Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides the convenience of Spring Boot’s convention over configuration approach by using auto-configuration with Spring Framework’s powerful abstractions and highly consistent programming model to simplify the development of Apache Geode applications in a Spring context.

Secondarily, Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides developers with a consistent experience whether building and running Spring Boot, Apache Geode applications locally or in a managed environment, such as with VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS).

This project is a continuation and a logical extension to Spring Data for Apache Geode’s Annotation-based configuration model, and the goals set forth in that model: To enable application developers to get up and running as quickly, reliably, and as easily as possible. In fact, Spring Boot for Apache Geode builds on this very foundation cemented in Spring Data for Apache Geode since the Spring Data Kay (2.0) Release Train.

1. Introduction

Spring Boot for Apache Geode automatically applies auto-configuration to several key application concerns (use cases) including, but not limited to:

While Spring Data for Apache Geode offers a simple, consistent, convenient and declarative approach to configure all these powerful Apache Geode features, Spring Boot for Apache Geode makes it even easier to do, as we will explore throughout this reference documentation.

1.1. Goals

While the SBDG project has many goals and objectives, the primary goals of this project center around three key principles:

  1. From Open Source (Apache Geode) to Commercial (VMware Tanzu GemFire).

  2. From Non-Managed (self-managed/self-hosted or on-premise installations) to Managed (VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs, VMware Tanzu GemFire for K8S) environments.

  3. With little to no code or configuration changes necessary.

It is also possible to go in the reverse direction, from Managed back to a Non-Managed environment and even from Commercial back to the Open Source offering, again, with little to no code or configuration changes.

SBDG’s promise is to deliver on these principles as much as is technically possible and as is technically allowed by Apache Geode.

2. Getting Started

To be immediately productive and as effective as possible when you use Spring Boot for Apache Geode, it helps to understand the foundation on which this project is built.

The story begins with the Spring Framework and the core technologies and concepts built into the Spring container.

Then our journey continues with the extensions built into Spring Data for Apache Geode to simplify the development of Apache Geode applications in a Spring context, using Spring’s powerful abstractions and highly consistent programming model. This part of the story was greatly enhanced in Spring Data Kay, with the Annotation-based configuration model. Though this new configuration approach uses annotations and provides sensible defaults, its use is also very explicit and assumes nothing. If any part of the configuration is ambiguous, SDG will fail fast. SDG gives you choice, so you still must tell SDG what you want.

Next, we venture into Spring Boot and all of its wonderfully expressive and highly opinionated “convention over configuration” approach for getting the most out of your Spring Apache Geode applications in the easiest, quickest, and most reliable way possible. We accomplish this by combining Spring Data for Apache Geode’s annotation-based configuration with Spring Boot’s auto-configuration to get you up and running even faster and more reliably so that you are productive from the start.

As a result, it would be pertinent to begin your Spring Boot education with Spring Boot’s documentation.

Finally, we arrive at Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG).

See the corresponding Sample Guide and Code to see Spring Boot for Apache Geode in action.

3. Using Spring Boot for Apache Geode

To use Spring Boot for Apache Geode, declare the spring-geode-starter on your Spring Boot application classpath:

Example 1. Maven
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-geode-starter</artifactId>
        <version>1.6.14</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>
Gradle
dependencies {
    compile 'org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter:1.6.14'
}

3.1. Maven BOM

If you anticipate using more than one Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) module in your Spring Boot application, you can also declare the new org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-bom Maven BOM in your application Maven POM.

Your application use case may require more than one module if (for example, you need (HTTP) Session state management and replication with, for example, spring-geode-starter-session), if you need to enable Spring Boot Actuator endpoints for Apache Geode (for example, spring-geode-starter-actuator), or if you need assistance writing complex Unit and (Distributed) Integration Tests with Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG) (for example, spring-geode-starter-test).

You can declare and use any one of the SBDG modules:

  • spring-geode-starter

  • spring-geode-starter-actuator

  • spring-geode-starter-logging

  • spring-geode-starter-session

  • spring-geode-starter-test

When more than one SBDG module is in use, it makes sense to declare the spring-geode-bom to manage all the dependencies such that the versions and transitive dependencies necessarily align properly.

A Spring Boot application Maven POM that declares the spring-geode-bom along with two or more module dependencies might appear as follows:

Example 2. Spring Boot application Maven POM
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.6.14</version>
    </parent>

    <artifactId>my-spring-boot-application</artifactId>

    <properties>
        <spring-geode.version>1.6.14</spring-geode.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencyManagement>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-geode-bom</artifactId>
                <version>${spring-geode.version}</version>
                <scope>import</scope>
                <type>pom</type>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </dependencyManagement>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-geode-starter</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-geode-starter-session</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-geode-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

</project>

Notice that:

  • The Spring Boot application Maven POM (pom.xml) contains a <dependencyManagement> section that declares the org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-bom.

  • None of the spring-geode-starter[-xyz] dependencies explicitly specify a <version>. The version is managed by the spring-geode.version property, making it easy to switch between versions of SBDG as needed and use it in all the SBDG modules declared and used in your application Maven POM.

If you change the version of SBDG, be sure to change the org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent POM version to match. SBDG is always one major version behind but matches on minor version and patch version (and version qualifier — SNAPSHOT, M#, RC#, or RELEASE, if applicable).

For example, SBDG 1.4.0 is based on Spring Boot 2.4.0. SBDG 1.3.5.RELEASE is based on Spring Boot 2.3.5.RELEASE, and so on. It is important that the versions align.

All of these concerns are handled for you by going to start.spring.io and adding the “_Spring for Apache Geode_” dependency to a project. For convenience, you can click this link to get started.

3.2. Gradle Dependency Management

Using Gradle is similar to using Maven.

Again, if you declare and use more than one SBDG module in your Spring Boot application (for example, the spring-geode-starter along with the spring-geode-starter-session dependency), declaring the spring-geode-bom inside your application Gradle build file helps.

Your application Gradle build file configuration (roughly) appears as follows:

Example 3. Spring Boot application Gradle build file
plugins {
  id 'org.springframework.boot' version '2.6.14'
  id 'io.spring.dependency-management' version '1.0.10.RELEASE'
  id 'java'
}

// ...

ext {
  set('springGeodeVersion', "1.6.14")
}

dependencies {
  implementation 'org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter'
  implementation 'org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter-actuator'
  testImplementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test'
}

dependencyManagement {
  imports {
    mavenBom "org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-bom:${springGeodeVersion}"
  }
}

A combination of the Spring Boot Gradle Plugin and the Spring Dependency Management Gradle Plugin manages the application dependencies for you.

In a nutshell, the Spring Dependency Management Gradle Plugin provides dependency management capabilities for Gradle, much like Maven. The Spring Boot Gradle Plugin defines a curated and tested set of versions for many third party Java libraries. Together, they make adding dependencies and managing (compatible) versions easier.

Again, you do not need to explicitly declare the version when adding a dependency, including a new SBDG module dependency (for example, spring-geode-starter-session), since this has already been determined for you. You can declare the dependency as follows:

implementation 'org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter-session'

The version of SBDG is controlled by the extension property (springGeodeVersion) in the application Gradle build file.

To use a different version of SBDG, set the springGeodeVersion property to the desired version (for example, 1.3.5.RELEASE). Remember to be sure that the version of Spring Boot matches.

SBDG is always one major version behind but matches on minor version and patch version (and version qualifier, such as SNAPSHOT, M#, RC#, or RELEASE, if applicable). For example, SBDG 1.4.0 is based on Spring Boot 2.4.0, SBDG 1.3.5.RELEASE is based on Spring Boot 2.3.5.RELEASE, and so on. It is important that the versions align.

All of these concerns are handled for you by going to start.spring.io and adding the “_Spring for Apache Geode_” dependency to a project. For convenience, you can click this link to get started.

4. Primary Dependency Versions

Spring Boot for Apache Geode 1.6.14 builds and depends on the following versions of the base projects listed below:

Table 1. Dependencies & Versions
Name Version

Java (JRE)

1.8

Apache Geode

1.14.4

Spring Framework

5.3.24

Spring Boot

2.6.14

Spring Data for Apache Geode

2.6.10

Spring Session for Apache Geode

2.6.3

Spring Test for Apache Geode

0.2.4-Q

It is essential that the versions of all the dependencies listed in the table above align accordingly. If the dependency versions are misaligned, then functionality could be missing, or certain functions could behave unpredictably from its specified contract.

Please follow dependency versions listed in the table above and use it as a guide when setting up your Spring Boot projects using Apache Geode.

Again, the best way to setup your Spring Boot projects is by first, declaring the spring-boot-starter-parent Maven POM as the parent POM in your project POM:

Example 4. Spring Boot application Maven POM parent
<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.6.14</version>
</parent>

Or, when using Grade:

Example 5. Spring Boot application Gradle build file Gradle Plugins required for dependency management
plugins {
  id 'org.springframework.boot' version '2.6.14'
  id 'io.spring.dependency-management' version '1.0.10.RELEASE'
  id 'java'
}

And then, use the Spring Boot for Apache Geode, spring-geode-bom. For example, with Maven:

Example 6. Spring Boot application using the Spring Boot for Apache Geode, spring-geode-bom BOM in Maven
<properties>
    <spring-geode.version>1.6.14</spring-geode.version>
</properties>

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-geode-bom</artifactId>
            <version>${spring-geode.version}</version>
            <scope>import</scope>
            <type>pom</type>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-geode-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Or, with Gradle:

Example 7. Spring Boot application using the Spring Boot for Apache Geode, spring-geode-bom BOM in Gradle
ext {
    set('springGeodeVersion', "1.6.14")
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter'
}

dependencyManagement {
    imports {
        mavenBom "org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-bom:${springGeodeVersion}"
    }
}

All of this is made simple by going to start.spring.io and creating a Spring Boot 2.6.14 project using Apache Geode.

4.1. Overriding Dependency Versions

While Spring Boot for Apache Geode requires baseline versions of the primary dependencies listed above, it is possible, using Spring Boot’s dependency management capabilities, to override the versions of 3rd-party Java libraries and dependencies managed by Spring Boot itself.

When your Spring Boot application Maven POM inherits from the org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent, or alternatively, applies the Spring Dependency Management Gradle Plugin (io.spring.dependency-management) along with the Spring Boot Gradle Plugin (org.springframework.boot) in your Spring Boot application Gradle build file, then you automatically enable the dependency management capabilities provided by Spring Boot for all 3rd-party Java libraries and dependencies curated and managed by Spring Boot.

Spring Boot’s dependency management harmonizes all 3rd-party Java libraries and dependencies that you are likely to use in your Spring Boot applications. All these dependencies have been tested and proven to work with the version of Spring Boot and other Spring dependencies (e.g. Spring Data, Spring Security) you may be using in your Spring Boot applications.

Still, there may be times when you want, or even need to override the version of some 3rd-party Java libraries used by your Spring Boot applications, that are specifically managed by Spring Boot. In cases where you know that using a different version of a managed dependency is safe to do so, then you have a few options for how to override the dependency version:

Use caution when overriding dependencies since they may not be compatible with other dependencies managed by Spring Boot for which you may have declared on your application classpath, for example, by adding a starter. It is common for multiple Java libraries to share the same transitive dependencies but use different versions of the Java library (e.g. logging). This will often lead to Exceptions thrown at runtime due to API differences. Keep in mind that Java resolves classes on the classpath from the first class definition that is found in the order that JARs or paths have been defined on the classpath. Finally, Spring does not support dependency versions that have been overridden and do not match the versions declared and managed by Spring Boot. See documentation.
You should refer to Spring Boot’s documentation on Dependency Management for more details.

4.1.1. Version Property Override

Perhaps the easiest option to change the version of a Spring Boot managed dependency is to set the version property used by Spring Boot to control the dependency’s version to the desired Java library version.

For example, if you want to use a different version of Log4j than what is currently set and determined by Spring Boot, then you would do:

Maven dependency version property override
<properties>
  <log4j2.version>2.17.2</log4j2.version>
</properties>
Gradle dependency version property override
ext['log4j2.version'] = '2.17.2'
The Log4j version number used in the Maven and Gradle examples shown above is arbitrary. You must set the log4j2.version property to a valid Log4j version that would be resolvable by Maven or Gradle when given the fully qualified artifact: org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j:2.17.2.

The version property name must precisely match the version property declared in the spring-boot-dependencies Maven POM.

See Spring Boot’s documentation on version properties.

Additional details can be found in the Spring Boot Maven Plugin documentation as well as the Spring Boot Gradle Plugin documentation.

4.1.2. Override with Dependency Management

This option is not specific to Spring in general, or Spring Boot in particular, but applies to Maven and Gradle, which both have intrinsic dependency management features and capabilities.

This approach is useful to not only control the versions of the dependencies managed by Spring Boot directly, but also control the versions of dependencies that may be transitively pulled in by the dependencies that are managed by Spring Boot. Additionally, this approach is more universal since it is handled by Maven or Gradle itself.

For example, when you declare the org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test dependency in your Spring Boot application Maven POM or Gradle build file for testing purposes, you will see a dependency tree similar to:

$gradlew dependencies OR $mvn dependency:tree
...
[INFO] +- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test:jar:2.6.4:test
[INFO] |  +- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-test:jar:2.6.4:test
[INFO] |  +- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-test-autoconfigure:jar:2.6.4:test
[INFO] |  +- com.jayway.jsonpath:json-path:jar:2.6.0:test
[INFO] |  |  +- net.minidev:json-smart:jar:2.4.8:test
[INFO] |  |  |  \- net.minidev:accessors-smart:jar:2.4.8:test
[INFO] |  |  |     \- org.ow2.asm:asm:jar:9.1:test
[INFO] |  |  \- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:jar:1.7.36:compile
[INFO] |  +- jakarta.xml.bind:jakarta.xml.bind-api:jar:2.3.3:test
[INFO] |  |  \- jakarta.activation:jakarta.activation-api:jar:1.2.2:test
[INFO] |  +- org.assertj:assertj-core:jar:3.21.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.hamcrest:hamcrest:jar:2.2:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter:jar:5.8.2:test
[INFO] |  |  +- org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-api:jar:5.8.2:test
[INFO] |  |  |  +- org.opentest4j:opentest4j:jar:1.2.0:test
[INFO] |  |  |  +- org.junit.platform:junit-platform-commons:jar:1.8.2:test
[INFO] |  |  |  \- org.apiguardian:apiguardian-api:jar:1.1.2:test
[INFO] |  |  +- org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-params:jar:5.8.2:test
[INFO] |  |  \- org.junit.jupiter:junit-jupiter-engine:jar:5.8.2:test
[INFO] |  |     \- org.junit.platform:junit-platform-engine:jar:1.8.2:test
...

