even if you have a Hazelcast Enterprise or Enterprise HD license key and you set it as explained in the Setting the License Key section, you still need to enter this same license within the Management Center. Please see the following paragraphs to learn how you can enter your license.

Once you browse to http://localhost:8080/mancenter and since you are going to use Management Center for the first time, the following dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you already created an administrator account before, a login dialog box appears instead.

It asks you to create a username and password and give a valid e-mail address of yours. Once you press the Sign Up button, your administrator account credentials are created and the following dialog box appears.

"Select Cluster to Connect" dialog box lists the clusters that send statistics to Management Center. You can either select a cluster to connect using the Connect button or enter your Management Center license key using the Enter License button. Management Center can be used without a license if the cluster that you want to monitor has at most 2 members.

If you have a Management Center license or Hazelcast Enterprise license, you can enter it in the dialog box that appears once you press the Enter License button, as shown below.

When you try to connect to a cluster that has more than 2 members without entering a license key or if your license key is expired, the following dialog box appears.

Here, you can either choose to connect to a cluster without providing a license key or to enter your license key. If you choose to continue without a license, Management Center still continues to function but you will only be able to monitor up to 2 members of your cluster.

Management Center creates a folder with the name mancenter under your user/home folder to save data files and above settings/license information. You can change the data folder by setting the hazelcast.mancenter.home system property. Please see the System Properties section to see the description of this property and to learn how to set a system property.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to the Management Center Configuration section for a full description of Hazelcast Management Center configuration.

Management Center Tools

Once the page is loaded after selecting a cluster, the tool's home page appears as shown below.

This page provides the fundamental properties of the selected cluster which are explained in the Home Page section. The page has a toolbar on the top and a menu on the left.

Toolbar

The toolbar has the following buttons:

• Home: Loads the home page shown above. Please see the Management Center Home Page section.
• Scripting: Loads the page used to write and execute the user`s own scripts on the cluster. Please see the Scripting section.
• Console: Loads the page used to execute commands on the cluster. Please see the Console section.
• Alerts: Creates alerts by specifying filters. Please see the Setting Alerts section.
• Documentation: Opens the Management Center documentation in a window inside the tool. Please see the Documentation section.
• Administration: Used by the admin users to manage users in the system. Please see the Administering Management Center section.
• Logout: Closes the current user's session.
• Hot Restart: Used by the admin users to manage cluster state. Please see the Hot Restart section.
• Time Travel: Sees the cluster's situation at a time in the past. Please see the Time Travel section.

• Cluster Selector: Switches between clusters. When the mouse is moved onto this item, a drop down list of clusters appears.

  

  The user can select any cluster and once selected, the page immediately loads with the selected cluster's information.

NOTE: Some of the above listed toolbar items are not visible to users who are not admin or who have read-only permission. Also, some of the operations explained in the later sections cannot be performed by users with read-only permission. Please see the Administering Management Center section for details.

Menu

The Home Page includes a menu on the left which lists the distributed data structures in the cluster and all the cluster members, as shown below.

NOTE: Distributed data structures will be shown there when the proxies are created for them.

NOTE: WAN Replication tab is only visible with Hazelcast Enterprise license.

You can expand and collapse menu items by clicking on them. Below is the list of menu items with links to their explanations.

• Caches
• Maps
• Replicated Maps
• Queues
• Topics
• MultiMaps
• Executors
• WAN
• Members

Tabbed View

Each time you select an item from the toolbar or menu, the item is added to the main view as a tab, as shown below.

In the above example, Home, Scripting, Console, queue1 and map1 windows can be seen as tabs. Windows can be closed using the icon on each tab (except the Home Page; it cannot be closed).

Management Center Home Page

This is the first page appearing after logging in. It gives an overview of the connected cluster. The following subsections describe each portion of the page.

CPU Utilization

This part of the page provides load and utilization information for the CPUs for each node (cluster member), as shown below.

The first column lists the nodes with their IPs and ports. The next columns list the system load averages on each node for the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes. These average values are calculated as the sum of the count of runnable entities running on and queued to the available CPUs averaged over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes. This calculation is operating system specific, typically a damped time-dependent average. If system load average is not available, these columns show negative values.

The last column (Chart) graphically shows the recent load on the CPUs. When you move the mouse cursor on a chart, you can see the CPU load at the time where the cursor is placed. Charts under this column shows the CPU loads approximately for the last 2 minutes. If recent CPU load is not available, you will see a negative value.

Memory Utilization

This part of the page provides information related to memory usages for each node (cluster member), as shown below.

The first column lists the nodes with their IPs and ports. The next columns show the used and free memories out of the total memory reserved for Hazelcast usage, in real-time. The Max column lists the maximum memory capacity of each node and the Percent column lists the percentage value of used memory out of the maximum memory. The last column (Chart) shows the memory usage of nodes graphically. When you move the mouse cursor on a desired graph, you can see the memory usage at the time where the cursor is placed. Graphs under this column shows the memory usages approximately for the last 2 minutes.

Memory Distribution

This part of the page graphically provides the cluster wise breakdown of memory, as shown below. The blue area is the memory used by maps. The dark yellow area is the memory used by both non-Hazelcast entities and all Hazelcast entities except the map (i.e. the memory used by all entities subtracted by the memory used by map). The green area is the free memory out of the whole cluster`s memory capacity.

In the above example, you can see 0.32% of the total memory is used by Hazelcast maps (it can be seen by placing the mouse cursor on it), 58.75% is used by non-Hazelcast entities and 40.85% of the total memory is free.

Map Memory Distribution

This part is the breakdown of the blue area shown in the Memory Distribution graph explained above. It provides the percentage values of the memories used by each map, out of the total cluster memory reserved for all Hazelcast maps.

In the above example, you can see 49.55% of the total map memory is used by map1 and 49.55% is used by map2.

Partition Distribution

This pie chart shows what percentage of partitions each node (cluster member) has, as shown below.

You can see each node's partition percentages by placing the mouse cursor on the chart. In the above example, you can see the node "127.0.0.1:5708" has 5.64% of the total partition count (which is 271 by default and configurable, please see the hazelcast.partition.count property explained in the System Properties section).

Monitoring Caches

You can monitor your caches' metrics by clicking the cache name listed on the left panel under Caches menu item. A new tab for monitoring that cache instance is opened on the right, as shown below.

On top of the page, four charts monitor the Gets, Puts, Removals and Evictions in real-time. The X-axis of all the charts show the current system time. To open a chart as a separate dialog, click on the button placed at the top right of each chart.

Under these charts is the Cache Statistics Data Table. From left to right, this table lists the IP addresses and ports of each member, and the get, put, removal, eviction, and hit and miss counts per second in real-time.

You can navigate through the pages using the buttons at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). You can ascend or descend the order of the listings in each column by clicking on column headings.

NOTE: You need to enable the statistics for caches to monitor them in the Management Center. Use the <statistics-enabled> element or setStatisticsEnabled() method in declarative or programmatic configuration, respectively, to enable the statistics. Please refer to the JCache Declarative Configuration section for more information.

Managing Maps

Map instances are listed under the Maps menu item on the left. When you click on a map, a new tab for monitoring that map instance opens on the right, as shown below. In this tab, you can monitor metrics and also re-configure the selected map.

