8.5. Synchronous and Asynchronous Replication
Replication mode can be synchronous or asynchronous depending on the problem being addressed.
- Synchronous replication blocks a thread or caller (for example on a
put()operation) until the modifications are replicated across all nodes in the cluster. By waiting for acknowledgments, synchronous replication ensures that all replications are successfully applied before the operation is concluded. - Asynchronous replication operates significantly faster than synchronous replication because it does not need to wait for responses from nodes. Asynchronous replication performs the replication in the background and the call returns immediately. Errors that occur during asynchronous replication are written to a log. As a result, a transaction can be successfully completed despite the fact that replication of the transaction may not have succeeded on all the cache instances in the cluster.
8.5.1. Troubleshooting Asynchronous Replication Behavior
In some instances, a cache configured for asynchronous replication or distribution may wait for responses, which is synchronous behavior. This occurs because caches behave synchronously when both state transfers and asynchronous modes are configured. This synchronous behavior is a prerequisite for state transfer to operate as expected.
Use one of the following to remedy this problem:
- Disable state transfer and use a
ClusteredCacheLoaderto lazily look up remote state as and when needed. - Enable state transfer and
REPL_SYNC. Use the Asynchronous API (for example, thecache.putAsync(k, v)) to activate 'fire-and-forget' capabilities. - Enable state transfer and
REPL_ASYNC. All RPCs end up becoming synchronous, but client threads will not be held up if a replication queue is enabled (which is recommended for asynchronous mode).