If you wanted to override and control the version of the opentest4j transitive dependency, for whatever reason, perhaps because you are using the opentest4j API directly in your application tests, then you could add dependency management in either Maven or Gradle to control the opentest4j dependency version.

The opentest4j dependency is pulled in by JUnit and is not a dependency that Spring Boot specifically manages. Of course, Maven or Gradle’s dependency management capabilities can be used to override dependencies that are managed by Spring Boot as well.

Using the opentest4j dependency as an example, you can override the dependency version by doing the following:

Maven dependency version override
<project>

    <dependencyManagement>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>org.opentest4j</groupId>
                <artifactId>opentest4j</artifactId>
                <version>1.0.0</version>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </dependencyManagement>

</project>
Gradle dependency version override
plugins {
	id 'org.springframework.boot' version '2.6.14'
}

apply plugin:  'io.spring.dependency-management'

dependencyManagement {
  dependencies {
    dependency 'org.opentest4j:openttest4j:1.0.0'
  }
}

After applying Maven or Gradle dependency management configuration, you will then see:

$gradlew dependencies OR $mvn dependency:tree
...
[INFO] +- org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test:jar:2.6.4:test
...
[INFO] |  |  |  +- org.opentest4j:opentest4j:jar:1.0.0:test
...

For more details on Maven dependency management, refer to the documentation.

For more details on Gradle dependency management, please refer to the documentation

5. Building ClientCache Applications

The first opinionated option provided to you by Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) is a ClientCache instance that you get by declaring Spring Boot for Apache Geode on your application classpath.

It is assumed that most application developers who use Spring Boot to build applications backed by Apache Geode are building cache client applications deployed in an Apache Geode Client/Server Topology. The client/server topology is the most common and traditional architecture employed by enterprise applications that use Apache Geode.

For example, you can begin building a Spring Boot Apache Geode ClientCache application by declaring the spring-geode-starter on your application’s classpath:

Example 8. Spring Boot for Apache Geode on the application classpath
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-geode-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>

Then you configure and bootstrap your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application with the following main application class:

Example 9. Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache Application
@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Your application now has a ClientCache instance that can connect to an Apache Geode server running on localhost and listening on the default CacheServer port, 40404.

By default, an Apache Geode server (that is, CacheServer) must be running for the application to use the ClientCache instance. However, it is perfectly valid to create a ClientCache instance and perform data access operations by using LOCAL Regions. This is useful during development.

To develop with LOCAL Regions, configure your cache Regions with the ClientRegionShortcut.LOCAL data management policy.

When you are ready to switch from your local development environment (IDE) to a client/server architecture in a managed environment, change the data management policy of the client Region from LOCAL back to the default (PROXY) or even a CACHING_PROXY, which causes the data to be sent to and received from one or more servers.

Compare and contrast the preceding configuration with the Spring Data for Apache Geode approach.

It is uncommon to ever need a direct reference to the ClientCache instance provided by SBDG injected into your application components (for example, @Service or @Repository beans defined in a Spring ApplicationContext), whether you are configuring additional Apache Geode objects (Regions, Indexes, and so on) or are using those objects indirectly in your applications. However, it is possible to do so if and when needed.

For example, perhaps you want to perform some additional ClientCache initialization in a Spring Boot ApplicationRunner on startup:

Example 10. Injecting a GemFireCache reference
@SpringBootApplication
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    ApplicationRunner runAdditionalClientCacheInitialization(GemFireCache gemfireCache) {

        return args -> {

            ClientCache clientCache = (ClientCache) gemfireCache;

            // perform additional ClientCache initialization as needed
        };
    }
}

5.1. Building Embedded (Peer & Server) Cache Applications

What if you want to build an embedded peer Cache application instead?

Perhaps you need an actual peer cache member, configured and bootstrapped with Spring Boot, along with the ability to join this member to an existing cluster (of data servers) as a peer node.

Remember the second goal in Spring Boot’s documentation:

Be opinionated out of the box but get out of the way quickly as requirements start to diverge from the defaults.

Here, we focus on the second part of the goal: "get out of the way quickly as requirements start to diverge from the defaults".

If your application requirements demand you use Spring Boot to configure and bootstrap an embedded peer Cache instance, declare your intention with either SDG’s @PeerCacheApplication annotation, or, if you also need to enable connections from ClientCache applications, use SDG’s @CacheServerApplication annotation:

Example 11. Spring Boot, Apache Geode CacheServer Application
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication.class, args);
    }
}
An Apache Geode server is not necessarily a CacheServer capable of serving cache clients. It is merely a peer member node in an Apache Geode cluster (that is, a distributed system) that stores and manages data.

By explicitly declaring the @CacheServerApplication annotation, you tell Spring Boot that you do not want the default ClientCache instance but rather want an embedded peer Cache instance with a CacheServer component, which enables connections from ClientCache applications.

You can also enable two other Apache Geode services: * An embedded Locator, which allows clients or even other peers to locate servers in the cluster. * An embedded Manager, which allows the Apache Geode application process to be managed and monitored by using Gfsh, Apache Geode’s command-line shell tool:

Example 12. Spring Boot Apache Geode CacheServer Application with Locator and Manager services enabled
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication")
@EnableLocator
@EnableManager
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication.class, args);
    }
}

Then you can use Gfsh to connect to and manage this server:

$ echo $GEMFIRE
/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1

$ gfsh
    _________________________     __
   / _____/ ______/ ______/ /____/ /
  / /  __/ /___  /_____  / _____  /
 / /__/ / ____/  _____/ / /    / /
/______/_/      /______/_/    /_/    1.2.1

Monitor and Manage Apache Geode

gfsh>connect
Connecting to Locator at [host=localhost, port=10334] ..
Connecting to Manager at [host=10.0.0.121, port=1099] ..
Successfully connected to: [host=10.0.0.121, port=1099]


gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:29798)<ec><v0>:1024


gfsh>describe member --name=SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Name        : SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Id          : 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:29798)<ec><v0>:1024
Host        : 10.0.0.121
Regions     :
PID         : 29798
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 168M
Max Heap    : 3641M
Working Dir : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Log file    : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Locators    : localhost[10334]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 40404
Running                  : true
Client Connections       : 0

You can even start additional servers in Gfsh. These additional servers connect to your Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode CacheServer application. These additional servers started in Gfsh know about the Spring Boot, Apache Geode server because of the embedded Locator service, which is running on localhost and listening on the default Locator port, 10334:

gfsh>start server --name=GfshServer --log-level=config --disable-default-server
Starting a Geode Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer...
...
Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer on 10.0.0.121 as GfshServer is currently online.
Process ID: 30031
Uptime: 3 seconds
Geode Version: 1.2.1
Java Version: 1.8.0_152
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer/GfshServer.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=10.0.0.121:127.0.0.1[10334] -Dgemfire.use-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.start-dev-rest-api=false -Dgemfire.log-level=config -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -KILL %p -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-core-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-dependencies.jar


gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:29798)<ec><v0>:1024
GfshServer                                  | 10.0.0.121(GfshServer:30031)<v1>:1025

Perhaps you want to start the other way around. You may need to connect a Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode server application to an existing cluster. You can start the cluster in Gfsh with the following commands (shown with partial typical output):

gfsh>start locator --name=GfshLocator --port=11235 --log-level=config
Starting a Geode Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator...
...
Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator on 10.0.0.121[11235] as GfshLocator is currently online.
Process ID: 30245
Uptime: 3 seconds
Geode Version: 1.2.1
Java Version: 1.8.0_152
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator/GfshLocator.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.log-level=config -Dgemfire.enable-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.load-cluster-configuration-from-dir=false -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-core-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

Successfully connected to: JMX Manager [host=10.0.0.121, port=1099]

Cluster configuration service is up and running.


gfsh>start server --name=GfshServer --log-level=config --disable-default-server
Starting a Geode Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer...
....
Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer on 10.0.0.121 as GfshServer is currently online.
Process ID: 30270
Uptime: 4 seconds
Geode Version: 1.2.1
Java Version: 1.8.0_152
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer/GfshServer.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=10.0.0.121[11235] -Dgemfire.use-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.start-dev-rest-api=false -Dgemfire.log-level=config -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -KILL %p -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-core-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1/lib/geode-dependencies.jar


gfsh>list members
   Name     | Id
----------- | --------------------------------------------------
GfshLocator | 10.0.0.121(GfshLocator:30245:locator)<ec><v0>:1024
GfshServer  | 10.0.0.121(GfshServer:30270)<v1>:1025

Then modify the SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication class to connect to the existing cluster:

Example 13. Spring Boot Apache Geode CacheServer Application connecting to an external cluster
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication", locators = "localhost[11235]")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.class, args);
    }
}
Notice that the SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication class, @CacheServerApplication annotation’s locators property are configured with the host and port (localhost[11235]), on which the Locator was started by using Gfsh.

After running your Spring Boot Apache Geode CacheServer application again and executing the list members command in Gfsh again, you should see output similar to the following:

gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------
GfshLocator                                 | 10.0.0.121(GfshLocator:30245:locator)<ec><v0>:1024
GfshServer                                  | 10.0.0.121(GfshServer:30270)<v1>:1025
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:30279)<v2>:1026


gfsh>describe member --name=SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Name        : SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Id          : 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:30279)<v2>:1026
Host        : 10.0.0.121
Regions     :
PID         : 30279
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 165M
Max Heap    : 3641M
Working Dir : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Log file    : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Locators    : localhost[11235]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 40404
Running                  : true
Client Connections       : 0

In both scenarios, the Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode server, the Gfsh Locator and Gfsh server formed a cluster.

While you can use either approach and Spring does not care, it is far more convenient to use Spring Boot and your IDE to form a small cluster while developing. Spring profiles make it far simpler and much faster to configure and start a small cluster.

Also, this approach enables rapidly prototyping, testing, and debugging your entire end-to-end application and system architecture right from the comfort and familiarity of your IDE. No additional tooling (such as Gfsh) or knowledge is required to get started quickly and easily. Just build and run.

Be careful to vary your port numbers for the embedded services, like the CacheServer, Locators, and the Manager, especially if you start multiple instances on the same machine. Otherwise, you are likely to run into a java.net.BindException caused by port conflicts.
See the Running an Apache Geode cluster with Spring Boot from your IDE appendix for more details.

5.2. Building Locator Applications

In addition to ClientCache, CacheServer, and peer Cache applications, SDG, and by extension SBDG, now supports Spring Boot Apache Geode Locator applications.

An Apache Geode Locator is a location-based service or, more typically, a standalone process that lets clients locate a cluster of Apache Geode servers to manage data. Many cache clients can connect to the same cluster to share data. Running multiple clients is common in a Microservices architecture where you need to scale-up the number of application instances to satisfy the demand.

An Apache Geode Locator is also used by joining members of an existing cluster to scale-out and increase capacity of the logically pooled system resources (memory, CPU, network and disk). A Locator maintains metadata that is sent to the clients to enable such capabilities as single-hop data access to route data access operations to the data node in the cluster maintaining the data of interests. A Locator also maintains load information for servers in the cluster, which enables the load to be uniformly distributed across the cluster while also providing fail-over services to a redundant member if the primary fails. A Locator provides many more benefits, and we encourage you to read the documentation for more details.

As shown earlier, you can embed a Locator service within either a Spring Boot peer Cache or a CacheServer application by using the SDG @EnableLocator annotation:

Example 14. Embedded Locator Service
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication
@EnableLocator
class SpringBootCacheServerWithEmbeddedLocatorApplication {
	// ...
}

However, it is more common to start standalone Locator JVM processes. This is useful when you want to increase the resiliency of your cluster in the face of network and process failures, which are bound to happen. If a Locator JVM process crashes or gets severed from the cluster due to a network failure or partition, having multiple Locators provides a higher degree of availability (HA) through redundancy.

Even if all Locators in the cluster go down, the cluster still remains intact. You cannot add more peer members (that is, scale-up the number of data nodes in the cluster) or connect any more clients, but the cluster is fine. If all the locators in the cluster go down, it is safe to restart them only after a thorough diagnosis.

Once a client receives metadata about the cluster of servers, all data-access operations are sent directly to servers in the cluster, not a Locator. Therefore, existing, connected clients remain connected and operable.

To configure and bootstrap Spring Boot Apache Geode Locator applications as standalone JVM processes, use the following configuration:

Example 15. Standalone Locator Process
@SpringBootApplication
@LocatorApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication {
	// ...
}

Instead of using the @EnableLocator annotation, you now use the @LocatorApplication annotation.

The @LocatorApplication annotation works in the same way as the @PeerCacheApplication and @CacheServerApplication annotations, bootstrapping an Apache Geode process and overriding the default ClientCache instance provided by SBDG.

If your @SpringBootApplication class is annotated with @LocatorApplication, it must be a Locator and not a ClientCache, CacheServer, or peer Cache application. If you need the application to function as a peer Cache, perhaps with embedded CacheServer components and an embedded Locator, you need to follow the approach shown earlier: using the @EnableLocator annotation with either the @PeerCacheApplication or @CacheServerApplication annotation.

With our Spring Boot Apache Geode Locator application, we can connect both Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped peer members (peer Cache, CacheServer and Locator applications) as well as Gfsh started Locators and servers.

First, we need to start two Locators by using our Spring Boot Apache Geode Locator application class:

Example 16. SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication class
@UseLocators
@SpringBootApplication
@LocatorApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		new SpringApplicationBuilder(SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication.class)
			.web(WebApplicationType.NONE)
			.build()
			.run(args);

		System.err.println("Press <enter> to exit!");

		new Scanner(System.in).nextLine();
	}

	@Configuration
	@EnableManager(start = true)
	@Profile("manager")
	@SuppressWarnings("unused")
	static class ManagerConfiguration { }

}

We also need to vary the configuration for each Locator application instance.