The below subsections explain the portions of this window.

Map Browser

Use the Map Browser tool to retrieve properties of the entries stored in the selected map. To open the Map Browser tool, click on the Map Browser button, located at the top right of the window. Once opened, the tool appears as a dialog, as shown below.

Once the key and the key's type are specified and the Browse button is clicked, the key's properties along with its value are listed.

Map Config

Use the Map Config tool to set the selected map's attributes, such as the backup count, TTL, and eviction policy. To open the Map Config tool, click on the Map Config button, located at the top right of the window. Once opened, the tool appears as a dialog, as shown below.

You can change any attribute and click the Update button to save your changes.

Map Monitoring

Besides the Map Browser and Map Config tools, the map monitoring page has monitoring options that are explained below. All of these options perform real-time monitoring.

On top of the page, small charts monitor the size, throughput, memory usage, backup size, etc. of the selected map in real-time. The X-axis of all the charts show the current system time. You can select other small monitoring charts using the button at the top right of each chart. When you click the button, the monitoring options are listed, as shown below.

When you click on a desired monitoring, the chart is loaded with the selected option. To open a chart as a separate dialog, click on the button placed at the top right of each chart. The monitoring charts below are available:

• Size: Monitors the size of the map. Y-axis is the entry count (should be multiplied by 1000).
• Throughput: Monitors get, put and remove operations performed on the map. Y-axis is the operation count.
• Memory: Monitors the memory usage on the map. Y-axis is the memory count.
• Backups: Chart loaded when "Backup Size" is selected. Monitors the size of the backups in the map. Y-axis is the backup entry count (should be multiplied by 1000).
• Backup Memory: Chart loaded when "Backup Mem." is selected. Monitors the memory usage of the backups. Y-axis is the memory count.
• Hits: Monitors the hit count of the map.
• Puts/s, Gets/s, Removes/s: These three charts monitor the put, get and remove operations (per second) performed on the selected map.

Under these charts are Map Memory and Map Throughput data tables. The Map Memory data table provides memory metrics distributed over members, as shown below.

From left to right, this table lists the IP address and port, entry counts, memory used by entries, backup entry counts, memory used by backup entries, events, hits, locks and dirty entries (in the cases where MapStore is enabled, these are the entries that are put to/removed from the map but not written to/removed from a database yet) of each entry in the map. You can navigate through the pages using the buttons at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). You can ascend or descend the order of the listings by clicking on the column headings.

Map Throughput data table provides information about the operations (get, put, remove) performed on each member in the map, as shown below.

From left to right, this table lists:

• the IP address and port of each member,
• the put, get and remove operations on each member,
• the average put, get, remove latencies,
• and the maximum put, get, remove latencies on each member.

You can select the period in the combo box placed at the top right corner of the window, for which the table data will be shown. Available values are Since Beginning, Last Minute, Last 10 Minutes and Last 1 Hour.

You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). To ascend or descent the order of the listings, click on the column headings.

Monitoring Replicated Maps

Replicated Map instances are shown under the Replicated Maps menu item on the left. When you click on a Replicated Map, a new tab for monitoring that instance opens on the right, as shown below.

In this tab, you can monitor metrics and also re-configure the selected Replicated Map. All of the statistics are real-time monitoring statistics.

When you click on a desired monitoring, the chart is loaded with the selected option. Also you can open the chart in new window.

• Size: Monitors the size of the Replicated Map. Y-axis is the entry count (should be multiplied by 1000).
• Throughput: Monitors get, put and remove operations performed on the Replicated Map. Y-axis is the operation count.
• Memory: Monitors the memory usage on the Replicated Map. Y-axis is the memory count.
• Hits: Monitors the hit count of the Replicated Map.
• Puts/s, Gets/s, Removes/s: These three charts monitor the put, get and remove operations (per second) performed on the selected Replicated Map, the average put, get, remove latencies, and the maximum put, get, remove latencies on each member.

The Replicated Map Throughput Data Table provides information about operations (get, put, remove) performed on each member in the selected Replicated Map.

From left to right, this table lists:

• the IP address and port of each member,
• the put, get, and remove operations on each member,
• the average put, get, and remove latencies,
• and the maximum put, get, and remove latencies on each member.

You can select the period from the combo box placed at the top right corner of the window, in which the table data is shown. Available values are Since Beginning, Last Minute, Last 10 Minutes and Last 1 Hour.

You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). To ascend or descent the order of the listings, click on the column headings.

Monitoring Queues

Using the menu item Queues, you can monitor your queues data structure. When you expand this menu item and click on a queue, a new tab for monitoring that queue instance is opened on the right, as shown below.

On top of the page, small charts monitor the size, offers and polls of the selected queue in real-time. The X-axis of all the charts shows the current system time. To open a chart as a separate dialog, click on the button placed at the top right of each chart. The monitoring charts below are available:

• Size: Monitors the size of the queue. Y-axis is the entry count (should be multiplied by 1000).
• Offers: Monitors the offers sent to the selected queue. Y-axis is the offer count.
• Polls: Monitors the polls sent to the selected queue. Y-axis is the poll count.

Under these charts are Queue Statistics and Queue Operation Statistics tables. The Queue Statistics table provides item and backup item counts in the queue and age statistics of items and backup items at each member, as shown below.

From left to right, this table lists the IP address and port, items and backup items on the queue of each member, and maximum, minimum and average age of items in the queue. You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). The order of the listings in each column can be ascended or descended by clicking on column headings.

Queue Operations Statistics table provides information about the operations (offers, polls, events) performed on the queues, as shown below.

From left to right, this table lists the IP address and port of each member, and counts of offers, rejected offers, polls, poll misses and events.

You can select the period in the combo box placed at the top right corner of the window to show the table data. Available values are Since Beginning, Last Minute, Last 10 Minutes and Last 1 Hour.

You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). Click on the column headings to ascend or descend the order of the listings.

Monitoring Topics

To monitor your topics' metrics, click the topic name listed on the left panel under the Topics menu item. A new tab for monitoring that topic instance opens on the right, as shown below.

On top of the page, two charts monitor the Publishes and Receives in real-time. They show the published and received message counts of the cluster, the members of which are subscribed to the selected topic. The X-axis of both charts show the current system time. To open a chart as a separate dialog, click on the button placed at the top right of each chart.

Under these charts is the Topic Operation Statistics table. From left to right, this table lists the IP addresses and ports of each member, and counts of message published and receives per second in real-time. You can select the period in the combo box placed at top right corner of the table to show the table data. The available values are Since Beginning, Last Minute, Last 10 Minutes and Last 1 Hour.

You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). Click on the column heading to ascend or descend the order of the listings.

Monitoring MultiMaps

MultiMap is a specialized map where you can associate a key with multiple values. This monitoring option is similar to the Maps option: the same monitoring charts and data tables monitor MultiMaps. The differences are that you cannot browse the MultiMaps and re-configure it. Please see Managing Maps.

Monitoring Executors

Executor instances are listed under the Executors menu item on the left. When you click on a executor, a new tab for monitoring that executor instance opens on the right, as shown below.

On top of the page, small charts monitor the pending, started, completed, etc. executors in real-time. The X-axis of all the charts shows the current system time. You can select other small monitoring charts using the button placed at the top right of each chart. Click the button to list the monitoring options, as shown below.

