Chapter 1. Configuring cache encoding

Encoding is the format, identified by a media type, that Data Grid uses to store entries (key/value pairs) in caches.

Remote caches

Data Grid Server stores entries in remote caches with the encoding that is set in the cache configuration.

Hot Rod and REST clients include a media type with each request they make to Data Grid Server. To handle multiple clients making read and write requests with different media types, Data Grid Server converts data on-demand to and from the media type that is set in the cache configuration.

If the remote cache does not have any encoding configuration, Data Grid Server stores keys and values as generic byte[] without any media type information, which can lead to unexpected results when converting data for clients request different formats.

Data Grid recommends always configuring cache encoding with the application/x-protostream media type if you want to use multiple clients, such as Data Grid Console or CLI, Hot Rod, or REST. ProtoStream encoding also lets you use server-side tasks and perform indexed queries on remote caches.

Embedded caches

Data Grid stores entries in embedded caches as Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) by default.

For clustered embedded caches, Data Grid needs to marshall any POJOs to a byte array that can be replicated between nodes and then unmarshalled back into POJOs. This means you must ensure that Data Grid can serialize your POJOs with the ProtoStream marshaller if you do not configure another marshaller.

Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is a lightweight binary media type for structured data. As a cache encoding, Protobuf gives you excellent performance as well as interoperability between client applications in different programming languages for both Hot Rod and REST endpoints.

Data Grid uses a ProtoStream library to encode caches as Protobuf with the application/x-protostream media type.

The following example shows a Protobuf message that describes a Person object:

message Person {
    optional int32 id = 1;
    optional string name = 2;
    optional string surname = 3;
    optional Address address = 4;
    repeated PhoneNumber phoneNumbers = 5;
    optional uint32 age = 6;
    enum Gender {
        MALE = 0;
        FEMALE = 1;
    }
}

Interoperability

Because it is language neutral, Protobuf encoding means Data Grid can handle requests from client applications written in Java, C++, C#, Python, Go, and more.

Protobuf also enables clients on different remote endpoints, Hot Rod or REST, to operate on the same data. Because it uses the REST API, you can access and work with Protobuf-encoded caches through Data Grid Console.

You should always use Protobuf cache encoding with the application/x-protostream media type for integration with any Red Hat technology because it allows communication between applications and services.

Queries

Data Grid needs a structured representation of data in caches for fast and reliable queries. To search caches with the Ickle query language, you register Protobuf schema that describe your objects.

Custom types

Data Grid includes an implementation of the ProtoStream API with native support for frequently used types, including String and Integer. If you want to store custom types in your caches, use ProtoStream marshalling to generate and register serialization contexts with Data Grid so that it can marshall your objects.

<distributed-cache>
   <encoding>
      <key media-type="application/x-protostream"/>
      <value media-type="application/x-protostream"/>
   </encoding>
</distributed-cache>

//Create cache configuration that encodes keys and values as ProtoStream
ConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
builder.clustering().cacheMode(CacheMode.DIST_SYNC)
       .encoding().key().mediaType("application/x-protostream")
       .encoding().value().mediaType("application/x-protostream");

<encoding media-type="application/x-protostream"/>

.encoding().mediaType("application/x-protostream");

Text-based encoding is human-readable content such as plain text. The classic "Hello World" example entry could be stored in a cache as follows:

key=hello
value=world

If you encode caches with the text/plain media type, Data Grid can convert to and from the following media types:

The following example configuration encodes keys and values with the text/plain; charset=UTF-8 media type:

<distributed-cache>
   <encoding>
      <key media-type="text/plain; charset=UTF-8"/>
      <value media-type="text/plain; charset=UTF-8"/>
   </encoding>
</distributed-cache>

Data Grid stores marshalled Java objects in caches as byte arrays. For example, the following is a simple representation of a Person object stored as a value in memory:

value=[61 6c 61 6e 0a 70 61 72 74 72 69 64 67 65]

To store marshalled objects in caches, you should use the ProtoStream marshaller unless a strict requirement exists. For example, when migrating client applications from older versions of Data Grid, you might need to temporarily use JBoss marshalling with your Hot Rod Java clients.

Data Grid stores marshalled Java objects as byte arrays with the following media types:

For best performance, Data Grid recommends storing unmarshalled POJOs in embedded caches only. However, you can configure keys and values with the following media type:

Make custom JAR files available to Data Grid Server by adding them to the classpath.