Apache Geode requires each peer member in the cluster to be uniquely named. We can set the name of the Locator by using the spring.data.gemfire.locator.name SDG property set as a JVM System Property in your IDE’s run configuration profile for the main application class: -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.name=SpringLocatorOne. We name the second Locator application instance SpringLocatorTwo.

Additionally, we must vary the port numbers that the Locators use to listen for connections. By default, an Apache Geode Locator listens on port 10334. We can set the Locator port by using the spring.data.gemfire.locator.port SDG property.

For our first Locator application instance (SpringLocatorOne), we also enable the "manager" profile so that we can connect to the Locator by using Gfsh.

Our IDE run configuration profile for our first Locator application instance appears as:

-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active=manager -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.name=SpringLocatorOne -Dlogback.log.level=INFO

And our IDE run configuration profile for our second Locator application instance appears as:

-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active= -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.name=SpringLocatorTwo -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.port=11235 -Dlogback.log.level=INFO

You should see log output similar to the following when you start a Locator application instance:

Example 17. Spring Boot Apache Geode Locator log output
  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::  (v2.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT)

2019-09-01 11:02:48,707  INFO .SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication:  55 - Starting SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication on jblum-mbpro-2.local with PID 30077 (/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/out/production/classes started by jblum in /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build)
2019-09-01 11:02:48,711  INFO .SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication: 651 - No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default
2019-09-01 11:02:49,374  INFO xt.annotation.ConfigurationClassEnhancer: 355 - @Bean method LocatorApplicationConfiguration.exclusiveLocatorApplicationBeanFactoryPostProcessor is non-static and returns an object assignable to Spring's BeanFactoryPostProcessor interface. This will result in a failure to process annotations such as @Autowired, @Resource and @PostConstruct within the method's declaring @Configuration class. Add the 'static' modifier to this method to avoid these container lifecycle issues; see @Bean javadoc for complete details.
2019-09-01 11:02:49,919  INFO ode.distributed.internal.InternalLocator: 530 - Starting peer location for Distribution Locator on 10.99.199.24[11235]
2019-09-01 11:02:49,925  INFO ode.distributed.internal.InternalLocator: 498 - Starting Distribution Locator on 10.99.199.24[11235]
2019-09-01 11:02:49,926  INFO distributed.internal.tcpserver.TcpServer: 242 - Locator was created at Sun Sep 01 11:02:49 PDT 2019
2019-09-01 11:02:49,927  INFO distributed.internal.tcpserver.TcpServer: 243 - Listening on port 11235 bound on address 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
2019-09-01 11:02:49,928  INFO ternal.membership.gms.locator.GMSLocator: 162 - GemFire peer location service starting.  Other locators: localhost[10334]  Locators preferred as coordinators: true  Network partition detection enabled: true  View persistence file: /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build/locator11235view.dat
2019-09-01 11:02:49,928  INFO ternal.membership.gms.locator.GMSLocator: 416 - Peer locator attempting to recover from localhost/127.0.0.1:10334
2019-09-01 11:02:49,963  INFO ternal.membership.gms.locator.GMSLocator: 422 - Peer locator recovered initial membership of View[10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorOne:30043:locator)<ec><v0>:41000|0] members: [10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorOne:30043:locator)<ec><v0>:41000]
2019-09-01 11:02:49,963  INFO ternal.membership.gms.locator.GMSLocator: 407 - Peer locator recovered state from LocatorAddress [socketInetAddress=localhost/127.0.0.1:10334, hostname=localhost, isIpString=false]
2019-09-01 11:02:49,965  INFO ode.distributed.internal.InternalLocator: 644 - Starting distributed system
2019-09-01 11:02:50,007  INFO he.geode.internal.logging.LoggingSession:  82 -
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with this
  work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.

  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the
  License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
  WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.  See the
  License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
  under the License.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build-Date: 2019-04-19 11:49:13 -0700
Build-Id: onichols 0
Build-Java-Version: 1.8.0_192
Build-Platform: Mac OS X 10.14.4 x86_64
Product-Name: Apache Geode
Product-Version: 1.9.0
Source-Date: 2019-04-19 11:11:31 -0700
Source-Repository: release/1.9.0
Source-Revision: c0a73d1cb84986d432003bd12e70175520e63597
Native version: native code unavailable
Running on: 10.99.199.24/10.99.199.24, 8 cpu(s), x86_64 Mac OS X 10.13.6
Communications version: 100
Process ID: 30077
User: jblum
Current dir: /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Home dir: /Users/jblum
Command Line Parameters:
  -ea
  -Dspring.profiles.active=
  -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.name=SpringLocatorTwo
  -Dspring.data.gemfire.locator.port=11235
  -Dlogback.log.level=INFO
  -javaagent:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 19 CE.app/Contents/lib/idea_rt.jar=51961:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 19 CE.app/Contents/bin
  -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
Class Path:
...
..
.
2019-09-01 11:02:54,112  INFO ode.distributed.internal.InternalLocator: 661 - Locator started on 10.99.199.24[11235]
2019-09-01 11:02:54,113  INFO ode.distributed.internal.InternalLocator: 769 - Starting server location for Distribution Locator on 10.99.199.24[11235]
2019-09-01 11:02:54,134  INFO nt.internal.locator.wan.LocatorDiscovery: 138 - Locator discovery task exchanged locator information 10.99.199.24[11235] with localhost[10334]: {-1=[10.99.199.24[10334]]}.
2019-09-01 11:02:54,242  INFO .SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication:  61 - Started SpringBootApacheGeodeLocatorApplication in 6.137470354 seconds (JVM running for 6.667)
Press <enter> to exit!

Next, start up the second Locator application instance (you should see log output similar to the preceding list). Then connect to the cluster of Locators by using Gfsh:

Example 18. Cluster of Locators
$ echo $GEMFIRE
/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.9.0

$ gfsh
    _________________________     __
   / _____/ ______/ ______/ /____/ /
  / /  __/ /___  /_____  / _____  /
 / /__/ / ____/  _____/ / /    / /
/______/_/      /______/_/    /_/    1.9.0

Monitor and Manage Apache Geode

gfsh>connect
Connecting to Locator at [host=localhost, port=10334] ..
Connecting to Manager at [host=10.99.199.24, port=1099] ..
Successfully connected to: [host=10.99.199.24, port=1099]

gfsh>list members
      Name       | Id
---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringLocatorOne | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorOne:30043:locator)<ec><v0>:41000 [Coordinator]
SpringLocatorTwo | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorTwo:30077:locator)<ec><v1>:41001

By using our SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication main class from the previous section, we can configure and bootstrap an Apache Geode CacheServer application with Spring Boot and connect it to our cluster of Locators:

Example 19. SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication class
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication")
@SuppressWarnings("unused")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		new SpringApplicationBuilder(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication.class)
			.web(WebApplicationType.NONE)
			.build()
			.run(args);
	}

	@Configuration
	@UseLocators
	@Profile("clustered")
	static class ClusteredConfiguration { }

	@Configuration
	@EnableLocator
	@EnableManager(start = true)
	@Profile("!clustered")
	static class LonerConfiguration { }

}

To do so, enable the "clustered" profile by using an IDE run profile configuration similar to:

-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active=clustered -Dspring.data.gemfire.name=SpringServer -Dspring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port=41414 -Dlogback.log.level=INFO

After the server starts up, you should see the new peer member in the cluster:

Example 20. Cluster with Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode CacheServer
gfsh>list members
      Name       | Id
---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringLocatorOne | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorOne:30043:locator)<ec><v0>:41000 [Coordinator]
SpringLocatorTwo | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorTwo:30077:locator)<ec><v1>:41001
SpringServer     | 10.99.199.24(SpringServer:30216)<v2>:41002

Finally, we can even start additional Locators and servers connected to this cluster by using Gfsh:

Example 21. Gfsh started Locators and Servers
gfsh>start locator --name=GfshLocator --port=12345 --log-level=config
Starting a Geode Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator...
......
Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator on 10.99.199.24[12345] as GfshLocator is currently online.
Process ID: 30259
Uptime: 5 seconds
Geode Version: 1.9.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_192
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshLocator/GfshLocator.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=10.99.199.24[11235],10.99.199.24[10334] -Dgemfire.enable-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.load-cluster-configuration-from-dir=false -Dgemfire.log-level=config -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.9.0/lib/geode-core-1.9.0.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.9.0/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

gfsh>start server --name=GfshServer --server-port=45454 --log-level=config
Starting a Geode Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer...
...
Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer on 10.99.199.24[45454] as GfshServer is currently online.
Process ID: 30295
Uptime: 2 seconds
Geode Version: 1.9.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_192
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/GfshServer/GfshServer.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=10.99.199.24[11235],10.99.199.24[12345],10.99.199.24[10334] -Dgemfire.start-dev-rest-api=false -Dgemfire.use-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.log-level=config -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -KILL %p -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.9.0/lib/geode-core-1.9.0.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.9.0/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

gfsh>list members
      Name       | Id
---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringLocatorOne | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorOne:30043:locator)<ec><v0>:41000 [Coordinator]
SpringLocatorTwo | 10.99.199.24(SpringLocatorTwo:30077:locator)<ec><v1>:41001
SpringServer     | 10.99.199.24(SpringServer:30216)<v2>:41002
GfshLocator      | 10.99.199.24(GfshLocator:30259:locator)<ec><v3>:41003
GfshServer       | 10.99.199.24(GfshServer:30295)<v4>:41004

You must be careful to vary the ports and name of your peer members appropriately. Spring, and Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) in particular, make doing so easy.

5.3. Building Manager Applications

As discussed in the previous sections, you can enable a Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode peer member node in the cluster to function as a Manager.

An Apache Geode Manager is a peer member node in the cluster that runs the management service, letting the cluster be managed and monitored with JMX-based tools, such as Gfsh, JConsole, or JVisualVM. Any tool using the JMX API can connect to and manage an Apache Geode cluster for whatever purpose.

Like Locators, the cluster may have more than one Manager for redundancy. Only server-side, peer member nodes in the cluster may function Managers. Therefore, a ClientCache application cannot be a Manager.

To create a Manager, use the SDG @EnableManager annotation.

The three primary uses of the @EnableManager annotation to create a Manager are:

1 - CacheServer Manager Application

@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "CacheServerManagerApplication")
@EnableManager(start = true)
class CacheServerManagerApplication {
	// ...
}

2 - Peer Cache Manager Application

@SpringBootApplication
@PeerCacheApplication(name = "PeerCacheManagerApplication")
@EnableManager(start = "true")
class PeerCacheManagerApplication {
	// ...
}

3 - Locator Manager Application

@SpringBootApplication
@LocatorApplication(name = "LocatorManagerApplication")
@EnableManager(start = true)
class LocatorManagerApplication {
	// ...
}

#1 creates a peer Cache instance with a CacheServer component that accepts client connections along with an embedded Manager that lets JMX clients connect.

#2 creates only a peer Cache instance along with an embedded Manager. As a peer Cache with no CacheServer component, clients are not able to connect to this node. It is merely a server managing data.

#3 creates a Locator instance with an embedded Manager.

In all configuration arrangements, the Manager is configured to start immediately.

See the Javadoc for the @EnableManager annotation for additional configuration options.

As of Apache Geode 1.11.0, you must include additional Apache Geode dependencies on your Spring Boot application classpath to make your application a proper Apache Geode Manager in the cluster, particularly if you also enable the embedded HTTP service in the Manager.

The required dependencies are:

Example 22. Additional Manager dependencies expressed in Gradle
runtime "org.apache.geode:geode-http-service"
runtime "org.apache.geode:geode-web"
runtime "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-jetty"

The embedded HTTP service (implemented with the Eclipse Jetty Servlet Container), runs the Management (Admin) REST API, which is used by Apache Geode tooling, such as Gfsh, to connect to an Apache Geode cluster over HTTP. In addition, it also enables the Apache Geode Pulse Monitoring Tool (and Web application) to run.

Even if you do not start the embedded HTTP service, a Manager still requires the geode-http-service, geode-web and spring-boot-starter-jetty dependencies.

Optionally, you may also include the geode-pulse dependency, as follows:

Example 23. Additional, optional Manager depdendencies expressed in Gradle
runtime "org.apache.geode:geode-pulse"

The geode-pulse dependency is only required if you want the Manager to automatically start the Apache Geode Pulse Monitoring Tool. Pulse enables you to view the nodes of your Apache Geode cluster and monitor them in realtime.

6. Auto-configuration

The following Spring Framework, Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) and Spring Session for Apache Geode (SSDG) annotations are implicitly declared by Spring Boot for Apache Geode’s (SBDG) auto-configuration.

  • @ClientCacheApplication

  • @EnableGemfireCaching (alternatively, Spring Framework’s @EnableCaching)

  • @EnableContinuousQueries

  • @EnableGemfireFunctions

  • @EnableGemfireFunctionExecutions

  • @EnableGemfireRepositories

  • @EnableLogging

  • @EnablePdx

  • @EnableSecurity

  • @EnableSsl

  • @EnableGemFireHttpSession

This means that you need not explicitly declare any of these annotations on your @SpringBootApplication class, since they are provided by SBDG already. The only reason you would explicitly declare any of these annotations is to override Spring Boot’s, and in particular, SBDG’s auto-configuration. Otherwise, doing so is unnecessary.
You should read the chapter in Spring Boot’s reference documentation on auto-configuration.
You should review the chapter in Spring Data for Apache Geode’s (SDG) reference documentation on annotation-based configuration. For a quick reference and overview of annotation-based configuration, see the annotations quickstart.
See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Spring Boot auto-configuration for Apache Geode in action.

6.1. Customizing Auto-configuration

You might ask, “How do I customize the auto-configuration provided by SBDG if I do not explicitly declare the annotation?”

For example, you may want to customize the member’s name. You know that the @ClientCacheApplication annotation provides the name attribute so that you can set the client member’s name. However, SBDG has already implicitly declared the @ClientCacheApplication annotation through auto-configuration on your behalf. What do you do?