When you click on a desired monitoring, the chart loads with the selected option. To open a chart as a separate dialog, click on the button placed at top right of each chart. The below monitoring charts are available:

• Pending: Monitors the pending executors. Y-axis is the executor count.
• Started: Monitors the started executors. Y-axis is the executor count.
• Start Lat. (msec.): Shows the latency when executors are started. Y-axis is the duration in milliseconds.
• Completed: Monitors the completed executors. Y-axis is the executor count.
• Comp. Time (msec.): Shows the completion period of executors. Y-axis is the duration in milliseconds.

Under these charts is the Executor Operation Statistics table, as shown below.

From left to right, this table lists the IP address and port of members, the counts of pending, started and completed executors per second, and the execution time and average start latency of executors on each member. You can navigate through the pages using the buttons placed at the bottom right of the table (First, Previous, Next, Last). Click on the column heading to ascend or descend the order of the listings.

Monitoring WAN Replication

WAN Replication schemes are listed under the WAN menu item on the left. When you click on a scheme, a new tab for monitoring the targets which that scheme has appears on the right, as shown below.

In this tab, you see WAN Replication Operations Table for each target which belongs to this scheme. One of the example tables is shown below.

• Connected: Status of the member connection to the target.
• Outbound Recs (sec): Average number of records sent to target per second from this member.
• Outbound Lat (ms): Average latency of sending a record to the target from this member.
• Outbound Queue: Number of records waiting in the queue to be sent to the target.
• Action: Stops/Resumes replication of this member's records.

Monitoring Members

Use this menu item to monitor each cluster member and perform operations like running garbage collection (GC) and taking a thread dump. Once you select a member from the menu, a new tab for monitoring that member opens on the right, as shown below.

The CPU Utilization chart shows the percentage of CPU usage on the selected member. The Memory Utilization chart shows the memory usage on the selected member with three different metrics (maximum, used and total memory). You can open both of these charts as separate windows using the button placed at top right of each chart; this gives you a clearer view of the chart.

The window titled Partitions shows which partitions are assigned to the selected member. Runtime is a dynamically updated window tab showing the processor number, the start and up times, and the maximum, total and free memory sizes of the selected member. These values are collected from the default MXBeans provided by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Descriptions from the Javadocs and some explanations are below:

• Number of Processors: Number of processors available to the member (JVM).

• Start Time: Start time of the member (JVM) in milliseconds.

• Up Time: Uptime of the member (JVM) in milliseconds

• Maximum Memory: Maximum amount of memory that the member (JVM) will attempt to use.

• Free Memory: Amount of free memory in the member (JVM).

• Used Heap Memory: Amount of used memory in bytes.

• Max Heap Memory: Maximum amount of memory in bytes that can be used for memory management.

• Used Non-Heap Memory: Amount of used memory in bytes.

• Max Non-Heap Memory: Maximum amount of memory in bytes that can be used for memory management.

• Total Loaded Classes: Total number of classes that have been loaded since the member (JVM) has started execution.

• Current Loaded Classes: Number of classes that are currently loaded in the member (JVM).

• Total Unloaded Classes: Total number of classes unloaded since the member (JVM) has started execution.

• Total Thread Count: Total number of threads created and also started since the member (JVM) started.

• Active Thread Count: Current number of live threads including both daemon and non-daemon threads.

• Peak Thread Count: Peak live thread count since the member (JVM) started or peak was reset.

• Daemon Thread Count: Current number of live daemon threads.

• OS: Free Physical Memory: Amount of free physical memory in bytes.

• OS: Committed Virtual Memory: Amount of virtual memory that is guaranteed to be available to the running process in bytes.

• OS: Total Physical Memory: Total amount of physical memory in bytes.

• OS: Free Swap Space: Amount of free swap space in bytes. Swap space is used when the amount of physical memory (RAM) is full. If the system needs more memory resources and the RAM is full, inactive pages in memory are moved to the swap space.

• OS: Total Swap Space: Total amount of swap space in bytes.

• OS: Maximum File Descriptor Count: Maximum number of file descriptors. File descriptor is an integer number that uniquely represents an opened file in the operating system.

• OS: Open File Descriptor Count: Number of open file descriptors.

• OS: Process CPU Time: CPU time used by the process on which the member (JVM) is running in nanoseconds.

• OS: Process CPU Load: Recent CPU usage for the member (JVM) process. This is a double with a value from 0.0 to 1.0. A value of 0.0 means that none of the CPUs were running threads from the member (JVM) process during the recent period of time observed, while a value of 1.0 means that all CPUs were actively running threads from the member (JVM) 100% of the time during the recent period being observed. Threads from the member (JVM) include the application threads as well as the member (JVM) internal threads.

• OS: System Load Average: System load average for the last minute. The system load average is the average over a period of time of this sum: (the number of runnable entities queued to the available processors) + (the number of runnable entities running on the available processors). The way in which the load average is calculated is operating system specific but it is typically a damped time-dependent average.

• OS: System CPU Load: Recent CPU usage for the whole system. This is a double with a value from 0.0 to 1.0. A value of 0.0 means that all CPUs were idle during the recent period of time observed, while a value of 1.0 means that all CPUs were actively running 100% of the time during the recent period being observed.

NOTE: These descriptions may vary according to the JVM version or vendor.

Next to the Runtime tab, the Properties tab shows the system properties. The Member Configuration window shows the XML configuration of the connected Hazelcast cluster.

The List of Slow Operations gives an overview of detected slow operations which occurred on that member. The data is collected by the SlowOperationDetector.

Click on an entry to open a dialog which shows the stacktrace and detailed information about each slow invocation of this operation.

Besides the aforementioned monitoring charts and windows, you can also perform operations on the selected member through this page. The operation buttons are located at the top right of the page, as explained below:

• Run GC: Press this button to execute garbage collection on the selected member. A notification stating that the GC execution was successful will be shown.
• Thread Dump: Press this button to take a thread dump of the selected member and show it as a separate dialog to the user.
• Shutdown Node: Press this button to shutdown the selected member.

Scripting

You can use the scripting feature of this tool to execute codes on the cluster. To open this feature as a tab, select Scripting located at the toolbar on top. Once selected, the scripting feature opens as shown below.

In this window, the Scripting part is the actual coding editor. You can select the members on which the code will execute from the Members list shown at the right side of the window. Below the members list, a combo box enables you to select a scripting language: currently, JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy and Python languages are supported. After you write your script and press the Execute button, you can see the execution result in the Result part of the window.

NOTE: To use the scripting languages other than JavaScript on a member, the libraries for those languages should be placed in the classpath of that member.

There are Save and Delete buttons on the top right of the scripting editor. To save your scripts, press the Save button after you type a name for your script into the field next to this button. The scripts you saved are listed in the Saved Scripts part of the window, located at the bottom right of the page. Click on a saved script from this list to execute or edit it. If you want to remove a script that you wrote and saved before, select it from this list and press the Delete button.

