Chapter 11. Remotely Creating Data Grid Caches

Caches configure the data container on Data Grid Server.

You create caches at run-time by adding definitions based on org.infinispan templates or Data Grid configuration through the console, the Command Line Interface (CLI), the Hot Rod endpoint, or the REST endpoint.

Data Grid Server provides a default Cache Manager configuration. When you start Data Grid Server, it instantiates the Cache Manager so you can remotely create caches at run-time.

<!-- Creates a Cache Manager named "default" and exports metrics. -->
<cache-container name="default"
                 statistics="true">
  <!-- Adds cluster transport that uses the default JGroups TCP stack. -->
  <transport cluster="${infinispan.cluster.name:cluster}"
             stack="${infinispan.cluster.stack:tcp}"
             node-name="${infinispan.node.name:}"/>
</cache-container>

Dynamically add caches from templates or configuration files through the Data Grid console.

Use the Data Grid CLI to add caches from templates or configuration files in XML or JSON format.

When Hot Rod Java clients attempt to access caches that do not exist, they return null for remoteCacheManager.getCache("myCache") invocations. To avoid this scenario, you can configure Hot Rod clients to create caches on first access using cache configuration.

File file = new File("path/to/infinispan.xml")
ConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
builder.remoteCache("another-cache")
       .configuration("<distributed-cache name=\"another-cache\"/>");
builder.remoteCache("my.other.cache")
       .configurationURI(file.toURI());

infinispan.client.hotrod.cache.another-cache.configuration=<distributed-cache name=\"another-cache\"/>
infinispan.client.hotrod.cache.[my.other.cache].configuration_uri=file:///path/to/infinispan.xml

You can also create remote caches through the RemoteCacheManager API in other ways, such as the following example that adds a cache configuration with the XMLStringConfiguration() method and then calls the getOrCreateCache() method.

However, Data Grid does not recommend this approach because it can more difficult to ensure XML validity and is generally a more cumbersome way to create caches. If you are creating complex cache configurations, you should save them to separate files in your project and reference them in your Hot Rod client configuration.

String cacheName = "CacheWithXMLConfiguration";
String xml = String.format("<distributed-cache name=\"%s\" mode=\"SYNC\">" +
                              "<encoding media-type=\"application/x-protostream\"/>" +
                              "<locking isolation=\"READ_COMMITTED\"/>" +
                              "<transaction mode=\"NON_XA\"/>" +
                              "<expiration lifespan=\"60000\" interval=\"20000\"/>" +
                           "</distributed-cache>" , cacheName);
remoteCacheManager.administration().getOrCreateCache(cacheName, new XMLStringConfiguration(xml));

Visit Data Grid code examples.

Add cache definitions to Data Grid servers through the REST endpoint with any suitable HTTP client.

Use XML or JSON configuration by including it in the request payload.

POST /rest/v2/caches/mycache

Use the ?template= parameter to create caches from org.infinispan templates.

POST /rest/v2/caches/mycache?template=org.infinispan.DIST_SYNC

You can provide cache configuration in XML or JSON format.

<distributed-cache name="myCache" mode="SYNC">
  <encoding media-type="application/x-protostream"/>
  <memory max-count="1000000" when-full="REMOVE"/>
</distributed-cache>

{
  "distributed-cache": {
    "name": "myCache",
    "mode": "SYNC",
    "encoding": {
      "media-type": "application/x-protostream"
      },
    "memory": {
      "max-count": 1000000,
      "when-full": "REMOVE"
    }
  }
}

JSON format

Cache configuration in JSON format must follow the structure of an XML configuration. * XML elements become JSON objects. * XML attributes become JSON fields.