In this case, SBDG supplies a few additional annotations.

For example, to set the (client or peer) member’s name, you can use the @UseMemberName annotation:

Example 24. Setting the member’s name using @UseMemberName
@SpringBootApplication
@UseMemberName("MyMemberName")
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {
	//...
}

Alternatively, you could set the spring.application.name or the spring.data.gemfire.name property in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 25. Setting the member’s name using the spring.application.name property
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.application.name = MyMemberName
Example 26. Setting the member’s name using the spring.data.gemfire.cache.name property
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.cache.name = MyMemberName
The spring.data.gemfire.cache.name property is an alias for the spring.data.gemfire.name property. Both properties do the same thing (set the name of the client or peer member node).

In general, there are three ways to customize configuration, even in the context of SBDG’s auto-configuration:

  • Using annotations provided by SBDG for common and popular concerns (such as naming client or peer members with the @UseMemberName annotation or enabling durable clients with the @EnableDurableClient annotation).

  • Using well-known and documented properties (such as spring.application.name, or spring.data.gemfire.name, or spring.data.gemfire.cache.name).

  • Using configurers (such as ClientCacheConfigurer).

For the complete list of documented properties, see Configuration Metadata Reference.

6.2. Disabling Auto-configuration

Spring Boot’s reference documentation explains how to disable Spring Boot auto-configuration.

Disabling Auto-configuration also explains how to disable SBDG auto-configuration.

In a nutshell, if you want to disable any auto-configuration provided by either Spring Boot or SBDG, declare your intent in the @SpringBootApplication annotation:

Example 27. Disabling Specific Auto-configuration Classes
@SpringBootApplication(
  exclude = { DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class, PdxAutoConfiguration.class }
)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {
	// ...
}
Make sure you understand what you are doing when you disable auto-configuration.

6.3. Overriding Auto-configuration

Overriding explains how to override SBDG auto-configuration.

In a nutshell, if you want to override the default auto-configuration provided by SBDG, you must annotate your @SpringBootApplication class with your intent.

For example, suppose you want to configure and bootstrap an Apache Geode CacheServer application (a peer, not a client):

Example 28. Overriding the default ClientCache Auto-Configuration by configuring & bootstrapping a CacheServer application
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {
	// ...
}

You can also explicitly declare the @ClientCacheApplication annotation on your @SpringBootApplication class:

Example 29. Overriding by explicitly declaring @ClientCacheApplication
@SpringBootApplication
@ClientCacheApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {
	// ...
}

You are overriding SBDG’s auto-configuration of the ClientCache instance. As a result, you have now also implicitly consented to being responsible for other aspects of the configuration (such as security).

Why does that happen?

It happens because, in certain cases, such as security, certain aspects of security configuration (such as SSL) must be configured before the cache instance is created. Also, Spring Boot always applies user configuration before auto-configuration partially to determine what needs to be auto-configured in the first place.

Make sure you understand what you are doing when you override auto-configuration.

6.4. Replacing Auto-configuration

See the Spring Boot reference documentation on replacing auto-configuration.

6.5. Understanding Auto-configuration

This section covers the SBDG provided auto-configuration classes that correspond to the SDG annotations in more detail.

To review the complete list of SBDG auto-confiugration classes, see Complete Set of Auto-configuration Classes.

6.5.1. @ClientCacheApplication

The SBDG ClientCacheAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @ClientCacheApplication annotation.

As explained in Getting Started SBDG starts with the opinion that application developers primarily build Apache Geode client applications by using Spring Boot.

Technically, this means building Spring Boot applications with an Apache Geode ClientCache instance connected to a dedicated cluster of Apache Geode servers that manage the data as part of a client/server topology.

By way of example, this means that you need not explicitly declare and annotate your @SpringBootApplication class with SDG’s @ClientCacheApplication annotation, as the following example shows:

Example 30. Do Not Do This
@SpringBootApplication
@ClientCacheApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {
	// ...
}

SBDG’s provided auto-configuration class is already meta-annotated with SDG’s @ClientCacheApplication annotation. Therefore, you need only do:

Example 31. Do This
@SpringBootApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {
	// ...
}
See SDG’s reference documentation for more details on Apache Geode cache applications and client/server applications in particular.

6.5.2. @EnableGemfireCaching

The SBDG CachingProviderAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @EnableGemfireCaching annotation.

If you used the core Spring Framework to configure Apache Geode as a caching provider in Spring’s Cache Abstraction, you need to:

Example 32. Configuring caching using the Spring Framework
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCaching
class CachingUsingApacheGeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean
    GemfireCacheManager cacheManager(GemFireCache cache) {

        GemfireCacheManager cacheManager = new GemfireCacheManager();

        cacheManager.setCache(cache);

        return cacheManager;
    }
}

If you use Spring Data for Apache Geode’s @EnableGemfireCaching annotation, you can simplify the preceding configuration:

Example 33. Configuring caching using Spring Data for Apache Geode
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableGemfireCaching
class CachingUsingApacheGeodeConfiguration {

}

Also, if you use SBDG, you need only do:

Example 34. Configuring caching using Spring Boot for Apache Geode
@SpringBootApplication
class CachingUsingApacheGeodeConfiguration {

}

This lets you focus on the areas in your application that would benefit from caching without having to enable the plumbing. You can then demarcate the service methods in your application that are good candidates for caching:

Example 35. Using caching in your application
@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Caching("CustomersByName")
    Customer findBy(String name) {
        // ...
    }
}
See documentation on caching for more details.

6.5.3. @EnableContinuousQueries

The SBDG ContinuousQueryAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @EnableContinuousQueries annotation.

Without having to enable anything, you can annotate your application (POJO) component method(s) with the SDG @ContinuousQuery annotation to register a CQ and start receiving events. The method acts as a CqEvent handler or, in Apache Geode’s terminology, the method is an implementation of the CqListener interface.

Example 36. Declare application CQs
@Component
class MyCustomerApplicationContinuousQueries {

    @ContinuousQuery("SELECT customer.* "
        + " FROM /Customers customers"
        + " WHERE customer.getSentiment().name().equalsIgnoreCase('UNHAPPY')")
    public void handleUnhappyCustomers(CqEvent event) {
        // ...
    }
}

As the preceding example shows, you can define the events you are interested in receiving by using an OQL query with a finely tuned query predicate that describes the events of interests and implements the handler method to process the events (such as applying a credit to the customer’s account and following up in email).

See Continuous Query for more details.

6.5.4. @EnableGemfireFunctionExecutions & @EnableGemfireFunctions

The SBDG FunctionExecutionAutoConfiguration class corresponds to both the SDG @EnableGemfireFunctionExecutions and SDG @EnableGemfireFunctions annotations.

Whether you need to execute or implement a Function, SBDG detects the Function definition and auto-configures it appropriately for use in your Spring Boot application. You need only define the Function execution or implementation in a package below the main @SpringBootApplication class:

Example 37. Declare a Function Execution
package example.app.functions;

@OnRegion("Accounts")
interface MyCustomerApplicationFunctions {

    void applyCredit(Customer customer);

}

Then you can inject the Function execution into any application component and use it:

Example 38. Use the Function
package example.app.service;

@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Autowired
    private MyCustomerApplicationFunctions customerFunctions;

    void analyzeCustomerSentiment(Customer customer) {

        // ...

        this.customerFunctions.applyCredit(customer);

        // ...
    }
}

The same pattern basically applies to Function implementations, except in the implementation case, SBDG registers the Function implementation for use (that is, to be called by a Function execution).

Doing so lets you focus on defining the logic required by your application and not worry about how Functions are registered, called, and so on. SBDG handles this concern for you.

Function implementations are typically defined and registered on the server-side.
See Function Implementations & Executions for more details.

6.5.5. @EnableGemfireRepositories

The SBDG GemFireRepositoriesAutoConfigurationRegistrar class corresponds to the SDG @EnableGemfireRepositories annotation.

As with Functions, you need concern yourself only with the data access operations (such as basic CRUD and simple queries) required by your application to carry out its operation, not with how to create and perform them (for example, Region.get(key) and Region.put(key, obj)) or execute them (for example, Query.execute(arguments)).

Start by defining your Spring Data Repository:

Example 39. Define an application-specific Repository
package example.app.repo;

interface CustomerRepository extends CrudRepository<Customer, Long> {

    List<Customer> findBySentimentEqualTo(Sentiment sentiment);

}

Then you can inject the Repository into an application component and use it:

Example 40. Using the application-specific Repository
package example.app.sevice;

@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Autowired
    private CustomerRepository repository;

    public void processCustomersWithSentiment(Sentiment sentiment) {

        this.repository.findBySentimentEqualTo(sentiment)
            .forEach(customer -> { /* ... */ });

        // ...
    }
}

Your application-specific Repository simply needs to be declared in a package below the main @SpringBootApplication class. Again, you are focusing only on the data access operations and queries required to carry out the operatinons of your application, nothing more.

See Spring Data Repositories for more details.

6.5.6. @EnableLogging

The SBDG LoggingAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @EnableLogging annotation.

Logging is an essential application concern to understand what is happening in the system along with when and where the events occurred. By default, SBDG auto-configures logging for Apache Geode with the default log-level, “config”.

You can change any aspect of logging, such as the log-level, in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 41. Change the log-level for Apache Geode
# Spring Boot application.properites.

spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level=debug
The 'spring.data.gemfire.logging.level' property is an alias for spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level.

You can also configure other aspects, such as the log file size and disk space limits for the filesystem location used to store the Apache Geode log files at runtime.

Under the hood, Apache Geode’s logging is based on Log4j. Therefore, you can configure Apache Geode logging to use any logging provider (such as Logback) and configuration metadata appropriate for that logging provider so long as you supply the necessary adapter between Log4j and whatever logging system you use. For instance, if you include org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-logging, you are using Logback and you will need the org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-to-slf4j adapter.

6.5.7. @EnablePdx

The SBDG PdxSerializationAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @EnablePdx annotation.

Any time you need to send an object over the network or overflow or persist an object to disk, your application domain model object must be serializable. It would be painful to have to implement java.io.Serializable in every one of your application domain model objects (such as Customer) that would potentially need to be serialized.

Furthermore, using Java Serialization may not be ideal (it may not be the most portable or efficient solution) in all cases or even possible in other cases (such as when you use a third party library over which you have no control).

In these situations, you need to be able to send your object anywhere, anytime without unduly requiring the class type to be serializable and exist on the classpath in every place it is sent. Indeed, the final destination may not even be a Java application. This is where Apache Geode PDX Serialization steps in to help.

However, you need not figure out how to configure PDX to identify the application class types that needs to be serialized. Instead, you can define your class type as follows:

Example 42. Customer class
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Indexed
    private String name;

    // ...
}

SBDG’s auto-configuration handles the rest.

See Data Serialization with PDX for more details.

6.5.8. @EnableSecurity

The SBDG ClientSecurityAutoConfiguration class and PeerSecurityAutoConfiguration class correspond to the SDG @EnableSecurity annotation, but they apply security (specifically, authentication and authorization (auth) configuration) for both clients and servers.

Configuring your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application to properly authenticate with a cluster of secure Apache Geode servers is as simple as setting a username and a password in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 43. Supplying Authentication Credentials
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.security.username=Batman
spring.data.gemfire.security.password=r0b!n5ucks
Authentication is even easier to configure in a managed environment, such as PCF when using PCC. You need not do anything.

Authorization is configured on the server-side and is made simple with SBDG and the help of Apache Shiro. Of course, this assumes you use SBDG to configure and bootstrap your Apache Geode cluster in the first place, which is even easier with SBDG. See Running an Apache Geode cluster with Spring Boot from your IDE.

See Security for more details.

6.5.9. @EnableSsl

The SBDG SslAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SDG @EnableSsl annotation.

Configuring SSL for secure transport (TLS) between your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application and an Apache Geode cluster can be a real problem, especially to get right from the start. So, it is something that SBDG makes as simple as possible.

You can supply a trusted.keystore file containing the certificates in a well-known location (such as the root of your application classpath), and SBDG’s auto-configuration steps in to handle the rest.

This is useful during development, but we highly recommend using a more secure procedure (such as integrating with a secure credential store like LDAP, CredHub or Vault) when deploying your Spring Boot application to production.

See Transport Layer Security using SSL for more details.

6.5.10. @EnableGemFireHttpSession

The SBDG SpringSessionAutoConfiguration class corresponds to the SSDG @EnableGemFireHttpSession annotation.

Configuring Apache Geode to serve as the (HTTP) session state caching provider by using Spring Session requires that you only include the correct starter, that is spring-geode-starter-session:

Example 44. Using Spring Session
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-geode-starter-session</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.14</version>
</dependency>

With Spring Session — and specifically Spring Session for Apache Geode (SSDG) — on the classpath of your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache Web application, you can manage your (HTTP) session state with Apache Geode. No further configuration is needed. SBDG auto-configuration detects Spring Session on the application classpath and does the rest.

See Spring Session for more details.

6.5.11. RegionTemplateAutoConfiguration

The SBDG RegionTemplateAutoConfiguration class has no corresponding SDG annotation. However, the auto-configuration of a GemfireTemplate for every Apache Geode Region defined and declared in your Spring Boot application is still supplied by SBDG.

For example, you can define a Region by using:

Example 45. Region definition using JavaConfig
@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean("Customers")
    ClientRegionFactoryBean<Long, Customer> customersRegion(GemFireCache cache) {

        ClientRegionFactoryBean<Long, Customer> customersRegion =
            new ClientRegionFactoryBean<>();

        customersRegion.setCache(cache);
        customersRegion.setShortcut(ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY);

        return customersRegion;
    }
}

Alternatively, you can define the Customers Region by using @EnableEntityDefinedRegions:

Example 46. Region definition using @EnableEntityDefinedRegions
@Configuration
@EnableEntityDefinedRegion(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class GeodeConfiguration {

}

Then SBDG supplies a GemfireTemplate instance that you can use to perform low-level data-access operations (indirectly) on the Customers Region:

Example 47. Use the GemfireTemplate to access the "Customers" Region
@Repository
class CustomersDao {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("customersTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate customersTemplate;

    Customer findById(Long id) {
        return this.customerTemplate.get(id);
    }
}

You need not explicitly configure GemfireTemplates for each Region to which you need low-level data access (such as when you are not using the Spring Data Repository abstraction).