In the scripting engine you have a HazelcastInstance bonded to a variable named hazelcast. You can invoke any method that HazelcastInstance has via the hazelcast variable. You can see example usage for JavaScript below.

var name = hazelcast.getName();
var node = hazelcast.getCluster().getLocalMember();
var employees = hazelcast.getMap("employees");
employees.put("1","John Doe");
employees.get("1"); // will return "John Doe"

Executing Console Commands

The Management Center has a console feature that enables you to execute commands on the cluster. For example, you can perform puts and gets on a map, after you set the namespace with the command ns <name of your map>. The same is valid for queues, topics, etc. To execute your command, type it into the field below the console and press Enter. Type help to see all the commands that you can use.

Open a console window by clicking on the Console button located on the toolbar. Below is a sample view with some executed commands.

Creating Alerts

You can use the alerts feature of this tool to receive alerts and/or e-mail notifications by creating filters. In these filters, you can specify criteria for cluster members or data structures. When the specified criteria are met for a filter, the related alert is shown as a pop-up message on the top right of the page or sent as an e-mail.

Once you click the Alerts button located on the toolbar, the page shown below appears.

If you want to enable the Management Center to send e-mail notifications to the Management Center Admin users, you need to configure the SMTP server. To do this, click on the Create STMP Config shown above. The form shown below appears.

In this form, specify the e-mail address from which the notifications will be sent and also its password. Then, provide the SMTP server host address and port. Finally, check the TLS Connection checkbox if the connection is secured by TLS (Transport Layer Security).

After you provide the required information, click on the Save Config button. After a processing period (for a couple of seconds), the form will be closed if the configuration is created successfully. In this case, an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you provided in the form stating that the SMTP configuration is successful and e-mail alert system is created.

If not, you will see an error message at the bottom of this form as shown below.

As you can see, the reasons can be wrong SMTP configuration or connectivity problems. In this case, please check the form fields and check for any causes for the connections issues with your server.

Creating Filters for Cluster Members

Select Member Alerts check box to create filters for some or all members in the cluster. Once selected, the next screen asks for which members the alert will be created. Select the desired members and click on the Next button. On the next page (shown below), specify the criteria.

You can create alerts when:

• free memory on the selected member nodes is less than the specified number.
• used heap memory is larger than the specified number.
• the number of active threads are less than the specified count.
• the number of daemon threads are larger than the specified count.

When two or more criteria is specified they will be bound with the logical operator AND.

On the next page, give a name for the filter. Then, select whether notification e-mails will be sent to the Management Center Admins using the Send Email Alert checkbox. Then, provide a time interval (in seconds) for which the e-mails with the same notification content will be sent using the Email Interval (secs) field. Finally, select whether the alert data will be written to the disk (if checked, you can see the alert log at the folder /users//mancenter).

Click on the Save button; your filter will be saved and put into the Filters part of the page. To edit the filter, click on the icon. To delete it, click on the icon.

Creating Filters for Data Types

Select the Data Type Alerts check box to create filters for data structures. The next screen asks for which data structure (maps, queues, multimaps, executors) the alert will be created. Once a structure is selected, the next screen immediately loads and you then select the data structure instances (i.e. if you selected Maps, it will list all the maps defined in the cluster, you can select one map or more). Select as desired, click on the Next button, and select the members on which the selected data structure instances will run.

The next screen, as shown below, is the one where you specify the criteria for the selected data structure.

As the screen shown above shows, you will select an item from the left combo box, select the operator in the middle one, specify a value in the input field, and click on the Add button. You can create more than one criteria in this page; those will be bound by the logical operator AND.

After you specify the criteria, click the Next button. On the next page, give a name for the filter. Then, select whether notification e-mails will be sent to the Management Center Admins using the Send Email Alert checkbox. Then, provide a time interval (in seconds) for which the e-mails with the same notification content will be sent using the Email Interval (secs) field. Finally, select whether the alert data will be written to the disk (if checked, you can see the alert log at the folder /users//mancenter).

Click on the Save button; your filter will be saved and put into the Filters part of the page. To edit the filter, click on the icon. To delete it, click on the icon.

Administering Management Center

NOTE: This toolbar item is available only to admin users.

The Admin user can add, edit, and remove users and specify the permissions for the users of Management Center. To perform these operations, click on the Administration button located on the toolbar. The page below appears.

To add a user to the system, specify the username, e-mail and password in the Add/Edit User part of the page. If the user to be added will have administrator privileges, select isAdmin checkbox. Permissions checkboxes have two values:

• Read Only: If this permission is given to the user, only Home, Documentation and Time Travel items will be visible at the toolbar at that user's session. Also, users with this permission cannot update a map configuration, run a garbage collection and take a thread dump on a cluster member, or shutdown a member (please see Monitoring Members).
• Read/Write: If this permission is given to the user, Home, Scripting, Console, Documentation and Time Travel items will be visible. The users with this permission can update a map configuration and perform operations on the members.

After you enter/select all fields, click Save button to create the user. You will see the newly created user's username on the left side, in the Users part of the page.

To edit or delete a user, select a username listed in the Users. Selected user information appears on the right side of the page. To update the user information, change the fields as desired and click the Save button. To delete the user from the system, click the Delete button.

Hot Restart

NOTE: This toolbar item is available only to admin users.

The admin user can see and change the cluster state, shut down the cluster, and force start the cluster using the operations listed in this screen as shown below.

Cluster States

• Active: Cluster will continue to operate without any restriction. All operations are allowed. This is the default state of a cluster.

• Frozen: New members are not allowed to join, except the members left in this state or Passive state. All other operations except migrations are allowed and will operate without any restriction.

• Passive: New members are not allowed to join, except the members left in this state or Frozen state. All operations, except the ones marked with AllowedDuringPassiveState, will be rejected immediately.

• In Transition: Shows that the cluster state is in transition. This is a temporary and intermediate state. It is not allowed to set it explicitly.

Changing Cluster State

• Click the dropdown menu and choose the state to which you want your cluster to change. A pop-up will appear and stay on the screen until the state is successfully changed.

Shutting Down the Cluster

• Click the Shutdown button. A pop-up will appear and stay on screen until the cluster is successfully shutdown.

If an exception occurs during the state change or shutdown operation on the cluster, this exception message will be shown on the screen as a notification.

Force Start the Cluster

Restart process cannot be completed if a node crashes permanently and cannot recover from the failure since it cannot start or it fails to load its own data. In that case, you can force the cluster to clean its persisted data and make a fresh start. This process is called force start.

Click the Force Start button. A pop-up will appear and stay on screen until the operation is triggered.

If an exception occurs, this exception message will be showed on the screen as a notification.

NOTE: The operations explained in this section (Hot Restart) can also be performed using REST API and the script cluster.sh. Please refer to the Using REST API for Cluster Management section and Using the Script cluster.sh section.

Checking Past Status with Time Travel

Use the Time Travel toolbar item to check the status of the cluster at a time in the past. When you select it on the toolbar, a small window appears on top of the page, as shown below.

To see the cluster status in a past time, you should first enable the Time Travel. Click on the area where it says OFF (on the right of Time Travel window). It will turn to ON after it asks whether to enable the Time Travel with a dialog: click on Enable in the dialog to enable the Time Travel.

Once it is ON, the status of your cluster will be stored on your disk as long as your web server is alive.

