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. The 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 the , it deserializes them. If you are not reaching 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 the datastore. For example, if the memory limit is 1000, then the 1001st item will be put only to the 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.