Be careful to qualify the GemfireTemplate for the Region to which you need data access, especially given that you probably have more than one Region defined in your Spring Boot application.

See Data Access with GemfireTemplate for more details.

7. Declarative Configuration

The primary purpose of any software development framework is to help you be productive as quickly and as easily as possible and to do so in a reliable manner.

As application developers, we want a framework to provide constructs that are both intuitive and familiar so that their behaviors are predictable. This provided convenience not only helps you hit the ground running in the right direction sooner but increases your focus on the application domain so that you can better understand the problem you are trying to solve in the first place. Once the problem domain is well understood, you are more apt to make informed decisions about the design, which leads to better outcomes, faster.

This is exactly what Spring Boot’s auto-configuration provides for you. It enables features, functionality, services and supporting infrastructure for Spring applications in a loosely integrated way by using conventions (such as the classpath) that ultimately help you keep your attention and focus on solving the problem at hand and not on the plumbing.

For example, if you are building a web application, you can include the org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web dependency on your application classpath. Not only does Spring Boot enable you to build Spring Web MVC Controllers appropriate to your application UC (your responsibility), but it also bootstraps your web application in an embedded Servlet container on startup (Spring Boot’s responsibility).

This saves you from having to handle many low-level, repetitive, and tedious development tasks that are error-prone and easy to get wrong when you are trying to solve problems. You need not care how the plumbing works until you need to customize something. And, when you do, you are better informed and prepared to do so.

It is also equally essential that frameworks, such as Spring Boot, get out of the way quickly when application requirements diverge from the provided defaults. This is the beautiful and powerful thing about Spring Boot and why it is second to none in its class.

Still, auto-configuration does not solve every problem all the time. Therefore, you need to use declarative configuration in some cases, whether expressed as bean definitions, in properties, or by some other means. This is so that frameworks do not leave things to chance, especially when things are ambiguous. The framework gives you choice.

Keeping our goals in mind, this chapter:

  • Refers you to the SDG annotations covered by SBDG’s auto-configuration.

  • Lists all SDG annotations not covered by SBDG’s auto-configuration.

  • Covers the SBDG, SSDG and SDG annotations that you must explicitly declare and that provide the most value and productivity when getting started with Apache Geode in Spring [Boot] applications.

SDG refers to Spring Data for Apache Geode. SSDG refers to Spring Session for Apache Geode. SBDG refers to Spring Boot for Apache Geode (this project).
The list of SDG annotations covered by SBDG’s auto-configuration is discussed in detail in the Appendix, in the Auto-configuration vs. Annotation-based configuration section.

To be absolutely clear about which SDG annotations we are referring to, we mean the SDG annotations in the org.springframework.data.gemfire.config.annotation package.

In subsequent sections, we also cover which annotations are added by SBDG.

7.1. Auto-configuration

We explained auto-configuration in detail in the Auto-configuration chapter.

7.2. Annotations Not Covered by Auto-configuration

The following SDG annotations are not implicitly applied by SBDG’s auto-configuration:

  • @EnableAutoRegionLookup

  • @EnableBeanFactoryLocator

  • @EnableCacheServer(s)

  • @EnableCachingDefinedRegions

  • @EnableClusterConfiguration

  • @EnableClusterDefinedRegions

  • @EnableCompression

  • @EnableDiskStore(s)

  • @EnableEntityDefinedRegions

  • @EnableEviction

  • @EnableExpiration

  • @EnableGatewayReceiver

  • @EnableGatewaySender(s)

  • @EnableGemFireAsLastResource

  • @EnableGemFireMockObjects

  • @EnableHttpService

  • @EnableIndexing

  • @EnableOffHeap

  • @EnableLocator

  • @EnableManager

  • @EnableMemcachedServer

  • @EnablePool(s)

  • @EnableRedisServer

  • @EnableStatistics

  • @UseGemFireProperties

This content was also covered in Explicit Configuration.

One reason SBDG does not provide auto-configuration for several of the annotations is because the annotations are server-specific:

  • @EnableCacheServer(s)

  • @EnableGatewayReceiver

  • @EnableGatewaySender(s).

  • @EnableHttpService

  • @EnableLocator

  • @EnableManager

  • @EnableMemcachedServer

  • @EnableRedisServer

Also, we already stated that SBDG is opinionated about providing a ClientCache instance.

Other annotations are driven by need, including:

  • @EnableAutoRegionLookup and @EnableBeanFactoryLocator: Really useful only when mixing configuration metadata formats, such as Spring config with Apache Geode cache.xml. This is usually the case only if you have legacy cache.xml config to begin with. Otherwise, you should not use these annotations.

  • @EnableCompression: Requires the Snappy Compression Library to be on your application classpath.

  • @EnableDiskStore(s) Used only for overflow and persistence.

  • @EnableOffHeap: Enables data to be stored in main memory, which is useful only when your application data (that is, objects stored in Apache Geode) are generally uniform in size.

  • @EnableGemFireAsLastResource: Needed only in the context of JTA Transactions.

  • @EnableStatistics: Useful if you need runtime metrics. However, enabling statistics gathering does consume considerable system resources (CPU & Memory).

Still other annotations require more careful planning:

  • @EnableEviction

  • @EnableExpiration

  • @EnableIndexing

One annotation is used exclusively for unit testing:

  • @EnableGemFireMockObjects

The bottom-line is that a framework should not auto-configure every possible feature, especially when the features consume additional system resources or require more careful planning (as determined by the use case).

However, all of these annotations are available for the application developer to use when needed.

7.3. Productivity Annotations

This section calls out the annotations we believe to be most beneficial for your application development purposes when using Apache Geode in Spring [Boot] applications.

7.3.1. @EnableClusterAware (SBDG)

The @EnableClusterAware annotation is arguably the most powerful and valuable annotation.

Example 48. Declaring @EnableClusterAware
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterAware
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

When you annotate your main @SpringBootApplication class with @EnableClusterAware, your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application is able to seamlessly switch between client/server and local-only topologies with no code or configuration changes, regardless of the runtime environment (such as local/standalone versus cloud-managed environments).

When a cluster of Apache Geode servers is detected, the client application sends and receives data to and from the Apache Geode cluster. If a cluster is not available, the client automatically switches to storing data locally on the client by using LOCAL Regions.

Additionally, the @EnableClusterAware annotation is meta-annotated with SDG’s @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation.

The @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation lets configuration metadata defined on the client (such as Region and Index definitions, as needed by the application based on requirements and use cases) be sent to the cluster of servers. If those schema objects are not already present, they are created by the servers in the cluster in such a way that the servers remember the configuration on restart as well as provide the configuration to new servers that join the cluster when it is scaled out. This feature is careful not to stomp on any existing Region or Index objects already defined on the servers, particularly since you may already have critical data stored in the Regions.

The primary motivation for the @EnableClusterAware annotation is to let you switch environments with minimal effort. It is a common development practice to debug and test your application locally (in your IDE) and then push up to a production-like (staging) environment for more rigorous integration testing.

By default, the configuration metadata is sent to the cluster by using a non-secure HTTP connection. However, you can configure HTTPS, change the host and port, and configure the data management policy used by the servers when creating Regions.

See the section in the SDG reference documentation on Configuring Cluster Configuration Push for more details.
@EnableClusterAware, strictMatch

The strictMatch attribute has been added to the @EnableClusterAware annotation to enable fail-fast behavior. strictMatch is set to false by default.

Essentially, when you set strictMatch to true, your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application requires an Apache Geode cluster to exist. That is, the application requires a client/server topology to operate, and the application should fail to start if a cluster is not present. The application should not startup in a local-only capacity.

When strictMatch is set to true and an Apache Geode cluster is not available, your Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application fails to start with a ClusterNotFoundException. The application does not attempt to start in a local-only capacity.

You can explicitly set the strictMatch attribute programmatically by using the @EnableClusterAware annotation:

Example 49. Set @EnableClusterAware.strictMatch
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterAware(strictMatch = true)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

Alternatively, you can set strictMatch attribute by using the corresponding property in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 50. Set strictMatch using a property
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cluster.condition.match.strict=true

This is convenient when you need to apply this configuration setting conditionally, based on a Spring profile.

When you adjust the log level of the org.springframework.geode.config.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration logger to INFO, you get more details from the @EnableClusterAware functionality when applying the logic to determine the presence of an Apache Geode cluster, such as which explicitly or implicitly configured connections were successful.

The following example shows typical output:

Example 51. @EnableClusterAware INFO log output
2021-01-20 14:02:28,740  INFO fig.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration: 476 - Failed to connect to localhost[40404]
2021-01-20 14:02:28,745  INFO fig.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration: 476 - Failed to connect to localhost[10334]
2021-01-20 14:02:28,746  INFO fig.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration: 470 - Successfully connected to localhost[57649]
2021-01-20 14:02:28,746  INFO fig.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration: 576 - Cluster was found; Auto-configuration made [1] successful connection(s);
2021-01-20 14:02:28,746  INFO fig.annotation.ClusterAwareConfiguration: 586 - Spring Boot application is running in a client/server topology, using a standalone Apache Geode-based cluster
An attempt is always made to connect to localhost on the default Locator port, 10334, and the default CacheServer port, 40404.
You can force a successful match by setting the spring.boot.data.gemfire.cluster.condition.match property to true in Spring Boot application.properties. This is sometimes useful for testing purposes.

7.3.2. @EnableCachingDefinedRegions, @EnableClusterDefinedRegions and @EnableEntityDefinedRegions (SDG)

These annotations are used to create Regions in the cache to manage your application data.

You can create Regions by using Java configuration and the Spring API as follows:

Example 52. Creating a Region with Spring JavaConfig
@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean("Customers")
    ClientRegionFactoryBean<Long, Customer> customersRegion(GemFireCache cache) {

        ClientRegionFactoryBean<Long, Customer> customers =
            new ClientRegionFactoryBean<>();

        customers.setCache(cache);
        customers.setShortcut(ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY);

        return customers;
    }
}

You can do the same in XML:

Example 53. Creating a client Region using Spring XML
<gfe:client-region id="Customers" shorcut="PROXY"/>

However, using the provided annotations is far easier, especially during development, when the complete Region configuration may be unknown and you want only to create a Region to persist your application data and move on.

@EnableCachingDefinedRegions

The @EnableCachingDefinedRegions annotation is used when you have application components registered in the Spring container that are annotated with Spring or JSR-107 JCache annotations.

Caches that are identified by name in the caching annotations are used to create Regions that hold the data you want cached.

Consider the following example:

Example 54. Defining Regions based on Spring or JSR-107 JCache Annotations
@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Cacheable(cacheNames = "CustomersByAccountNumber", key = "#account.number")
    Customer findBy(Account account) {
        // ...
    }
}

Further consider the following example, in which the main @SpringBootApplication class is annotated with @EnableCachingDefinedRegions:

Example 55. Using @EnableCachingDefinedRegions
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCachingDefineRegions
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

With this setup, SBDG would create a client PROXY Region (or PARTITION_REGION if your application were a peer member of the Apache Geode cluster) with a name of “CustomersByAccountNumber”, as though you created the Region by using either the Java configuration or XML approaches shown earlier.

You can use the clientRegionShortcut or serverRegionShortcut attribute to change the data management policy of the Regions created on the client or servers, respectively.

For client Regions, you can also set the poolName attribute to assign a specific Pool of connections to be used by the client *PROXY Regions to send data to the cluster.

@EnableEntityDefinedRegions

As with @EnableCachingDefinedRegions, @EnableEntityDefinedRegions lets you create Regions based on the entity classes you have defined in your application domain model.

For instance, consider an entity class annotated with SDG’s @Region mapping annotation:

Example 56. Customer entity class annotated with @Region
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Indexed
    private String name;

}

For this class, SBDG creates Regions from the name specified in the @Region mapping annotation on the entity class. In this case, the Customer application-defined entity class results in the creation of a Region named “Customers” when the main @SpringBootApplication class is annotated with @EnableEntityDefinedRegions:

Example 57. Using @EnableEntityDefinedRegions
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class,
    clientRegionShortcut = ClientRegionShortcut.CACHING_PROXY)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

As with the @EnableCachingDefinedRegions annotation, you can set the client and server Region data management policy by using the clientRegionShortcut and serverRegionShortcut attributes, respectively, and set a dedicated Pool of connections used by client Regions with the poolName attribute.

However, unlike the @EnableCachingDefinedRegions annotation, you must specify either the basePackage attribute or the type-safe basePackageClasses attribute (recommended) when you use the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation.

Part of the reason for this is that @EnableEntityDefinedRegions performs a component scan for the entity classes defined by your application. The component scan loads each class to inspect the annotation metadata for that class. This is not unlike the JPA entity scan when working with JPA providers, such as Hibernate.

Therefore, it is customary to limit the scope of the scan. Otherwise, you end up potentially loading many classes unnecessarily. After all, the JVM uses dynamic linking to load classes only when needed.

Both the basePackages and basePackageClasses attributes accept an array of values. With basePackageClasses, you need only refer to a single class type in that package and every class in that package as well as classes in the sub-packages are scanned to determine if the class type represents an entity. A class type is an entity if it is annotated with the @Region mapping annotation. Otherwise, it is not considered to be an entity.

For example, suppose you had the following structure:

Example 58. Entity Scan
- example.app.crm.model
 |- Customer.class
 |- NonEntity.class
 |- contact
   |- Address.class
   |- PhoneNumber.class
   |- AnotherNonEntity.class
- example.app.accounts.model
 |- Account.class
...
..
.

Then you could configure the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions as follows:

Example 59. Targeting with @EnableEntityDefinedRegions
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = { NonEntity.class, Account.class } )
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

If Customer, Address, PhoneNumber and Account were all entity classes properly annotated with @Region, the component scan would pick up all these classes and create Regions for them. The NonEntity class serves only as a marker in this case, to point to where (that is, which package) the scan should begin.