You can go back in time using the slider and/or calendar and check your cluster's situation at the selected time. All data structures and members can be monitored as if you are using the management center normally (charts and data tables for each data structure and members). Using the arrow buttons placed at both sides of the slider, you can go back or further with steps of 5 seconds. It will show status if Time Travel has been ON at the selected time in past; otherwise, all the charts and tables will be shown as empty.

The historical data collected with Time Travel feature are stored in a file database on the disk. These files can be found in the folder <User's Home Directory>/mancenter<Hazelcast version>, e.g. /home/mancenter3.5. This folder can be changed using the hazelcast.mancenter.home property on the server where Management Center is running.

Time travel data files are created monthly. Their file name format is [group-name]-[year][month].db and [group-name]-[year][month].lg. Time travel data is kept in the *.db files. The files with the extension lg are temporary files created internally and you do not have to worry about them.

Management Center has no automatic way of removing or archiving old time travel data files. They remain in the aforementioned folder until you delete or archive them.

Management Center Documentation

To see the documentation, click on the Documentation button located at the toolbar. Management Center manual will appear as a tab.

Suggested Heap Size

For 2 Nodes (Cluster Members)

Mancenter Heap Size	# of Maps	# of Queues	# of Topics
256m	3k	1k	1k
1024m	10k	1k	1k

For 10 Nodes

Mancenter Heap Size	# of Maps	# of Queues	# of Topics
256m	50	30	30
1024m	2k	1k	1k

For 20 Nodes

Mancenter Heap Size	# of Maps	# of Queues	# of Topics
256m*	N/A	N/A	N/A
1024m	1k	1k	1k

* With 256m heap, management center is unable to collect statistics.

Clustered JMX via Management Center

Hazelcast Enterprise

Clustered JMX via Management Center allows you to monitor clustered statistics of distributed objects from a JMX interface.

Configuring Clustered JMX

In order to configure Clustered JMX, use two command line parameters for your Management Center deployment.

• -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.enabled=true (default is false)
• -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.port=9000 (optional, default is 9999)

With embedded Jetty, you do not need to deploy your Management Center application to any container or application server.

You can start Management Center application with Clustered JMX enabled as shown below.

java -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.enabled=true -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.port=9999 -jar mancenter-3.3.jar

Once Management Center starts, you should see a log similar to below.

INFO: Management Center 3.3
Jun 05, 2014 11:55:32 AM com.hazelcast.webmonitor.service.jmx.impl.JMXService
INFO: Starting Management Center JMX Service on port :9999

You should be able to connect to Clustered JMX interface from the address localhost:9999.

You can use jconsole or any other JMX client to monitor your Hazelcast Cluster. As a sample, below is the jconsole screenshot of the Clustered JMX hierarchy.

Clustered JMX API

The management beans are exposed with the following object name format.

ManagementCenter[cluster name]:type=<object type>,name=<object name>,member="<cluster member IP address>"

Object name starts with ManagementCenter prefix. Then it has the cluster name in brackets followed by a colon. After that, type,name and member attributes follows, each separated with a comma.

• type is the type of object. Values are Clients, Executors, Maps, Members, MultiMaps, Queues, Services, and Topics.

• name is the name of object.

• member is the node address of object (only required if the statistics are local to the node).

A sample bean is shown below.

ManagementCenter[dev]:type=Services,name=OperationService,member="192.168.2.79:5701"

Here is the list of attributes that are exposed from the Clustered JMX interface.

• ManagementCenter[ClusterName]
• Clients
  • Address
  • ClientType
  • Uuid
• Executors
  • Cluster
  • Name
  • StartedTaskCount
  • CompletedTaskCount
  • CancelledTaskCount
  • PendingTaskCount
• Maps
  • Cluster
  • Name
  • BackupEntryCount
  • BackupEntryMemoryCost
  • CreationTime
  • DirtyEntryCount
  • Events
  • GetOperationCount
  • HeapCost
  • Hits
  • LastAccessTime
  • LastUpdateTime
  • LockedEntryCount
  • MaxGetLatency
  • MaxPutLatency
  • MaxRemoveLatency
  • OtherOperationCount
  • OwnedEntryCount
  • PutOperationCount
  • RemoveOperationCount
• Members
  • ConnectedClientCount
  • HeapFreeMemory
  • HeapMaxMemory
  • HeapTotalMemory
  • HeapUsedMemory
  • IsMaster
  • OwnedPartitionCount
• MultiMaps
  • Cluster
  • Name
  • BackupEntryCount
  • BackupEntryMemoryCost
  • CreationTime
  • DirtyEntryCount
  • Events
  • GetOperationCount
  • HeapCost
  • Hits
  • LastAccessTime
  • LastUpdateTime
  • LockedEntryCount
  • MaxGetLatency
  • MaxPutLatency
  • MaxRemoveLatency
  • OtherOperationCount
  • OwnedEntryCount
  • PutOperationCount
  • RemoveOperationCount
• Queues
  • Cluster
  • Name
  • MinAge
  • MaxAge
  • AvgAge
  • OwnedItemCount
  • BackupItemCount
  • OfferOperationCount
  • OtherOperationsCount
  • PollOperationCount
  • RejectedOfferOperationCount
  • EmptyPollOperationCount
  • EventOperationCount
  • CreationTime
• Services
  • ConnectionManager
    • ActiveConnectionCount
    • ClientConnectionCount
    • ConnectionCount
  • EventService
    • EventQueueCapacity
    • EventQueueSize
    • EventThreadCount
  • OperationService
    • ExecutedOperationCount
    • OperationExecutorQueueSize
    • OperationThreadCount
    • RemoteOperationCount
    • ResponseQueueSize
    • RunningOperationsCount
  • PartitionService
    • ActivePartitionCount
    • PartitionCount
  • ProxyService
    • ProxyCount
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::async]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::client]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::global-operation]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::io]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::query]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::scheduled]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
  • ManagedExecutor[hz::system]
    • Name
    • CompletedTaskCount
    • MaximumPoolSize
    • PoolSize
    • QueueSize
    • RemainingQueueCapacity
    • Terminated
• Topics
  • Cluster
  • Name
  • CreationTime
  • PublishOperationCount
  • ReceiveOperationCount

Integrating with New Relic

Use the Clustered JMX interface to integrate Hazelcast Management Center with New Relic. To perform this integration, attach New Relic Java agent and provide an extension file that describes which metrics will be sent to New Relic.

Please see Custom JMX instrumentation by YAML on the New Relic webpage.

Below is an example Map monitoring .yml file for New Relic.

name: Clustered JMX
version: 1.0
enabled: true

jmx:
  - object_name: ManagementCenter[clustername]:type=Maps,name=mapname
    metrics:
      - attributes: PutOperationCount, GetOperationCount, RemoveOperationCount, Hits,\ 
            BackupEntryCount, OwnedEntryCount, LastAccessTime, LastUpdateTime
        type: simple
  - object_name: ManagementCenter[clustername]:type=Members,name="node address in\
        double quotes"
    metrics:
      - attributes: OwnedPartitionCount
        type: simple

Put the .yml file in the extensions folder in your New Relic installation. If an extensions folder does not exist there, create one.

