Configuration overhaul

Infinispan 5.2 will sport a much needed configuration overhaul which will affect both the programmatic builder API and the declarative XML parsing.

As you all know by now, 5.1 introduced a new fluent builder-based API with immutable POJOs for configuring Infinispan's core. This coolness however was not extended to all the extra modules available for Infinispan (and there are quite a few of those), leaving them with a simple untyped key/value properties-based configuration. This was especially visible (and painful) when configuring the cache loaders, some of which have a plethora of parameters and options.

In 5.2 modules become first-class citizens and can provide their own builders and can take care of parsing their own XML for which they can provide a custom schema (for editors/IDE which provide content-assist). Modules can retrieve information from either the GlobalConfiguration or the per-cache Configuration objects via the T modules(Class<T> moduleClass) method.

Loaders and Stores also get this treatment. Look at the two before and after configurations below for configuring the JDBC Cache Store.

Before:

After:

You will be able to check-out these features in Infinispan 5.2.0.Alpha3. Bear in mind that at the time of writing not all cache loaders have been migrated to this new configuration style, but they should all be complete by the time 5.2.0.Final is released.

If you want to learn how to extend Infinispan's configuration for your own modules, head over to ExtendingInfinispansConfiguration which should provide all the information you need

HotRod C# client Beta1 is out!

Thanks to a sustained effort from  Sunimal Rathnayake, the C# HotRod client has evolved quite a bit:

• the public API was polished and finalized
• the client was upgraded to 2nd level of intelligence: that means that it can automatically piggyback cluster's topology information from the servers. E.g. if a new server is added, the client is made aware of it and can start balancing requests towards that server
• a pluggable load balancing policy was added (defaults to round robin) 
• various other bug fixes backed by an growing test suite

We've also set up a development setupiv document to speed you up in case you want to take a look at the code or contribute. 

You can download it from here - please give it a try and don't hesitate to post your comments to our forums, the mailing list  or contact us directly on IRC for a chat!

Cheers,

Mircea

Infinispan project versioning change

Mainly for consistency reason, starting with the next Infinispan releases, we'll switch to JBoss' release naming conventions. In practical terms this means that the names of the releases(Maven artifacts, JIRA) would be different.
E.g.

Old release name	New release name
5.2.0.ALPHA2	5.2.0.Alpha3
5.1.0.BETA1	5.2.0.Beta1
5.1.0.CR1	5.2.0.CR1
5.1.0.FINAL	5.2.0.Final

The names of the releases in JIRA have also been changed startting with 5.1.2.Alpha3.

Cheers,

Mircea 

JavaOne 2012, here I come

Almost time for JavaOne 2012, the biggest geekfest this side of Betelgeuse Five.  I will be speaking again this year, and this time I have both a conference session as well as a birds-of-a-feather session.  If you're going to be at JavaOne, have an interest in in-memory data grids, distributed caching, performance, scalability and NoSQL, do drop in to one of my talks.

The first one is the BoF - early evening on Monday, the 1st of October, where I host the BoF titled "JSR 347, Data Grids, and NoSQL". This BoF is an interactive session targeted at anyone with an interest in standards around data grids and NoSQL, where I would like to discuss the overlaps, convergence and divergence, and of course standards around such technologies.

The second one, a conference session titled "Making Apps Scale with CDI and Data Grids"is a demo-driven talk on building applications to make use of data grids and distributed caching for performance and scalability, using the popular CDI programming model.  Some familiarity with CDI is expected.

In addition to the above two talks, I will also be speaking at the Red Hat booth on data grids, NoSQL and related subjects.  So do drop by and say hello!

Cheers
Manik

Infinispan 5.1.6.FINAL is out!

We've just completed a maintenance release for Infinispan 5.1.x branch. Besides other fixes, this release contains a critical fix for Hibernate integration, i.e. using Infinispan as a 2nd level cache in Hibernate ( a big thanks to Sanne Grinovero for looking into this).
You can download the distribution or the maven artifact. If you have any questions please check our forums, our mailing lists or ping us directly on IRC!

Cheers,
Mircea

Infinispan - Data Grid Platform

For the past few months, I have been working with prominent technology blogger and author Francesco Marchioni on my first book ever.  Unsurprisingly, this is a book on Infinispan, written for Packt Publishing.

This is an entry-level book, covering high level concepts of distributed caching and data grids, before diving into practical, hands-on details of setting up, configuring and using Infinispan.  Monitoring a running grid via JMX and RHQ are also covered, as is a chapter on using Infinispan from CDI, the increasingly popular programming model for enterprise Java.

Grab the book - in print or electronic format - from Packt's website.

Enjoy
Manik