Additionally, the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation provides include and exclude filters, the same as the core Spring Frameworks @ComponentScan annotation.

See the SDG reference documentation on Configuring Regions for more details.
@EnableClusterDefinedRegions

Sometimes, it is ideal or even necessary to pull configuration from the cluster (rather than push configuration to the cluster). That is, you want the Regions defined on the servers to be created on the client and used by your application.

To do so, annotate your main @SpringBootApplication class with @EnableClusterDefinedRegions:

Example 60. Using @EnableClusterDefinedRegions
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterDefinedRegions
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

Every Region that exists on the servers in the Apache Geode cluster will have a corresponding PROXY Region defined and created on the client as a bean in your Spring Boot application.

If the cluster of servers defines a Region called “ServerRegion”, you can inject a client PROXY Region with the same name (“ServerRegion”) into your Spring Boot application:

Example 61. Using a server-side Region on the client
@Component
class SomeApplicationComponent {

    @Resource(name = "ServerRegion")
    private Region<Integer, EntityType> serverRegion;

    public void someMethod() {

        EntityType entity = new EntityType();

        this.serverRegion.put(1, entity);

        // ...
    }
}

SBDG auto-configures a GemfireTemplate for the “ServerRegion” Region (see RegionTemplateAutoConfiguration), so a better way to interact with the client PROXY Region that corresponds to the “ServerRegion” Region on the server is to inject the template:

Example 62. Using a server-side Region on the client with a template
@Component
class SomeApplicationComponent {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("serverRegionTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate serverRegionTemplate;

    public void someMethod() {

        EntityType entity = new EntityType();

        this.serverRegionTemplate.put(1, entity);

        //...
    }
}
See the SDG reference documentation on Configuring Cluster-defined Regions for more details.

7.3.3. @EnableIndexing (SDG)

You can also use the @EnableIndexing annotation — but only when you use @EnableEntityDefinedRegions. This is because @EnableIndexing requires the entities to be scanned and analyzed for mapping metadata (defined on the class type of the entity). This includes annotations such as the Spring Data Commons @Id annotation and the annotations provided by SDG, such as @Indexed and @LuceneIndexed.

The @Id annotation identifies the (primary) key of the entity. The @Indexed annotation defines OQL indexes on object fields, which can be used in the predicates of your OQL queries. The @LuceneIndexed annotation is used to define the Apache Lucene Indexes required for searches.

Lucene Indexes can only be created on PARTITION Regions, and PARTITION Regions can only be defined on the server side.

You may have noticed that the Customer entity class’s name field was annotated with @Indexed.

Consider the following listing:

Example 63. Customer entity class with @Indexed annotated name field
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Indexed
    private String name;

}

As a result, when our main @SpringBootApplication class is annotated with @EnableIndexing, an Apache Geode OQL Index for the Customer.name field is created, allowing OQL queries on customers by name to use this Index:

Example 64. Using @EnableIndexing
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
@EnableIndexing
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }
Keep in mind that OQL Indexes are not persistent between restarts (that is, Apache Geode maintains Indexes in memory only). An OQL Index is always rebuilt when the node is restarted.

When you combine @EnableIndexing with either @EnableClusterConfiguration or @EnableClusterAware, the Index definitions are pushed to the server-side Regions where OQL queries are generally executed.

See the SDG reference documentation on Configuring Indexes for more details.

7.3.4. @EnableExpiration (SDG)

It is often useful to define both eviction and expiration policies, particularly with a system like Apache Geode, because it primarily keeps data in memory (on the JVM Heap). Your data volume size may far exceed the amount of available JVM Heap memory, and keeping too much data on the JVM Heap can cause Garbage Collection (GC) issues.

You can enable off-heap (or main memory usage) capabilities by declaring SDG’s @EnableOffHeap annotation. See the SDG reference documentation on Configuring Off-Heap Memory for more details.

Defining eviction and expiration policies lets you limit what is kept in memory and for how long.

While configuring eviction is easy with SDG, we particularly want to call out expiration since configuring expiration has special support in SDG.

With SDG, you can define the expiration policies associated with a particular application class type on the class type itself, by using the @Expiration, @IdleTimeoutExpiration and @TimeToLiveExpiration annotations.

See the Apache Geode User Guide for more details on the different expiration types — that is Idle Timeout (TTI) versus Time-to-Live (TTL).

For example, suppose we want to limit the number of Customers maintained in memory for a period of time (measured in seconds) based on the last time a Customer was accessed (for example, the last time a Customer was read). To do so, we can define an idle timeout expiration (TTI) policy on our Customer class type:

Example 65. Customer entity class with Idle Timeout Expiration (TTI)
@Region("Customers")
@IdleTimeoutExpiration(action = "INVALIDATE", timeout = "300")
class Customer {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Indexed
    private String name;

}

The Customer entry in the Customers Region is invalidated after 300 seconds (5 minutes).

To enable annotation-based expiration policies, we need to annotate our main @SpringBootApplication class with @EnableExpiration:

Example 66. Enabling Expiration
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableExpiration
class SpringBootApacheGeodeApplication {  }
Technically, this entity-class-specific annotation-based expiration policy is implemented by using Apache Geode’s CustomExpiry interface.
See the SDG reference doccumentation for more details on configuring expiration, along with annotation-based data expiration in particular.

7.3.5. @EnableGemFireMockObjects (STDG)

Software testing in general and unit testing in particular are a very important development tasks to ensure the quality of your Spring Boot applications.

Apache Geode can make testing difficult in some cases, especially when tests have to be written as integration tests to assert the correct behavior. This can be very costly and lengthens the feedback cycle. Fortunately, you can write unit tests as well.

Spring provides a framework for testing Spring Boot applications that use Apache Geode. This is where the Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG) project can help, particularly with unit testing.

For example, if you do not care what Apache Geode would actually do in certain cases and only care about the “contract”, which is what mocking a collaborator is all about, you could effectively mock Apache Geode objects to isolate the SUT, or “Subject Under Test”, and focus on the interactions or outcomes you expect to happen.

With STDG, you need not change a bit of configuration to enable mock objects in the unit tests for your Spring Boot applications. You need only annotate the test class with @EnableGemFireMockObjects:

Example 67. Using Mock Apache Geode Objects
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest
class MyApplicationTestClass {

    @Test
    public void someTestCase() {
        // ...
    }

    @Configuration
    @EnableGemFireMockObjects
    static class GeodeConfiguration { }

}

Your Spring Boot configuration of Apache Geode returns mock objects for all Apache Geode objects, such as Regions.

Mocking Apache Geode objects even works for objects created from the productivity annotations discussed in the previous sections.

For example, consider the following Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application class:

Example 68. Main @SpringBootApplication class under test
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

In the preceding example, the "Customers`" Region defined by the `Customer entity class and created by the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation would be a mock Region and not an actual Region. You can still inject the Region in your test and assert interactions on the Region based on your application workflows:

Example 69. Using Mock Apache Geode Objects
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest
class MyApplicationTestClass {

    @Resource(name = "Customers")
    private Region<Long, Customer> customers;

    @Test
    public void someTestCase() {

        Customer jonDoe = new Customer(1, "Jon Doe");

        // Use the application in some way and test the interaction on the "Customers" Region

        assertThat(this.customers).containsValue(jonDoe);

        // ...
    }
}

There are many more things that STDG can do for you in both unit testing and integration testing.

See the documentation on unit testing for more details.

You can write integration tests that use STDG as well. Writing integration tests is an essential concern when you need to assert whether your application OQL queries are well-formed, for instance. There are many other valid cases where integration testing is also applicable.

8. Externalized Configuration

Like Spring Boot itself (see Spring Boot’s documentation), Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) supports externalized configuration.

By externalized configuration, we mean configuration metadata stored in Spring Boot application.properties. You can even separate concerns by addressing each concern in an individual properties file. Optionally, you could also enable any given property file for only a specific profile.

You can do many other powerful things, such as (but not limited to) using placeholders in properties, encrypting properties, and so on. In this section, we focus particularly on type safety.

Like Spring Boot, Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides a hierarchy of classes that captures configuration for several Apache Geode features in an associated @ConfigurationProperties annotated class. Again, the configuration metadata is specified as well-known, documented properties in one or more Spring Boot application.properties files.

For instance, a Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application might be configured as follows:

Example 70. Spring Boot application.properties containing Spring Data properties for Apache Geode
# Spring Boot application.properties used to configure {geode-name}

spring.data.gemfire.name=MySpringBootApacheGeodeApplication

# Configure general cache properties
spring.data.gemfire.cache.copy-on-read=true
spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level=debug

# Configure ClientCache specific properties
spring.data.gemfire.cache.client.durable-client-id=123
spring.data.gemfire.cache.client.keep-alive=true

# Configure a log file
spring.data.gemfire.logging.log-file=/path/to/geode.log

# Configure the client's connection Pool to the servers in the cluster
spring.data.gemfire.pool.locators=10.105.120.16[11235],boombox[10334]

You can use many other properties to externalize the configuration of your Spring Boot, Apache Geode applications. See the Javadoc for specific configuration properties. Specifically, review the enabling annotation attributes.

You may sometimes require access to the configuration metadata (specified in properties) in your Spring Boot applications themselves, perhaps to further inspect or act on a particular configuration setting. You can access any property by using Spring’s Environment abstraction:

Example 71. Using the Spring Environment
@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

    void readConfigurationFromEnvironment(Environment environment) {
        boolean copyOnRead = environment.getProperty("spring.data.gemfire.cache.copy-on-read",
            Boolean.TYPE, false);
    }
}

While using Environment is a nice approach, you might need access to additional properties or want to access the property values in a type-safe manner. Therefore, you can now, thanks to SBDG’s auto-configured configuration processor, access the configuration metadata by using @ConfigurationProperties classes.

To add to the preceding example, you can now do the following:

Example 72. Using GemFireProperties
@Component
class MyApplicationComponent {

    @Autowired
    private GemFireProperties gemfireProperties;

    public void someMethodUsingGemFireProperties() {

        boolean copyOnRead = this.gemfireProperties.getCache().isCopyOnRead();

        // do something with `copyOnRead`
    }
}

Given a handle to GemFireProperties, you can access any of the configuration properties that are used to configure Apache Geode in a Spring context. You need only autowire an instance of GemFireProperties into your application component.

See the complete reference for the SBDG @ConfigurationProperties classes and supporting classes.

8.1. Externalized Configuration of Spring Session

You can access the externalized configuration of Spring Session when you use Apache Geode as your (HTTP) session state caching provider.

In this case, you need only acquire a reference to an instance of the SpringSessionProperties class.

As shown earlier in this chapter, you can specify Spring Session for Apache Geode (SSDG) properties as follows:

Example 73. Spring Boot application.properties for Spring Session using Apache Geode as the (HTTP) session state caching provider
# Spring Boot application.properties used to configure {geode-name} as a (HTTP) session state caching provider
# in Spring Session

spring.session.data.gemfire.session.expiration.max-inactive-interval-seconds=300
spring.session.data.gemfire.session.region.name=UserSessions

Then, in your application, you can do something similar to the following example:

Example 74. Using SpringSessionProperties
@Component
class MyApplicationComponent {

    @Autowired
    private SpringSessionProperties springSessionProperties;

    public void someMethodUsingSpringSessionProperties() {

        String sessionRegionName = this.springSessionProperties
            .getSession().getRegion().getName();

        // do something with `sessionRegionName`
    }
}

9. Using Geode Properties

As of Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) 1.3, you can declare Apache Geode properties from gemfire.properties in Spring Boot application.properties.

See the User Guide for a complete list of valid Apache Geode properties.

Note that you can declare only valid Geode properties in gemfire.properties or, alternatively, gfsecurity.properties.

The following example shows how to declare properties in gemfire.properties:

Example 75. Valid gemfire.properties
# Geode Properties in gemfire.properties

name=ExampleCacheName
log-level=TRACE
enable-time-statistics=true
durable-client-id=123
# ...

All of the properties declared in the preceding example correspond to valid Geode properties. It is illegal to declare properties in gemfire.properties that are not valid Geode properties, even if those properties are prefixed with a different qualifier (such as spring.*). Apache Geode throws an IllegalArgumentException for invalid properties.

Consider the following gemfire.properties file with an invalid-property:

Example 76. Invalid gemfire.properties
# Geode Properties in gemfire.properties

name=ExampleCacheName
invalid-property=TEST

Apache Geode throws an IllegalArgumentException:

Example 77. IllegalArgumentException thrown by Apache Geode for Invalid Property (Full Text Omitted)
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unknown configuration attribute name invalid-property.
Valid attribute names are: ack-severe-alert-threshold ack-wait-threshold archive-disk-space-limit ...
	at o.a.g.internal.AbstractConfig.checkAttributeName(AbstractConfig.java:333)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.AbstractDistributionConfig.checkAttributeName(AbstractDistributionConfig.java:725)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.AbstractDistributionConfig.getAttributeType(AbstractDistributionConfig.java:887)
	at o.a.g.internal.AbstractConfig.setAttribute(AbstractConfig.java:222)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.DistributionConfigImpl.initialize(DistributionConfigImpl.java:1632)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.DistributionConfigImpl.<init>(DistributionConfigImpl.java:994)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.DistributionConfigImpl.<init>(DistributionConfigImpl.java:903)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.ConnectionConfigImpl.lambda$new$2(ConnectionConfigImpl.java:37)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.ConnectionConfigImpl.convert(ConnectionConfigImpl.java:73)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.ConnectionConfigImpl.<init>(ConnectionConfigImpl.java:36)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.InternalDistributedSystem$Builder.build(InternalDistributedSystem.java:3004)
	at o.a.g.distributed.internal.InternalDistributedSystem.connectInternal(InternalDistributedSystem.java:269)
	at o.a.g.cache.client.ClientCacheFactory.connectInternalDistributedSystem(ClientCacheFactory.java:280)
	at o.a.g.cache.client.ClientCacheFactory.basicCreate(ClientCacheFactory.java:250)
	at o.a.g.cache.client.ClientCacheFactory.create(ClientCacheFactory.java:216)
	at org.example.app.ApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.main(...)