After you set your extension, attach the New Relic Java agent and start Management Center as shown below.

java -javaagent:/path/to/newrelic.jar -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.enabled=true\
    -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.port=9999 -jar mancenter-3.3.jar

If your logging level is set as FINER, you should see the log listing in the file newrelic_agent.log, which is located in the logs folder in your New Relic installation. Below is an example log listing.

Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINE:
    JMX Service : querying MBeans (1)
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER:
    JMX Service : MBeans query ManagementCenter[dev]:type=Members,
    name="192.168.2.79:5701", matches 1
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER:
    Recording JMX metric OwnedPartitionCount : 68
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER:
    JMX Service : MBeans query ManagementCenter[dev]:type=Maps,name=orders, 
    matches 1
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric Hits : 46,593
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric BackupEntryCount : 1,100
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric OwnedEntryCount : 1,100
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric RemoveOperationCount : 0
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric PutOperationCount : 118,962
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric GetOperationCount : 0
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric LastUpdateTime : 1,401,962,426,811
Jun 5, 2014 14:18:43 +0300 [72696 62] com.newrelic.agent.jmx.JmxService FINER: 
    Recording JMX metric LastAccessTime : 1,401,962,426,811

Then you can navigate to your New Relic account and create Custom Dashboards. Please see Creating custom dashboards.

While you are creating the dashboard, you should see the metrics that you are sending to New Relic from Management Center in the Metrics section under the JMX folder.

Integrating with AppDynamics

Use the Clustered JMX interface to integrate Hazelcast Management Center with AppDynamics. To perform this integration, attach AppDynamics Java agent to the Management Center.

For agent installation, refer to Install the App Agent for Java page.

For monitoring on AppDynamics, refer to Using AppDynamics for JMX Monitoring page.

After installing AppDynamics agent, you can start Management Center as shown below.

java -javaagent:/path/to/javaagent.jar -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.enabled=true\
    -Dhazelcast.mc.jmx.port=9999 -jar mancenter-3.3.jar

When Management Center starts, you should see the logs below.

Started AppDynamics Java Agent Successfully.
Hazelcast Management Center starting on port 8080 at path : /mancenter

Clustered REST via Management Center

Hazelcast Enterprise

The Clustered REST API is exposed from Management Center to allow you to monitor clustered statistics of distributed objects.

Enabling Clustered REST

To enable Clustered REST on your Management Center, pass the following system property at startup. This property is disabled by default.

-Dhazelcast.mc.rest.enabled=true

Clustered REST API Root

The entry point for Clustered REST API is /rest/.

This resource does not have any attributes.

Clusters Resource

This resource returns a list of clusters that are connected to the Management Center.

Retrieve Clusters

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["dev","qa"]
  

Cluster Resource

This resource returns information related to the provided cluster name.

Retrieve Cluster Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {"masterAddress":"192.168.2.78:5701"}
  

Members Resource

This resource returns a list of members belonging to the provided clusters.

Retrieve Members [GET] [/rest/clusters/{clustername}/members]

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["192.168.2.78:5701","192.168.2.78:5702","192.168.2.78:5703","192.168.2.78:5704"]
  

Member Resource

This resource returns information related to the provided member.

Retrieve Member Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"192.168.2.78:5701",
      "maxMemory":129957888,
      "ownedPartitionCount":68,
      "usedMemory":60688784,
      "freeMemory":24311408,
      "totalMemory":85000192,
      "connectedClientCount":1,
      "master":true
    }
  

Retrieve Connection Manager Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/connectionManager

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/connectionManager
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "clientConnectionCount":2,
      "activeConnectionCount":5,
      "connectionCount":5
    }
  

Retrieve Operation Service Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/operationService

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/operationService
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "responseQueueSize":0,
      "operationExecutorQueueSize":0,
      "runningOperationsCount":0,
      "remoteOperationCount":1,
      "executedOperationCount":461139,
      "operationThreadCount":8
    }
  

Retrieve Event Service Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/eventService

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/eventService
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "eventThreadCount":5,
      "eventQueueCapacity":1000000,
      "eventQueueSize":0
    }
  

Retrieve Partition Service Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/partitionService

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/partitionService
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "partitionCount":271,
      "activePartitionCount":68
    }
  

Retrieve Proxy Service Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/proxyService

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/proxyService
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "proxyCount":8
    }
  

Retrieve All Managed Executors

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/managedExecutors

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701/managedExecutors
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["hz:system","hz:scheduled","hz:client","hz:query","hz:io","hz:async"]
  

Retrieve a Managed Executor

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/members/{member}/managedExecutors/{managedExecutor}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/members/192.168.2.78:5701
      /managedExecutors/hz:system
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "name":"hz:system",
      "queueSize":0,
      "poolSize":0,
      "remainingQueueCapacity":2147483647,
      "maximumPoolSize":4,
      "completedTaskCount":12,
      "terminated":false
    }
  

Clients Resource

This resource returns a list of clients belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of Clients

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/clients

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/clients
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["192.168.2.78:61708"]
  

Retrieve Client Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/clients/{client}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/clients/192.168.2.78:61708
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "uuid":"6fae7af6-7a7c-4fa5-b165-cde24cf070f5",
      "address":"192.168.2.78:61708",
      "clientType":"JAVA"
    }
  

Maps Resource

This resource returns a list of maps belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of Maps

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/maps

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/maps
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["customers","orders"]
  

Retrieve Map Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/maps/{mapName}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/maps/customers
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"customers",
      "ownedEntryCount":1000,
      "backupEntryCount":1000,
      "ownedEntryMemoryCost":157890,
      "backupEntryMemoryCost":113683,
      "heapCost":297005,
      "lockedEntryCount":0,
      "dirtyEntryCount":0,
      "hits":3001,
      "lastAccessTime":1403608925777,
      "lastUpdateTime":1403608925777,
      "creationTime":1403602693388,
      "putOperationCount":110630,
      "getOperationCount":165945,
      "removeOperationCount":55315,
      "otherOperationCount":0,
      "events":0,
      "maxPutLatency":52,
      "maxGetLatency":30,
      "maxRemoveLatency":21
    }
  

MultiMaps Resource

This resource returns a list of multimaps belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of MultiMaps

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/multimaps

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/multimaps
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["customerAddresses"]
  

Retrieve MultiMap Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/multimaps/{multimapname}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/multimaps/customerAddresses
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"customerAddresses",
      "ownedEntryCount":996,
      "backupEntryCount":996,
      "ownedEntryMemoryCost":0,
      "backupEntryMemoryCost":0,
      "heapCost":0,
      "lockedEntryCount":0,
      "dirtyEntryCount":0,
      "hits":0,
      "lastAccessTime":1403603095521,
      "lastUpdateTime":1403603095521,
      "creationTime":1403602694158,
      "putOperationCount":166041,
      "getOperationCount":110694,
      "removeOperationCount":55347,
      "otherOperationCount":0,
      "events":0,
      "maxPutLatency":77,
      "maxGetLatency":69,
      "maxRemoveLatency":42
    }
  

Queues Resource

This resource returns a list of queues belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of Queues

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/queues

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/queues
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["messages"]
  

Retrieve Queue Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/queues/{queueName}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/queues/messages
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"messages",
      "ownedItemCount":55408,
      "backupItemCount":55408,
      "minAge":0,
      "maxAge":0,
      "aveAge":0,
      "numberOfOffers":55408,
      "numberOfRejectedOffers":0,
      "numberOfPolls":0,
      "numberOfEmptyPolls":0,
      "numberOfOtherOperations":0,
      "numberOfEvents":0,
      "creationTime":1403602694196
    }
  

Topics Resource

This resource returns a list of topics belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of Topics

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/topics

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/topics
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["news"]
  

Retrieve Topic Information

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/topics/{topicName}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/topics/news
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"news",
      "numberOfPublishes":56370,
      "totalReceivedMessages":56370,
      "creationTime":1403602693411
    }
  

Executors Resource

This resource returns a list of executors belonging to the provided cluster.

