Chapter 37. High Availability Using Server Hinting

Red Hat JBoss Data Grid offers a pluggable mechanism for selecting the consistent hashing algorithm and provides different implementations. You can also use a custom implementation.

You configure JBoss Data Grid to use a consistent hash implementation with the consistent-hash-factory attribute, as in the following example:

<distributed-cache consistent-hash-factory="org.infinispan.distribution.ch.impl.SyncConsistentHashFactory">

This configuration guarantees caches with the same members have the same consistent hash, and if the machineId, rackId, or siteId attributes are specified in the transport configuration it also spreads backup copies across physical machines/racks/data centers.

It has a potential drawback in that it can move a greater number of segments than necessary during re-balancing. This can be mitigated by using a larger number of segments.

Another potential drawback is that the segments are not distributed as evenly as possible, and actually using a very large number of segments can make the distribution of segments worse.

Despite the above potential drawbacks the SyncConsistentHashFactory and TopologyAwareSyncConsistentHashFactory both tend to reduce overhead in clustered environments, as neither of these calculate the hash based on the order that nodes have joined the cluster. In addition, both of these classes are typically faster than the default algorithms as both of these classes allow larger differences in the number of segments allocated to each node.

A custom ConsistentHashFactory must implement the org.infinispan.distribution.ch.ConsistenHashFactory interface with the following methods (all of which return an implementation of org.infinispan.distribution.ch.ConsistentHash):

create(Hash hashFunction, int numOwners, int numSegments, List<Address>
members,Map<Address, Float> capacityFactors)
updateMembers(ConsistentHash baseCH, List<Address> newMembers, Map<Address,
Float> capacityFactors)
rebalance(ConsistentHash baseCH)
union(ConsistentHash ch1, ConsistentHash ch2)

The key affinity service allows a value to be placed in a certain node in a distributed Red Hat JBoss Data Grid cluster. The service returns a key that is hashed to a particular node based on a supplied cluster address identifying it.

The keys returned by the key affinity service cannot hold any meaning, such as a username. These are only random identifiers that are used throughout the application for this record. The provided key generators do not guarantee that the keys returned by this service are unique. For custom key format, you can pass your own implementation of KeyGenerator.

The following is an example of how to obtain and use a reference to this service.

EmbeddedCacheManager cacheManager = getCacheManager();
Cache cache = cacheManager.getCache();
KeyAffinityService keyAffinityService =
        KeyAffinityServiceFactory.newLocalKeyAffinityService(
            cache,
            new RndKeyGenerator(),
            Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(),
            100);
Object localKey = keyAffinityService.getKeyForAddress(cacheManager.getAddress());
cache.put(localKey, "yourValue");

The following procedure is an explanation of the provided example.

KeyAffinityService extends Lifecycle, which allows the key affinity service to be stopped, started, and restarted.

public interface Lifecycle {
     void start();
     void stop();
}

The service is instantiated through the KeyAffinityServiceFactory. All factory methods have an Executor, that is used for asynchronous key generation, so that this does not occur in the caller’s thread. The user controls the shutting down of this Executor.

The KeyAffinityService must be explicitly stopped when it is no longer required. This stops the background key generation, and releases other held resources. The KeyAffinityServce will only stop itself when the cache manager with which it is registered is shut down.

KeyAffinityService key ownership may change when a topology change occurs. The key affinity service monitors topology changes and updates so that it doesn’t return stale keys, or keys that would map to a different node than the one specified. However, this does not guarantee that a node affinity hasn’t changed when a key is used. For example:

The above scenario is a not ideal, however it is a supported behavior for the application, as the keys that are already in use may be moved over during cluster change. The KeyAffinityService provides an access proximity optimization for stable clusters, which does not apply during the instability of topology changes.