Chapter 1. Data Grid release information

In Data Grid 8.4.7, the following features and functionality are removed.

Hot Rod .NET client

The Hot Rod .NET client is not provided with Data Grid 8.4.7.

In Data Grid 8.4.7, the following features and functionality are deprecated and planned to be removed in future Data Grid releases.

Red Hat will provide support for these features and functionalities during the current release lifecycle, but they will no longer receive enhancements and will be eventually removed. It is recommended to transition to alternative solutions to ensure future compatibility.

Hot Rod C++ client

The support for Hot Rod C++ client is deprecated and planned to be removed in future releases.

You can continue using Hot Rod C++ client client in combination with the latest Data Grid Server version.

Hot Rod Node.js client

The support for Hot Rod Node.js client client is deprecated and planned to be removed in future releases.

You can continue using Hot Rod Node.js client client client in combination with the latest Data Grid Server version.

Data Grid 8.4.7 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Data Grid 8.4.7 security update

Data Grid 8.4.7 provides a security enhancement to address CVEs. You must upgrade any Data Grid 8.4 deployments to version 8.4.7 as soon as possible.

For more information see the advisory related to this release RHSA-2024:1509.

Red Hat Insights Java client

Red Hat Data Grid 8.4 Update 7 onward contains the Red Hat Insights Java client. The Red Hat Insights Java client is enabled for Data Grid only if Data Grid is installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and the RHEL system has Red Hat Insights client installed, configured, and registered. For more information, see the Client Configuration Guide for Red Hat Insights.

The Red Hat Insights dashboard for Runtimes will be available in a future release on Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console. Similar to the RHEL dashboard which is available on the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console, the Runtimes dashboard will show the inventory of the Runtimes installations, CVE details, and help you select the JVM options.

You can opt-out of the Red Hat Insights Java client client by setting the environment variable RHT_INSIGHTS_JAVA_OPT_OUT to true. For more information, see the knowledge base article Red Hat Insights for Runtimes.

Improvements to cross-site message handling

To prevent the scenario where JGroups site-up events are delivered after the cross-site event resulting in the cross-site events being discarded, Data Grid 8.4.7 cross-site events are retried in case of an exception. Additionally, if cache or cache manager isn’t in the running state yet, cross-site events are retried rather than making the site offline.

Ability to configure encryption when using Helm chart

In Data Grid 8.4.7, you can enable TLS when provisioning Data Grid with Helm chart to ensure that communication with Data Grid clusters is encrypted. You can specify TLS configuration for both endpoint, and cluster transport in the Helm configuration.

For more information, see Configuring encryption.

Ability to configure security context for StatefulSet pods

You can now configure the security context for StatefulSet pods by using the deploy.securityContext attribute.

For more information see Data Grid Operator Guide Deployment configuration values.

IBM WebSphere Liberty transaction manager

You can now use transactional caches inside your IBM WebSphere Liberty applications. Data Grid looks up and registers with the Transaction Manager running in IBM WebSphere Liberty.

Support for JBoss marshalling

JBoss Marshalling was deprecated in Data Grid 8.4.6 and earlier versions. From Data Grid 8.4.7 onwards, it is fully supported.

Data Grid 8.4.6 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Support for count(*) in aggregation queries

Data Grid 8.4.6 adds support for the count(*) syntax in aggregation queries. You can use the count(*) syntax in aggregation queries to retrieve the count of all instances in each group, regardless of specific field values.

Enhanced metrics

Data Grid 8.4.6 includes the following enhancements to metrics:

Data Grid 8.4.5 provides a security enhancement to address a CVE. You must upgrade any Data Grid 8.4 deployments to version 8.4.5 as soon as possible.

For more information see the advisory related to this release RHSA-2023:5716.

Data Grid 8.4.4 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Support for tracing with OpenTelemetry

Data Grid 8.4.4 now lets you generate tracing spans compatible with the OpenTelemetry standard, allowing you to export, visualize, and analyze tracing data related to the most important cache operations.

You can enable tracing between Data Grid Server and Hot Rod client or REST API to monitor and analyze the flow of requests, and track the execution path across different components.

For more information see the documentation:

Improved metrics naming for JGroups and cross-site metrics

In Data Grid 8.4.4, you can enable the name-as-tags property for JGroups metrics and cross-site metrics.

Enabling name-as-tags simplifies metrics, displaying cluster and site names as tags rather than including them in metric names.