Retrieve List of Executors

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/executors

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/executors
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    ["order-executor"]
  

Retrieve Executor Information [GET] [/rest/clusters/{clustername}/executors/{executorName}]

• Request Type: GET
• URL: /rest/clusters/{clustername}/executors/{executorName}

• Request:

    curl http://localhost:8083/mancenter/rest/clusters/dev/executors/order-executor
  

• Response: 200 (application/json)

• Body:

    {
      "cluster":"dev",
      "name":"order-executor",
      "creationTime":1403602694196,
      "pendingTaskCount":0,
      "startedTaskCount":1241,
      "completedTaskCount":1241,
      "cancelledTaskCount":0
    }
  

Security

Hazelcast Enterprise

This chapter describes the security features of Hazelcast. These features allow you to perform security activities, such as intercepting socket connections and remote operations executed by the clients, encrypting the communications between the members at socket level, and using SSL socket communication. All of the Security features explained in this chapter are the features of Hazelcast Enterprise edition.

Enabling Security for Hazelcast Enterprise

With Hazelcast's extensible, JAAS based security feature, you can:

• authenticate both cluster members and clients,
• and perform access control checks on client operations. Access control can be done according to endpoint principal and/or endpoint address.

You can enable security declaratively or programmatically, as shown below.

<hazelcast xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config
    http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config/hazelcast-config-3.3.xsd"
    xmlns="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

  ...

  <security enabled="true">
    ...
  </security>
</hazelcast>

Config cfg = new Config();
SecurityConfig securityCfg = cfg.getSecurityConfig();
securityCfg.setEnabled( true );

Also, see the Setting License Key section for information on how to set your Hazelcast Enterprise license.

Socket Interceptor

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast allows you to intercept socket connections before a member joins a cluster or a client connects to a member of a cluster. This allow you to add custom hooks to join and perform connection procedures (like identity checking using Kerberos, etc.).

To use the socket interceptor, implement com.hazelcast.nio.MemberSocketInterceptor for members and com.hazelcast.nio.SocketInterceptor for clients.

The following example code enables the socket interceptor for members.

public class MySocketInterceptor implements MemberSocketInterceptor {
  public void init( SocketInterceptorConfig socketInterceptorConfig ) {
    // initialize interceptor
  }

  void onConnect( Socket connectedSocket ) throws IOException {
    // do something meaningful when a member has connected to the cluster
  }

  public void onAccept( Socket acceptedSocket ) throws IOException {
    // do something meaningful when the cluster is ready to accept the member connection
  }
}

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <network>
    ...
    <socket-interceptor enabled="true">
      <class-name>com.hazelcast.examples.MySocketInterceptor</class-name>
      <properties>
        <property name="kerberos-host">kerb-host-name</property>
        <property name="kerberos-config-file">kerb.conf</property>
      </properties>
    </socket-interceptor>
  </network>
  ...
</hazelcast>

public class MyClientSocketInterceptor implements SocketInterceptor {
  void onConnect( Socket connectedSocket ) throws IOException {
    // do something meaningful when connected
  }
}

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.setGroupConfig( new GroupConfig( "dev", "dev-pass" ) )
    .addAddress( "10.10.3.4" );

MyClientSocketInterceptor clientSocketInterceptor = new MyClientSocketInterceptor();
clientConfig.setSocketInterceptor( clientSocketInterceptor );
HazelcastInstance client = HazelcastClient.newHazelcastClient( clientConfig );

Security Interceptor

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast allows you to intercept every remote operation executed by the client. This lets you add a very flexible custom security logic. To do this, implement com.hazelcast.security.SecurityInterceptor.

public class MySecurityInterceptor implements SecurityInterceptor {

  public void before( Credentials credentials, String serviceName,
                      String methodName, Parameters parameters )
      throws AccessControlException {
    // credentials: client credentials 
    // serviceName: MapService.SERVICE_NAME, QueueService.SERVICE_NAME, ... etc
    // methodName: put, get, offer, poll, ... etc
    // parameters: holds parameters of the executed method, iterable.
  }

  public void after( Credentials credentials, String serviceName,
                     String methodName, Parameters parameters ) {
    // can be used for logging etc.
  }
}

The before method will be called before processing the request on the remote server. The after method will be called after the processing. Exceptions thrown while executing the before method will propagate to the client, but exceptions thrown while executing the after method will be suppressed.

Encryption

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast allows you to encrypt the entire socket level communication among all Hazelcast members. Encryption is based on Java Cryptography Architecture. In symmetric encryption, each node uses the same key, so the key is shared. Here is an example configuration for symmetric encryption.

You set the encryption algorithm, the salt value to use for generating the secret key, the password to use when generating the secret key, and the iteration count to use when generating the secret key. You also need to set enabled to true.

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <network>
    ...
    <!--
      Make sure to set enabled=true
      Make sure this configuration is exactly the same on
      all members
    -->
    <symmetric-encryption enabled="true">
      <!--
        encryption algorithm such as
        DES/ECB/PKCS5Padding,
        PBEWithMD5AndDES,
        Blowfish,
        DESede
      -->
      <algorithm>PBEWithMD5AndDES</algorithm>

      <!-- salt value to use when generating the secret key -->
      <salt>thesalt</salt>

      <!-- pass phrase to use when generating the secret key -->
      <password>thepass</password>

      <!-- iteration count to use when generating the secret key -->
      <iteration-count>19</iteration-count>
    </symmetric-encryption>
  </network>
  ...
</hazelcast>

RELATED INFORMATION

Please see the SSL section.

SSL

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast allows you to encrypt socket level communication between Hazelcast members and between Hazelcast clients and members, for end to end encryption. To use it, you need to implement com.hazelcast.nio.ssl.SSLContextFactory and configure the SSL section in network configuration.

public class MySSLContextFactory implements SSLContextFactory {
  public void init( Properties properties ) throws Exception {
  }

  public SSLContext getSSLContext() {
    ...
    SSLContext sslCtx = SSLContext.getInstance( protocol );
    return sslCtx;
  }
}

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <network>
    ...
    <ssl enabled="true">
      <factory-class-name>
          com.hazelcast.examples.MySSLContextFactory
      </factory-class-name>
      <properties>
        <property name="foo">bar</property>
      </properties>
    </ssl>
  </network>
  ...
</hazelcast>

Hazelcast provides a default SSLContextFactory, com.hazelcast.nio.ssl.BasicSSLContextFactory, which uses configured keystore to initialize SSLContext. You define keyStore and keyStorePassword, and you can set keyManagerAlgorithm (default SunX509), trustManagerAlgorithm (default SunX509) and protocol (default TLS).