It is inconvenient to have to separate Apache Geode properties from other application properties, or to have to declare only Apache Geode properties in a gemfire.properties file and application properties in a separate properties file, such as Spring Boot application.properties.

Additionally, because of Apache Geode’s constraint on properties, you cannot use the full power of Spring Boot when you compose application.properties.

You can include certain properties based on a Spring profile while excluding other properties. This is essential when properties are environment- or context-specific.

Spring Data for Apache Geode already provides a wide range of properties mapping to Apache Geode properties.

For example, the SDG spring.data.gemfire.locators property maps to the gemfire.locators property (locators in gemfire.properties) from Apache Geode. Likewise, there are a full set of SDG properties that map to the corresponding Apache Geode properties in the Appendix.

You can express the Geode properties shown earlier as SDG properties in Spring Boot application.properties, as follows:

Example 78. Configuring Geode Properties using SDG Properties
# Spring Data for {geode-name} properties in application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.name=ExampleCacheName
spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level=TRACE
spring.data.gemfire.cache.client.durable-client-id=123
spring.data.gemfire.stats.enable-time-statistics=true
# ...

However, some Apache Geode properties have no equivalent SDG property, such as gemfire.groups (groups in gemfire.properties). This is partly due to the fact that many Apache Geode properties are applicable only when configured on the server (such as groups or enforce-unique-host).

See the @EnableGemFireProperties annotation (attributes) from SDG for a complete list of Apache Geode properties with no corresponding SDG property.

Furthermore, many of the SDG properties also correspond to API calls.

For example, spring.data.gemfire.cache.client.keep-alive translates to the ClientCache.close(boolean keepAlive) API call.

Still, it would be convenient to be able to declare application and Apache Geode properties together, in a single properties file, such as Spring Boot application.properties. After all, it is not uncommon to declare JDBC Connection properties in a Spring Boot application.properties file.

Therefore, as of SBDG 1.3, you can now declare Apache Geode properties in Spring Boot application.properties directly, as follows:

Example 79. Geode Properties declared in Spring Boot application.properties
# Spring Boot application.properties

server.port=8181
spring.application.name=ExampleApp
gemfire.durable-client-id=123
gemfire.enable-time-statistics=true

This is convenient and ideal for several reasons:

  • If you already have a large number of Apache Geode properties declared as gemfire. properties (either in gemfire.properties or gfsecurity.properties) or declared on the Java command-line as JVM System properties (such as -Dgemfire.name=ExampleCacheName), you can reuse these property declarations.

  • If you are unfamiliar with SDG’s corresponding properties, you can declare Geode properties instead.

  • You can take advantage of Spring features, such as Spring profiles.

  • You can also use property placeholders with Geode properties (such as gemfire.log-level=${external.log-level.property}).

We encourage you to use the SDG properties, which cover more than Apache Geode properties.

However, SBDG requires that the Geode property must have the gemfire. prefix in Spring Boot application.properties. This indicates that the property belongs to Apache Geode. Without the gemfire. prefix, the property is not appropriately applied to the Apache Geode cache instance.

It would be ambiguous if your Spring Boot applications integrated with several technologies, including Apache Geode, and they too had matching properties, such as bind-address or log-file.

SBDG makes a best attempt to log warnings when a Geode property is invalid or is not set. For example, the following Geode property would result in logging a warning:

Example 80. Invalid Apache Geode Property
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.application.name=ExampleApp
gemfire.non-existing-property=TEST

The resulting warning in the log would read:

Example 81. Invalid Geode Property Warning Message
[gemfire.non-existing-property] is not a valid Apache Geode property

If a Geode Property is not properly set, the following warning is logged:

Example 82. Invalide Geode Property Value Warning Message
Apache Geode Property [gemfire.security-manager] was not set

With regards to the third point mentioned earlier, you can now compose and declare Geode properties based on a context (such as your application environment) using Spring profiles.

For example, you might start with a base set of properties in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 83. Base Properties
server.port=8181
spring.application.name=ExampleApp
gemfire.durable-client-id=123
gemfire.enable-time-statistics=false

Then you can vary the properties by environment, as the next two listings (for QA and production) show:

Example 84. QA Properties
# Spring Boot application-qa.properties

server.port=9191
spring.application.name=TestApp
gemfire.enable-time-statistics=true
gemfire.enable-network-partition-detection=true
gemfire.groups=QA
# ...
Example 85. Production Properties
# Spring Boot application-prod.properties

server.port=80
spring.application.name=ProductionApp
gemfire.archive-disk-space-limit=1000
gemfire.archive-file-size-limit=50
gemfire.enforce-unique-host=true
gemfire.groups=PROD
# ...

You can then apply the appropriate set of properties by configuring the Spring profile with -Dspring.profiles.active=prod. You can also enable more than one profile at a time with -Dspring.profiles.active=profile1,profile2,…​,profileN

If both spring.data.gemfire.* properties and the matching Apache Geode properties are declared in Spring Boot application.properties, the SDG properties take precedence.

If a property is specified more than once, as would potentially be the case when composing multiple Spring Boot application.properties files and you enable more than one Spring profile at time, the last property declaration wins. In the example shown earlier, the value for gemfire.groups would be PROD when -Dspring.profiles.active=qa,prod is configured.

Consider the following Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 86. Property Precedence
# Spring Boot application.properties

gemfire.durable-client-id=123
spring.data.gemfire.cache.client.durable-client-id=987

The durable-client-id is 987. It does not matter which order the SDG or Apache Geode properties are declared in Spring Boot application.properties. The matching SDG property overrides the Apache Geode property when duplicates are found.

Finally, you cannot refer to Geode properties declared in Spring Boot application.properties with the SBDG GemFireProperties class (see the Javadoc).

Consider the following example:

Example 87. Geode Properties declared in Spring Boot application.properties
# Spring Boot application.properties

gemfire.name=TestCacheName

Given the preceding property, the following assertion holds:

import org.springframework.geode.boot.autoconfigure.configuration.GemFireProperties;

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest
class GemFirePropertiesTestSuite {

	@Autowired
    private GemFireProperties gemfireProperties;

	@Test
	public void gemfirePropertiesTestCase() {
		assertThat(this.gemfireProperties.getCache().getName()).isNotEqualTo("TestCacheName");
	}
}
You can declare application.properties in the @SpringBootTest annotation. For example, you could have declared gemfire.name in the annotation by setting @SpringBootTest(properties = { "gemfire.name=TestCacheName" }) for testing purposes instead of declaring the property in a separate Spring Boot application.properties file.

Only spring.data.gemfire.* prefixed properties are mapped to the SBDG GemFireProperties class hierarchy.

Prefer SDG properties over Geode properties. See the SDG properties reference in the Appendix.

10. Caching with Apache Geode

One of the easiest, quickest and least invasive ways to start using Apache Geode in your Spring Boot applications is to use Apache Geode as a caching provider in Spring’s Cache Abstraction. SDG enables Apache Geode to function as a caching provider in Spring’s Cache Abstraction.

See the Spring Data for Apache Geode Reference Guide for more details on the support and configuration of Apache Geode as a caching provider in Spring’s Cache Abstraction.
Make sure you thoroughly understand the concepts behind Spring’s Cache Abstraction before you continue.
See also the relevant section on caching in Spring Boot’s reference documentation. Spring Boot even provides auto-configuration support for a few of the simple caching providers.

Indeed, caching can be an effective software design pattern to avoid the cost of invoking a potentially expensive operation when, given the same input, the operation yields the same output, every time.

Some classic examples of caching include, but are not limited to, looking up a customer by name or account number, looking up a book by ISBN, geocoding a physical address, and caching the calculation of a person’s credit score when the person applies for a financial loan.

If you need the proven power of an enterprise-class caching solution, with strong consistency, high availability, low latency, and multi-site (WAN) capabilities, then you should consider Apache Geode. Alternatively, VMWare, Inc. offers a commercial solution, built on Apache Geode, called VMware Tanzu GemFire.

Spring’s declarative, annotation-based caching makes it simple to get started with caching, which is as easy as annotating your application components with the appropriate Spring cache annotations.

Spring’s declarative, annotation-based caching also supports JSR-107 JCache annotations.

For example, suppose you want to cache the results of determining a person’s eligibility when applying for a loan. A person’s financial status is unlikely to change in the time that the computer runs the algorithms to compute a person’s eligibility after all the financial information for the person has been collected, submitted for review and processed.

Our application might consist of a financial loan service to process a person’s eligibility over a given period of time:

Example 88. Spring application service component applicable to caching
@Service
class FinancialLoanApplicationService {

    @Cacheable("EligibilityDecisions")
    EligibilityDecision processEligibility(Person person, Timespan timespan) {
        // ...
    }
}

Notice the @Cacheable annotation declared on the processEligibility(:Person, :Timespan) method of our service class.

When the FinancialLoanApplicationService.processEligibility(..) method is called, Spring’s caching infrastructure first consults the "EligibilityDecisions" cache to determine if a decision has already been computed for the given person within the given span of time. If the person’s eligibility in the given time frame has already been determined, the existing decision is returned from the cache. Otherwise, the processEligibility(..) method is invoked and the result of the method is cached when the method returns, before returning the decision to the caller.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode auto-configures Apache Geode as the caching provider when Apache Geode is declared on the application classpath and when no other caching provider (such as Redis) has been configured.

If Spring Boot for Apache Geode detects that another cache provider has already been configured, then Apache Geode will not function as the caching provider for the application. This lets you configure another store, such as Redis, as the caching provider and perhaps use Apache Geode as your application’s persistent store.

The only other requirement to enable caching in a Spring Boot application is for the declared caches (as specified in Spring’s or JSR-107’s caching annotations) to have been created and already exist, especially before the operation on which caching was applied is invoked. This means the backend data store must provide the data structure that serves as the cache. For Apache Geode, this means a cache Region.

To configure the necessary Regions that back the caches declared in Spring’s cache annotations, use Spring Data for Apache Geode’s @EnableCachingDefinedRegions annotation.

The following listing shows a complete Spring Boot application:

Example 89. Spring Boot cache enabled application using Apache Geode
package example.app;

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCachingDefinedRegions
class FinancialLoanApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(FinancialLoanApplication.class, args);
    }
}
The FinancialLoanApplicationService is picked up by Spring’s classpath component scan, since this class is annotated with Spring’s @Service stereotype annotation.
You can set the DataPolicy of the Region created through the @EnableCachingDefinedRegions annotation by setting the clientRegionShortcut attribute to a valid enumerated value.
Spring Boot for Apache Geode does not recognize nor apply the spring.cache.cache-names property. Instead, you should use SDG’s @EnableCachingDefinedRegions on an appropriate Spring Boot application @Configuration class.

10.1. Look-Aside Caching, Near Caching, Inline Caching, and Multi-Site Caching

Four different types of caching patterns can be applied with Spring when using Apache Geode for your application caching needs:

  • Look-aside caching

  • Near caching

  • [Async] Inline caching

  • Multi-site caching

Typically, when most users think of caching, they think of Look-aside caching. This is the default caching pattern applied by Spring’s Cache Abstraction.

In a nutshell, Near caching keeps the data closer to where the data is used, thereby improving on performance due to lower latencies when data is needed (no extra network hops). This also improves application throughput — that is, the amount of work completed in a given period of time.

Within Inline caching_, developers have a choice between synchronous (read/write-through) and asynchronous (write-behind) configurations depending on the application use case and requirements. Synchronous, read/write-through Inline caching is necessary if consistency is a concern. Asynchronous, write-behind Inline caching is applicable if throughput and low-latency are a priority.

Within Multi-site caching, there are active-active and active-passive arrangements. More details on Multi-site caching will be presented in a later release.

10.1.1. Look-Aside Caching

See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Look-aside caching with Apache Geode in action.

The caching pattern demonstrated in the preceding example is a form of Look-aside caching (or "Cache Aside").

Essentially, the data of interest is searched for in the cache first, before calling a potentially expensive operation, such as an operation that makes an IO- or network-bound request that results in either a blocking or a latency-sensitive computation.

If the data can be found in the cache (stored in-memory to reduce latency), the data is returned without ever invoking the expensive operation. If the data cannot be found in the cache, the operation must be invoked. However, before returning, the result of the operation is cached for subsequent requests when the same input is requested again by another caller, resulting in much improved response times.

The typical Look-aside caching pattern applied in your Spring application code looks similar to the following:

Example 90. Look-Aside Caching Pattern Applied
@Service
class CustomerService {

  private final CustomerRepository customerRepository;

  @Cacheable("Customers")
  Customer findByAcccount(Account account) {

    // pre-processing logic here

    Customer customer = customerRepository.findByAccoundNumber(account.getNumber());

    // post-processing logic here

    return customer;
  }
}

In this design, the CustomerRepository is perhaps a JDBC- or JPA/Hibernate-backed implementation that accesses the external data source (for example, an RDBMS) directly. The @Cacheable annotation wraps, or "decorates", the findByAccount(:Account):Customer operation (method) to provide caching behavior.

This operation may be expensive because it may validate the customer’s account before looking up the customer, pull multiple bits of information to retrieve the customer record, and so on — hence the need for caching.

10.1.2. Near Caching

See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Near caching with Apache Geode in action.

Near caching is another pattern of caching where the cache is collocated with the application. This is useful when the caching technology is configured in a client/server arrangement.

We already mentioned that Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides an auto-configured ClientCache instance by default. A ClientCache instance is most effective when the data access operations, including cache access, are distributed to the servers in a cluster that is accessible to the client and, in most cases, multiple clients. This lets other cache client applications access the same data. However, this also means the application incurs a network hop penalty to evaluate the presence of the data in the cache.

To help avoid the cost of this network hop in a client/server topology, a local cache can be established to maintain a subset of the data in the corresponding server-side cache (that is, a Region). Therefore, the client cache contains only the data of interest to the application. This "local" cache (that is, a client-side Region) is consulted before forwarding the lookup request to the server.