When you set name-as-tags to false, metrics are named based on the channel, resulting in multiple metrics for the same purpose:

# TYPE vendor_jgroups_xsite_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments gauge
# HELP vendor_jgroups_xsite_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments Number of sent fragments
vendor_jgroups_xsite_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments{cluster="xsite",node="..."} 0.0
# TYPE vendor_jgroups_cluster_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments gauge
# HELP vendor_jgroups_cluster_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments Number of sent fragments
vendor_jgroups_cluster_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments{cluster="cluster",node="..."} 2.0

When you set name-as-tags to true, metrics are simplified, and cluster and site names appear as tags:

# TYPE vendor_jgroups_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments gauge
# HELP vendor_jgroups_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments Number of sent fragments
vendor_jgroups_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments{cache_manager="default",cluster="xsite",node="..."} 0.0
vendor_jgroups_frag4_get_number_of_sent_fragments{cache_manager="default",cluster="cluster",node="..."} 2.0

In addition to simplified metrics, when you change the cluster name and site name, there is no need to update Grafana dashboards, as the metric names remain consistent.

Improved performance of indexed queries

You can now limit the required accuracy of hit counts by setting hit-count-accuracy attribute. When dealing with large data sets, precise hit counts can impact performance. Setting a limit to the hit count accuracy, lets you achieve faster query responses while ensuring that the provided hit counts remain sufficiently accurate for your application’s needs.

The default accuracy of the hit-count-accuracy attribute is limited to 10000. This means that for any query, Data Grid provides exact hit count up to maximum of 10000. If the effective hit count is higher than 10000, Data Grid returns a lower bound estimate of the count.

For more information see Creating Ickle queries - Hit count accuracy.

Concurrent based methods for NearCache SPI

The NearCache SPI has been updated to have concurrent based methods. This enhancement addresses an issue where concurrent accesses could lead to stale entries being saved in the near cache and resulted in inconsistent data.

In Data Grid 8.4.3, the following features and functionality are deprecated and planned to be removed in future Data Grid releases.

Red Hat will provide support for these features and functionalities during the current release lifecycle, but they will no longer receive enhancements and will be eventually removed. It is recommended to transition to alternative solutions to ensure future compatibility.

Support for Java 11

Support for Java 11 is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid version 8.5. Users of Data Grid 8.5 must upgrade their applications at least to Java 17.

You can continue using older Hot Rod Java client versions in combination with the latest Data Grid Server version. However, if you continue using older version of the client you will miss fixes and enhancements.

Support for Java EE dependencies

Support for Java EE dependencies is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid version 8.5. Transition to Jakarta EE dependencies and APIs to align with the evolving Java enterprise ecosystem.

Support for Spring 5.x and Spring Boot 2.x

Support for Spring Boot 2.x and Spring 5.x is deprecated and planned to be removed in version Data Grid 8.5. Migrate to newer versions of Spring Boot and Spring framework for compatibility with future Data Grid releases.

Support for JCache

Support for JCache (JSR 107) is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid version 8.5. As an alternative use other caching API developments in the Jakarta EE ecosystem.

Deprecation of Data Grid modules for Red Hat JBoss EAP

The Data Grid modules for Red Hat JBoss EAP applications that were distributed as a part of the Data Grid release are deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid version 8.5.

JBoss EAP users can use the infinispan subsystem that is integrated within the JBoss EAP product release without the need to separately install Data Grid modules.

Scattered cache mode

Scattered cache mode is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid version 8.5. As an alternative to scattered caches, you can use distributed caches instead.

Adding caches to ignore list using the Data Grid Console or REST API

The ability to add caches to the ignore list using the Data Grid Console or REST API, which allows temporarily excluding specific caches from client requests, is deprecated. This feature is planned to be removed in future releases.

Cache service type

The Cache service type is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid 8.5. The Cache service type was designed to provide a convenient way to create a low-latency data store with minimal configuration. Use the DataGrid service type to automate complex operations such as cluster upgrades and data migration.

Testing Data Grid Server on Windows

The support for Data Grid Server on on Windows Server 2019 is deprecated and planned to be removed in Data Grid 8.5. However, the Data Grid team will continue testing C++ Hot Rod client with Windows Server 2019.

Data Grid 8.4.3 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Cache name added to the index file path

The cache name is now included as part of the default index path. The index path specifies the filesystem path for the index when the storage is set to 'filesystem', and it can be a relative or absolute path.

When you set a custom value for the index path, ensure there are no conflicts between caches that use the same indexed entities.

Simplified testing with infinispan-dev-mode.xml file

Data Grid Server distribution now includes infinispan-dev-mode.xml file that provides you with necessary configuration to simplify development experience with Data Grid and Quarkus projects. The infinispan-dev-mode.xml configuration file enables BASIC client authentication for the Hot Rod client and cross-site configuration.

To start the Data Grid Server with this configuration, complete the following steps:

Enhanced DNS resolution for Hot Rod client

The Hot Rod client now supports alternate resolution strategies for connecting to Data Grid Server. You can configure the Hot Rod client with a single internal service DNS name that contains DNS entries for all running pods in the Data Grid cluster. Then the Hot Rod client can retrieve and use all the DNS records associated with that name, connecting to any available Data Grid Server instance.

Jakarta EE version of the Infinispan Test Driver

Data Grid distributes infinispan-server-testdriver-core-jakarta for users who are developing applications using the Jakarta EE platform.

