Chapter 2. The Asynchronous API
In addition to synchronous API methods, Red Hat JBoss Data Grid also offers an asynchronous API that provides the same functionality in a non-blocking fashion.
The asynchronous method naming convention is similar to their synchronous counterparts, with
Async appended to each method name. Asynchronous methods return a Future that contains the result of the operation.
For example, in a cache parameterized as
Cache<String, String>, Cache.put(String key, String value) returns a String, while Cache.putAsync(String key, String value) returns a Future<String>.
2.1. Asynchronous API Benefits
The asynchronous API does not block, which provides multiple benefits, such as:
- The guarantee of synchronous communication, with the added ability to handle failures and exceptions.
- Not being required to block a thread's operations until the call completes.
These benefits allow you to better harness the parallelism in your system, for example:
Example 2.1. Using the Asynchronous API
Set<Future<?>> futures = new HashSet<Future<?>>();
futures.add(cache.putAsync("key1", "value1"));
futures.add(cache.putAsync("key2", "value2"));
futures.add(cache.putAsync("key3", "value3"));
In the example, The following lines do not block the thread as they execute:
futures.add(cache.putAsync(key1, value1));futures.add(cache.putAsync(key2, value2));futures.add(cache.putAsync(key3, value3));
The remote calls from the three put operations are executed in parallel. This is particularly useful when executed in distributed mode.
