Appendix G. References

G.1. About Consistency

Consistency is the policy that states whether it is possible for a data record on one node to vary from the same data record on another node.

For example, due to network speeds, it is possible that a write operation performed on the master node has not yet been performed on another node in the store, a strong consistency guarantee will ensure that data which is not yet fully replicated is not returned to the application.

G.2. About Consistency Guarantee

Despite the locking of a single owner instead of all owners, Red Hat JBoss Data Grid’s consistency guarantee remains intact. Consider the following situation:

  1. If Key K is hashed to nodes {A,B} and transaction TX1 acquires a lock for K on, for example, node A and
  2. If another cache access occurs on node B, or any other node, and TX2 attempts to lock K, this access attempt fails with a timeout because the transaction TX1 already holds a lock on K.

This lock acquisition attempt always fails because the lock for key K is always deterministically acquired on the same node of the cluster, irrespective of the transaction’s origin.

G.3. About JBoss Cache

Red Hat JBoss Cache is a tree-structured, clustered, transactional cache that can also be used in a standalone, non-clustered environment. It caches frequently accessed data in-memory to prevent data retrieval or calculation bottlenecks that occur while enterprise features such as Java Transactional API (JTA) compatibility, eviction and persistence are provided.

JBoss Cache is the predecessor to Infinispan and Red Hat JBoss Data Grid.

G.4. About RELAY2

The RELAY protocol bridges two remote clusters by creating a connection between one node in each site. This allows multicast messages sent out in one site to be relayed to the other and vice versa.

JGroups includes the RELAY2 protocol, which is used for communication between sites in Red Hat JBoss Data Grid’s Cross-Site Replication.

The RELAY2 protocol works similarly to RELAY but with slight differences. Unlike RELAY , the RELAY2 protocol:

  • connects more than two sites.
  • connects sites that operate autonomously and are unaware of each other.
  • offers both unicasts and multicast routing between sites.

G.5. About Return Values

Values returned by cache operations are referred to as return values. In Red Hat JBoss Data Grid, these return values remain reliable irrespective of which cache mode is employed and whether synchronous or asynchronous communication is used.

G.6. About Runnable Interfaces

A Runnable Interface (also known as a Runnable) declares a single run() method, which executes the active part of the class' code. The Runnable object can be executed in its own thread after it is passed to a thread constructor.

G.7. About Two Phase Commit (2PC)

A Two Phase Commit protocol (2PC) is a consensus protocol used to atomically commit or roll back distributed transactions. It is successful when faced with cases of temporary system failures, including network node and communication failures, and is therefore widely utilized.

G.8. About Key-Value Pairs

A key-value pair (KVP) is a set of data consisting of a key and a value.

  • A key is unique to a particular data entry. It consists of entry data attributes from the related entry.
  • A value is the data assigned to and identified by the key.

G.9. Requesting a Full Byte Array

How can I request the Red Hat JBoss Data Grid return a full byte array instead of partial byte array contents?

As a default, JBoss Data Grid only partially prints byte arrays to logs to avoid unnecessarily printing large byte arrays. This occurs when either:

  • JBoss Data Grid caches are configured for lazy deserialization. Lazy deserialization is not available in JBoss Data Grid’s Remote Client-Server mode.
  • A Memcached or Hot Rod server is run.

In such cases, only the first ten positions of the byte array display in the logs. To display the complete contents of the byte array in the logs, pass the -Dinfinispan.arrays.debug=true system property at start up.

Partial Byte Array Log

2010-04-14 15:46:09,342 TRACE [ReadCommittedEntry] (HotRodWorker-1-1) Updating entry
(key=CacheKey{data=ByteArray{size=19, hashCode=1b3278a,
array=[107, 45, 116, 101, 115, 116, 82, 101, 112, 108, ..]}}
removed=false valid=true changed=true created=true value=CacheValue{data=ByteArray{size=19,
array=[118, 45, 116, 101, 115, 116, 82, 101, 112, 108, ..]},
version=281483566645249}]
And here's a log message where the full byte array is shown:
2010-04-14 15:45:00,723 TRACE [ReadCommittedEntry] (Incoming-2,Infinispan-Cluster,eq-6834) Updating entry
(key=CacheKey{data=ByteArray{size=19, hashCode=6cc2a4,
array=[107, 45, 116, 101, 115, 116, 82, 101, 112, 108, 105, 99, 97, 116, 101, 100, 80, 117, 116]}}
removed=false valid=true changed=true created=true value=CacheValue{data=ByteArray{size=19,
array=[118, 45, 116, 101, 115, 116, 82, 101, 112, 108, 105, 99, 97, 116, 101, 100, 80, 117, 116]},
version=281483566645249}]