A different kind of template: wildcards

Infinispan's configuration templates are an extremely flexible way to create multiple caches using the same configuration. Configuration inheritance works by explicitly declaring the configuration a specific cache should use.

This works fine when you know the caches you are going to use upfront, but in more dynamic scenarios, this might not be possible. Additionally, if you are using the JCache API, there is no way for you to specify the configuration template you want to use.

Infinispan 9.2 introduces an alternative way to apply templates to caches: wildcards. By creating a template with a wildcard in its name, e.g. `basecache*`, any cache whose name matches the template name will inherit that configuration.

Let's show an example:

Above, caches `basecache-1` and `basecache-2` will use the `basecache*` configuration. This behaviour also applies when retrieving caches programmatically:


When using the JCache API, using the XML file above and the following code will achieve the same result:


NOTE: If a cache name matches multiple wildcards, i.e. it is ambiguous, an exception will be thrown.

I will be introducing other new features that Infinispan 9.2 brings to cache configuration in an upcoming blog post. Stay tuned !

Infinispan 7.2.0.Beta1 released

Dear Infinispan community,

We are proud to announce the release of Infinispan 7.2.0.Beta1 today.

Along the usual assortment of bug fixes, this release includes a few exciting new features:

• Server-side scripting with JSR-223 (ISPN-5013)
• Initial support for the JCache API over HotRod (ISPN-4955)
• Improved size-based eviction, implemented on top of Doug Lea's ConcurrentHashMapV8 (ISPN-3023)

For a complete list of features and bug fixes included in this release, please refer to the release notes.  

Feel free to join us and shape the future releases on our forums, our mailing lists or our #infinispan IRC channel.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this release!

InfoQ interview on Infinispan's JCache certification

As indicated back in December 2014, Infinispan provides a JSR-107 certified JCache implementation. Recently I caught up with Ben Evans from InfoQ to talk about Infinispan, the certification and other topics. You can find the interview here.

Cheers,
Galder

Infinispan 7.0.2.Final is a certified JSR-107 1.0 implementation

The infinispan-jcache module in Infinispan 7.0.2.Final has been certified to be compatible JSR-107 1.0 specification implementation. To get started with Infinispan's JSR-107 implementation, check the Infinispan documentation section on the topic, and remember that Infinispan also implements the JSR-107 annotations for CDI injection of cached values.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the module, and to Greg Luck and Brian Oliver for their help in completing the certification.

Cheers,
Galder

Infinispan 6.0.0.Final is out!

Dear Infinispan community,

We're pleased to announce the final release of Infinispan 6.0 "Infinium". As announced, this is the first Infinispan stable version to be released under the terms of Apache License v2.0.

This release brings some highly demanded features besides many stability enhancements and bug fixes:

• Support for remote query. It is now possible for the HotRod clients to query an Infinispan grid using a new expressive query DSL. This querying functionality is built on top of Apache Lucene and Google Protobuf and lays the foundation for storing information and querying an Infinispan server in a language neutral manner. The Java HotRod client has already been enhanced to support this, the soon-to-be announced C++ HotRod client will also contain this functionality (initially for write/read, then full blown querying).
• C++ HotRod client.  Allows C++ applications to read and write information from an Infinispan server. This is a fully fledged HotRod client that is topology (level 2) and consistent hash aware (level 3) and will be released in the following days. Some features (such as Remote Query and SSL support) will be developed during the next iteration so that it maintains feature parity with its Java counterpart.
• Better persistence integration. We’ve revisited the entire cache loader API and we’re quite pleased with the result: the new Persistence API brought by Infinispan 6.0 supports parallel iteration of the stored entries, reduces the overall serialization overhead and also is aligned with the JSR-107 specification, which makes implementations more portable.

• A more efficient FileCacheStore implementation. This file store is built with efficiency in mind: it outperforms the existing file store with up to 2 levels of magnitude. This comes at a cost though, as keys need to be kept  in memory. Thanks to Karsten Blees for contributing this!
• Support for heterogeneous clusters. Up to this release, every member of the cluster owns an equal share of the cluster’s data. This doesn’t work well if one machine is more powerful than the other cluster participants. This functionality allows specifying the amount of data, compared with the average, held by a particular machine.
• A new set of usage and performance statistics developed within the scope of the CloudTM project.
• JCache (JSR-107) implementation upgrade. First released in Infinispan 5.3.0, the standard caching support is now upgraded to version 1.0.0-PFD.

For a complete list of features included in this release please refer to the release notes.

The user documentation for this release has been revamped and migrated to the new website - we think it looks much better and hope you’ll like it too!

This release has spread over a period of 5 months: a sustained effort from the core development team, QE team and our growing community - a BIG thanks to everybody involved! Please visit our downloads section to find the latest release. Also if you have any questions please check our forums, our mailing lists or ping us directly on IRC.

Cheers,

Adrian

Give Java Caching Standard API a go using Infinispan 5.3.0.Alpha1!

As part of the recent Infinispan 5.3.0.Alpha1, the first Infinispan JCache implementation was released which implements version 0.6 of the JCache specification as defined by JSR-107. It passes 100% the mandatory TCK including optional transactions TCK.

A document on how to use Infinispan JCache implementation has just been released, which explains the basics of using JCache, how it differs with existing APIs provided by the JDK, and how to cluster JCache based cache instances. More information will be added to the document, including quickstarts, as we make further progress in the Infinispan 5.3 series.

Please note that the CDI and annotations part of JCache 0.6 specification is still in flux, and we're not yet able to provide an implementation for it, but we expect the issues stopping the implementation to be resolved in the near future.

Finally, as it's expected from first releases, some bugs might be present, so if you encounter any misbehaviour, check the list of issues associated with the JCache component to see if the issue has already been resolved, or if not, please report it so that it can be fixed ASAP :).

Cheers,
Galder