<hazelcast>
  ...
  <network>
    ...
    <ssl enabled="true">
      <factory-class-name>
          com.hazelcast.nio.ssl.BasicSSLContextFactory
      </factory-class-name>
      <properties>
        <property name="keyStore">keyStore</property>
        <property name="keyStorePassword">keyStorePassword</property>
        <property name="keyManagerAlgorithm">SunX509</property>
        <property name="trustManagerAlgorithm">SunX509</property>
        <property name="protocol">TLS</property>
      </properties>
    </ssl>
  </network>
  ...
</hazelcast>

Hazelcast client also has SSL support. You can configure Client SSL programmatically as shown below.

System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.keyStore", new File("hazelcast.ks").getAbsolutePath());
System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.trustStore", new File("hazelcast.ts").getAbsolutePath());
System.setProperty("javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword", "password");

ClientConfig clientConfig = new ClientConfig();
clientConfig.getNetworkConfig().addAddress("127.0.0.1");

For example, you can set keyStore and keyStorePassword with the following system properties.

• javax.net.ssl.keyStore
• javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword

NOTE: You cannot use SSL when Hazelcast Encryption is enabled.

Credentials

Hazelcast Enterprise

One of the key elements in Hazelcast security is the Credentials object, which carries all credentials of an endpoint (member or client). Credentials is an interface which extends Serializable. You can either implement the three methods in the Credentials interface, or you can extend the AbstractCredentials class, which is an abstract implementation of Credentials.

Hazelcast calls the Credentials.setEndpoint() method when an authentication request arrives at the node before authentication takes place.

package com.hazelcast.security;
public interface Credentials extends Serializable {
  String getEndpoint();
  void setEndpoint( String endpoint ) ;    
  String getPrincipal() ;    
}

Here is an example of extending the AbstractCredentials class.

package com.hazelcast.security;
...
public abstract class AbstractCredentials implements Credentials, DataSerializable {
  private transient String endpoint;
  private String principal;
  ...
}

UsernamePasswordCredentials, a custom implementation of Credentials, is in the Hazelcast com.hazelcast.security package. UsernamePasswordCredentials is used for default configuration during the authentication process of both members and clients.

package com.hazelcast.security;
...
public class UsernamePasswordCredentials extends Credentials {
  private byte[] password;
  ...
}

ClusterLoginModule

Hazelcast Enterprise

All security attributes are carried in the Credentials object. Credentials is used by LoginModule s during the authentication process. User supplied attributes from LoginModules are accessed by CallbackHandler s. To access the Credentials object, Hazelcast uses its own specialized CallbackHandler. During initialization of LoginModules, Hazelcast passes this special CallbackHandler into the LoginModule.initialize() method.

Your implementation of LoginModule should create an instance of com.hazelcast.security.CredentialsCallback and call the handle(Callback[] callbacks) method of CallbackHandler during the login process.

CredentialsCallback.getCredentials() returns the supplied Credentials object.

public class CustomLoginModule implements LoginModule {
  CallbackHandler callbackHandler;
  Subject subject;

  public void initialize( Subject subject, CallbackHandler callbackHandler,
                          Map<String, ?> sharedState, Map<String, ?> options ) {
    this.subject = subject;
    this.callbackHandler = callbackHandler;
  }

  public final boolean login() throws LoginException {
    CredentialsCallback callback = new CredentialsCallback();
    try {
      callbackHandler.handle( new Callback[] { callback } );
      credentials = cb.getCredentials();
    } catch ( Exception e ) {
      throw new LoginException( e.getMessage() );
    }
    ...
  }
  ...
}

To use the default Hazelcast permission policy, you must create an instance of com.hazelcast.security.ClusterPrincipal that holds the Credentials object, and you must add it to Subject.principals onLoginModule.commit() as shown below.

public class MyCustomLoginModule implements LoginModule {
  ...
  public boolean commit() throws LoginException {
    ...
    Principal principal = new ClusterPrincipal( credentials );
    subject.getPrincipals().add( principal );

    return true;
  }
  ...
}

Hazelcast has an abstract implementation of LoginModule that does callback and cleanup operations and holds the resulting Credentials instance. LoginModules extending ClusterLoginModule can access Credentials, Subject, LoginModule instances and options, and sharedState maps. Extending the ClusterLoginModule is recommended instead of implementing all required stuff.

package com.hazelcast.security;
...
public abstract class ClusterLoginModule implements LoginModule {

  protected abstract boolean onLogin() throws LoginException;
  protected abstract boolean onCommit() throws LoginException;
  protected abstract boolean onAbort() throws LoginException;
  protected abstract boolean onLogout() throws LoginException;
}

Enterprise Integration

Using the above API, you can implement a LoginModule that performs authentication against the Security System of your choice, such as an LDAP store like Apache Directory or some other corporate standard you might have. For example, you may wish to have your clients send an identification token in the Credentials object. This token can then be sent to your back-end security system via the LoginModule that runs on the cluster side.

Additionally, the same system may authenticate the user and also then return the roles that are attributed to the user. These roles can then be used for data structure authorization.

RELATED INFORMATION

Please refer to JAAS Reference Guide for further information.

Cluster Member Security

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast supports standard Java Security (JAAS) based authentication between cluster members. To implement it, you configure one or more LoginModules and an instance of com.hazelcast.security.ICredentialsFactory. Although Hazelcast has default implementations using cluster group and group-password and UsernamePasswordCredentials on authentication, it is recommended that you implement the LoginModules and an instance of com.hazelcast.security.ICredentialsFactory according to your specific needs and environment.

<security enabled="true">
  <member-credentials-factory 
      class-name="com.hazelcast.examples.MyCredentialsFactory">
    <properties>
      <property name="property1">value1</property>
      <property name="property2">value2</property>
    </properties>
  </member-credentials-factory>
  <member-login-modules>
    <login-module usage="required"
        class-name="com.hazelcast.examples.MyRequiredLoginModule">
      <properties>
        <property name="property3">value3</property>
      </properties>
    </login-module>
    <login-module usage="sufficient"
        class-name="com.hazelcast.examples.MySufficientLoginModule">
      <properties>
        <property name="property4">value4</property>
      </properties>
    </login-module>
    <login-module usage="optional"
        class-name="com.hazelcast.examples.MyOptionalLoginModule">
      <properties>
        <property name="property5">value5</property>
      </properties>
    </login-module>
  </member-login-modules>
  ...
</security>

You can define as many as LoginModules as you want in configuration. They are executed in the order listed in configuration. The usage attribute has 4 values: 'required', 'requisite', 'sufficient' and 'optional' as defined in javax.security.auth.login.AppConfigurationEntry.LoginModuleControlFlag.

package com.hazelcast.security;
/**
 * ICredentialsFactory is used to create Credentials objects to be used
 * during node authentication before connection accepted by master node.
 */
public interface ICredentialsFactory {

  void configure( GroupConfig groupConfig, Properties properties );

  Credentials newCredentials();

  void destroy();
}

Properties defined in configuration are passed to the ICredentialsFactory.configure() method as java.util.Properties and to the LoginModule.initialize() method as java.util.Map.

Native Client Security

Hazelcast Enterprise

Hazelcast's Client security includes both authentication and authorization.