Improved reindex performance with SQL query store

Data Grid 8.4.3 includes notable performance improvements specifically for reindex operations with SQL query store.

Data Grid 8.4.2 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Support for Spring 6 and Spring Boot 3

Data Grid 8.4.2 adds support for Spring 6 and Spring Boot 3. Both Spring 6 and Spring Boot 3 require Java 17.

If you want to use the latest version of Spring or Spring Boot, update your artifacts as follows:

Enhancements to cluster shutdown

Data Grid 8.4.2 includes several enhancements to prevent data loss and ensure consistency when you use the shutdown cluster command:

For more details see Using the Data Grid Command Line Interface Shutdown and restart of Data Grid clusters.

Monitoring disabled in Data Grid Helm chart

Monitoring is disabled by default in Data Grid Helm chart. This prevents deployment failure in case a user does not have authorization to manipulate ServiceMonitors granted by an admin.

Cache template conversion support

The cache configuration conversion tool now supports converting cache templates between different configuration formats, such as XML, JSON, and YAML.

For more information see Using the Data Grid REST API Converting Cache Configurations between XML, JSON and YAML.

Query of entries with BigInteger and BigDecimal values

Data Grid 8.4.2 now supports queries on cache entries that use BigInteger and BigDecimal values. Use @ProtoField annotations to annotate these fields in your Java classes and generate a Protostream schema that includes the CommonTypesSchema.

Query results include object version metadata

When performing a projection query, Data Grid let’s you specify the project version of the queried entity. The version metadata is included in the projection results, so you can determine which version of the entity was used to generate the projection results.

Cache index schema metamodel

You can retrieve a full index schema metamodel of all indexes defined on a cache using REST API. The full index schema metamodel includes detailed information about the index configuration, including entity names, Java classes, index names, and field specifications.

For more information see Using the Data Grid REST API Get Indexes Metamodel.

Enhancements to update schema functionality

From now you can update list of indexed entities in an existing cache with minimal downtime. Data Grid lets you restructure entity relationships, such as moving nested entities to the root level, without the need to create new caches.

Data Grid 8.4.1 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Migrating segmented cache stores

The StoreMigrator.java utility now supports migration of data from segmented cache stores.

Data Grid 8.4 improves usability, increases performance, and enhances security. Find out what’s new.

Jakarta EE APIs

Data Grid 8.4 distributes Jakarta EE 9+ based jars. If your application requires Jakarta specific dependencies, append the artifacts with -jakarta, for example:

<dependency>
   <groupId>org.infinispan</groupId>
   <artifactId>infinispan-client-hotrod-jakarta</artifactId>
</dependency>

For information about Jakarta EE see About Jakarta EE.

MemcachedDecoder performance improvement

MemcachedDecoder no longer blocks Netty threads: preventing deadlocks when the thread pool is exhausted.

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.infinispan</groupId>
  <artifactId>infinispan-hibernate-cache-v60</artifactId>
  <version>${version.infinispan}</version>
</dependency>

@Indexed
public class Poem {

private Author author;
private String description;
private Integer year;

@Embedded(includeDepth = 2, structure = Structure.NESTED)
public Author getAuthor() {
return author;
}

@Text(projectable = true, analyzer = "whitespace", termVector = TermVector.WITH_OFFSETS)
public String getDescription() {
return description;
}

@Basic(projectable = true, sortable = true, indexNullAs = "1800")
public Integer getYear() {
return year;
}
}

<distributed-cache>
  <indexing storage="filesystem" startup-mode="purge">
    <!-- Additional indexing configuration goes here. -->
  </indexing>
</distributed-cache>

POST .../v2/caches/{myCache}/search/indexes?action=updateSchema

[//containers/default]> site status --all-caches --site=NYC

Red Hat supports different Java versions, depending on how you install Data Grid.

Deprecation of Java 11 support

In Data Grid 8.4, support for Java 11 is deprecated and is planned to be removed in future release. Users of Data Grid 8.5 must upgrade their applications at least to Java 17.

You can continue using older Hot Rod Java client versions in combination with the latest Data Grid Server version. However, if you continue using older version of the client you will miss fixes and enhancements.

Removal of Java 8 support

Data Grid 8.4 removes support for Java 8. Support for Java 8 was deprecated and planned for removal since Data Grid 8.2.

Hot Rod Java clients running in applications that require Java 8 can continue using older versions of client libraries.

Supported Java versions in Data Grid 8.4

Embedded caches

Red Hat supports Java 11 and Java 17 when using Data Grid for embedded caches in custom applications.

Remote caches

Red Hat supports Java 11 and Java 17 for Data Grid Server installations. For Hot Rod Java clients, Red Hat supports Java 11 and Java 17.

Red Hat supports Java 11 and Java 17 for Data Grid Server, Hot Rod Java clients, and when using Data Grid for embedded caches in custom applications.