To enable Near caching when using Apache Geode, change the Region’s (that is the Cache in Spring’s Cache Abstraction) data management policy from PROXY (the default) to CACHING_PROXY:

Example 91. Enable Near Caching with Apache Geode
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCachingDefinedRegions(clientRegionShortcut = ClientRegionShortcut.CACHING_PROXY)
class FinancialLoanApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(FinancialLoanApplication.class, args);
    }
}
The default client Region data management policy is ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY. As a result, all data access operations are immediately forwarded to the server.
See also the Apache Geode documentation concerning client/server event distribution and, specifically, “Client Interest Registration on the Server,” which applies when you use client CACHING_PROXY Regions to manage state in addition to the corresponding server-side Region. This is necessary to receive updates on entries in the Region that might have been changed by other clients that have access to the same data.

10.1.3. Inline Caching

The next pattern of caching covered in this chapter is Inline caching.

You can apply two different configurations of Inline caching to your Spring Boot applications when you use the Inline caching pattern: synchronous (read/write-through) and asynchronous (write-behind).

Asynchronous (currently) offers only write capabilities, from the cache to the external data source. There is no option to asynchronously and automatically load the cache when the value becomes available in the external data source.
Synchronous Inline Caching
See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Inline caching with Apache Geode in action.

When employing Inline caching and a cache miss occurs, the application service method might not be invoked still, since a cache can be configured to invoke a loader to load the missing entry from an external data source.

With Apache Geode, you can configure the cache (or, to use Apache Geode terminology, the Region) with a CacheLoader. A CacheLoader is implemented to retrieve missing values from an external data source when a cache miss occurs. The external data source could be an RDBMS or any other type of data store (for example, another NoSQL data store, such as Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, or Neo4j).

See Apache Geode’s User Guide on data loaders for more details.

Likewise, you can also configure an Apache Geode Region with a CacheWriter. A CacheWriter is responsible for writing an entry that has been put into the Region to the backend data store, such as an RDBMS. This is referred to as a write-through operation, because it is synchronous. If the backend data store fails to be updated, the entry is not stored in the Region. This helps to ensure consistency between the backend data store and the Apache Geode Region.

You can also implement Inline caching using asynchronous write-behind operations by registering an AsyncEventListener on an AsyncEventQueue attached to a server-side Region. See Apache Geode’s User Guide for more details. We cover asynchronous write-behind Inline caching in the next section.

The typical pattern of Inline caching when applied to application code looks similar to the following:

Example 92. Inline Caching Pattern Applied
@Service
class CustomerService {

  private CustomerRepository customerRepository;

  Customer findByAccount(Account account) {

      // pre-processing logic here

      Customer customer = customerRepository.findByAccountNumber(account.getNumber());

      // post-processing logic here.

      return customer;
  }
}

The main difference is that no Spring or JSR-107 caching annotations are applied to the application’s service methods, and the CustomerRepository accesses Apache Geode directly and the RDBMS indirectly.

Implementing CacheLoaders and CacheWriters for Inline Caching

You can use Spring to configure a CacheLoader or CacheWriter as a bean in the Spring ApplicationContext and then wire the loader or writer to a Region. Given that the CacheLoader or CacheWriter is a Spring bean like any other bean in the Spring ApplicationContext, you can inject any DataSource you like into the loader or writer.

While you can configure client Regions with CacheLoaders and CacheWriters, it is more common to configure the corresponding server-side Region:

@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication
class FinancialLoanApplicationServer {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(FinancialLoanApplicationServer.class, args);
    }

	@Bean("EligibilityDecisions")
	PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<Object, Object> eligibilityDecisionsRegion(
            GemFireCache gemfireCache, CacheLoader eligibilityDecisionLoader,
            CacheWriter eligibilityDecisionWriter) {

        PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<?, EligibilityDecision> eligibilityDecisionsRegion =
            new PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<>();

        eligibilityDecisionsRegion.setCache(gemfireCache);
        eligibilityDecisionsRegion.setCacheLoader(eligibilityDecisionLoader);
        eligibilityDecisionsRegion.setCacheWriter(eligibilityDecisionWriter);
        eligibilityDecisionsRegion.setPersistent(false);

        return eligibilityDecisionsRegion;
    }

    @Bean
    CacheLoader<?, EligibilityDecision> eligibilityDecisionLoader(
            DataSource dataSource) {

        return new EligibilityDecisionLoader(dataSource);
    }

    @Bean
    CacheWriter<?, EligibilityDecision> eligibilityDecisionWriter(
            DataSource dataSource) {

        return new EligibilityDecisionWriter(dataSource);
    }

    @Bean
    DataSource dataSource() {
      // ...
    }
}

Then you could implement the CacheLoader and CacheWriter interfaces, as appropriate:

Example 93. EligibilityDecisionLoader
class EligibilityDecisionLoader implements CacheLoader<?, EligibilityDecision> {

  private final DataSource dataSource;

  EligibilityDecisionLoader(DataSource dataSource) {
    this.dataSource = dataSource;
  }

  public EligibilityDecision load(LoadHelper<?, EligibilityDecision> helper) {

    Object key = helper.getKey();

    // Use the configured DataSource to load the EligibilityDecision identified by the key
    // from a backend, external data store.
  }
}
SBDG provides the org.springframework.geode.cache.support.CacheLoaderSupport @FunctionalInterface to conveniently implement application CacheLoaders.

If the configured CacheLoader still cannot resolve the value, the cache lookup operation results in a cache miss and the application service method is then invoked to compute the value:

Example 94. EligibilityDecisionWriter
class EligibilityDecisionWriter implements CacheWriter<?, EligibilityDecision> {

  private final DataSource dataSource;

  EligibilityDecisionWriter(DataSource dataSource) {
    this.dataSource = dataSource;
  }

  public void beforeCreate(EntryEvent<?, EligiblityDecision> entryEvent) {
    // Use configured DataSource to save (e.g. INSERT) the entry value into the backend data store
  }

  public void beforeUpdate(EntryEvent<?, EligiblityDecision> entryEvent) {
    // Use the configured DataSource to save (e.g. UPDATE or UPSERT) the entry value into the backend data store
  }

  public void beforeDestroy(EntryEvent<?, EligiblityDecision> entryEvent) {
    // Use the configured DataSource to delete (i.e. DELETE) the entry value from the backend data store
  }

  // ...
}
SBDG provides the org.springframework.geode.cache.support.CacheWriterSupport interface to conveniently implement application CacheWriters.
Your CacheWriter implementation can use any data access technology to interface with your backend data store (for example JDBC, Spring’s JdbcTemplate, JPA with Hibernate, and others). It is not limited to using only a javax.sql.DataSource. In fact, we present another, more useful and convenient approach to implementing Inline caching in the next section.
Inline Caching with Spring Data Repositories

Spring Boot for Apache Geode offers dedicated support to configure Inline caching with Spring Data Repositories.

This is powerful, because it lets you:

  • Access any backend data store supported by Spring Data (such as Redis for key-value or other distributed data structures, MongoDB for documents, Neo4j for graphs, Elasticsearch for search, and so on).

  • Use complex mapping strategies (such as ORM provided by JPA with Hibernate).

We believe that users should store data where it is most easily accessible. If you access and process documents, then MongoDB, Couchbase, or another document store is probably going to be the most logical choice to manage your application’s documents.

However, this does not mean that you have to give up Apache Geode in your application/system architecture. You can use each data store for what it is good at. While MongoDB is excellent at handling documents, Apache Geode is a valuable choice for consistency, high-availability/low-latency, high-throughput, multi-site, scale-out application use cases.

As such, using Apache Geode’s CacheLoader and CacheWriter provides a nice integration point between itself and other data stores to best serve your application’s use case and requirements.

Suppose you use JPA and Hibernate to access data managed in an Oracle database. Then, you can configure Apache Geode to read/write-through to the backend Oracle database when performing cache (Region) operations by delegating to a Spring Data JPA Repository.

The configuration might look something like:

Example 95. Inline caching configuration using SBDG
@SpringBootApplication
@EntityScan(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
@EnableJpaRepositories(basePackageClasses = CustomerRepository.class)
class SpringBootOracleDatabaseApacheGeodeApplication {

  @Bean
  InlineCachingRegionConfigurer<Customer, Long> inlineCachingForCustomersRegionConfigurer(
      CustomerRepository customerRepository) {

    return new InlineCachingRegionConfigurer<>(customerRepository, Predicate.isEqual("Customers"));
  }
}

SBDG provides the InlineCachingRegionConfigurer<ENTITY, ID> interface.

Given a Predicate to express the criteria used to match the target Region by name and a Spring Data CrudRepository, the InlineCachingRegionConfigurer configures and adapts the Spring Data CrudRepository as a CacheLoader and CacheWriter registered on the Region (for example, "Customers") to enable Inline caching functionality.

You need only declare InlineCachingRegionConfigurer as a bean in the Spring ApplicationContext and make the association between the Region (by name) and the appropriate Spring Data CrudRepository.

In this example, we used JPA and Spring Data JPA to store and retrieve data stored in the cache (Region) to and from a backend database. However, you can inject any Spring Data Repository for any data store (Redis, MongoDB, and others) that supports the Spring Data Repository abstraction.

If you want only to support one-way data access operations when you use Inline caching, you can use either the RepositoryCacheLoaderRegionConfigurer for reads or the RepositoryCacheWriterRegionConfigurer for writes, instead of the InlineCachingRegionConfigurer, which supports both reads and writes.
To see a similar implementation of Inline caching with a database (an in-memory HSQLDB database) in action, see the InlineCachingWithDatabaseIntegrationTests test class from the SBDG test suite. A dedicated sample will be provided in a future release.
Asynchronous Inline Caching
See the corresponding sample guide and code to see asynchronous Inline caching with Apache Geode in action.

If consistency between the cache and your external data source is not a concern, and you need only write from the cache to the backend data store periodically, you can employ asynchronous (write-behind) Inline caching.

As the term, "write-behind", implies, a write to the backend data store is asynchronous and not strictly tied to the cache operation. As a result, the backend data store is in an "eventually consistent" state, since the cache is primarily used by the application at runtime to access and manage data. In this case, the backend data store is used to persist the state of the cache (and that of the application) at periodic intervals.

If multiple applications are updating the backend data store concurrently, you could combine a CacheLoader to synchronously read through to the backend data store and keep the cache up-to-date as well as asynchronously write behind from the cache to the backend data store when the cache is updated to eventually inform other interested applications of data changes. In this capacity, the backend data store is still the primary System of Record (SoR).

If data processing is not time sensitive, you can gain a performance advantage from quantity-based or time-based batch updates.

Implementing an AsyncEventListener for Inline Caching

If you were to configure asynchronous, write-behind Inline caching by hand, you would need to do the following yourself:

  1. Implement an AsyncEventListener to write to an external data source on cache events.

  2. Configure and register the listener with an AsyncEventQueue (AEQ).

  3. Create a Region to serve as the source of cache events and attach the AEQ to the Region.

The advantage of this approach is that you have access to and control over low-level configuration details. The disadvantage is that with more moving parts, it is easier to make errors.

Following on from our synchronous, read/write-through, Inline caching examples from the prior sections, our AsyncEventListener implementation might appear as follows:

Example 96. Example AsyncEventListener for Asynchronous, Write-Behind Inline Caching
@Component
class ExampleAsyncEventListener implements AsyncEventListener {

	private final DataSource dataSource;

	ExampleAsyncEventListener(DataSoruce dataSource) {
		this.dataSource = dataSource;
	}

	@Override
	public boolean processEvents(List<AsyncEvent> events) {

        // Iterate over the ordered AsyncEvents and use the configured DataSource
        // to write to the external, backend DataSource

	}
}
Instead of directly injecting a DataSource into your AsyncEventListener, you could use JDBC, Spring’s JdbcTemplate, JPA and Hibernate, or another data access API or framework. Later in this chapter, we show how SBDG simplifies the AsyncEventListener implementation by using Spring Data Repositories.

Then we need to register this listener with an AsyncEventQueue (step 2 from the procedure shown earlier) and attach it to the target Region that will be the source of the cache events we want to persist asynchronously (step 3):

Example 97. Create and Configure an AsyncEventQueue
@Configuration
@PeerCacheApplication
class GeodeConfiguration {

	@Bean
    DataSource exampleDataSource() {
		// Construct and configure a data store specific DataSource
    }

	@Bean
    ExampleAsyncEventListener exampleAsyncEventListener(DataSource dataSource) {
		return new ExampleAsyncEventListener(dataSource);
    }

	@Bean
    AsyncEventQueueFactoryBean exampleAsyncEventQueue(Cache peerCache, ExampleAsyncEventListener listener) {

		AsyncEventQueueFactoryBean asyncEventQueue = new AsyncEventQueueFactoryBean(peerCache, listener);

		asyncEventQueue.setBatchConflationEnabled(true);
		asyncEventQueue.setBatchSize(50);
		asyncEventQueue.setBatchTimeInterval(15000); // 15 seconds
        asyncEventQueue.setMaximumQueueMemory(64); // 64 MB
        // ...

		return asyncEventQueue;
    }

    @Bean("Example")
    PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<?, ?> exampleRegion(Cache peerCache, AsyncEventQueue queue) {

        PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<?, ?> exampleRegion = new PartitionedRegionFactoryBean<>();

        exampleRegion.setAsyncEventQueues(ArrayUtils.asArray(queue));
        exampleRegion.setCache(peerCache);
        // ...

        return exampleRegion;
    }
}

While this approach affords you a lot of control over the low-level configuration, in addition to your AsyncEventListener implementation, this is a lot of boilerplate code.

See the Javadoc for SDG’s AsyncEventQueueFactoryBean for more detail on the configuration of the AEQ.
See Apache Geode’s User Guide for more details on AEQs and listeners.

Fortunately, with SBDG, there is a better way.

Asynchronous Inline Caching with Spring Data Repositories

The implementation and configuration of the AsyncEventListener as well as the AEQ shown in the preceding section can be simplified as follows:

Example 98. Using SBDG to configure Asynchronous, Write-Behind Inline Caching
@SpringBootApplication
@EntityScan(basePackageClasses = ExampleEntity.class)
@EnableJpaRepositories(basePackageClasses = ExampleRepository.class)
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = ExampleEnity.class)
class ExampleSpringBootApacheGeodeAsyncInlineCachingApplication {

	@Bean
    AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer asyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer(
    	    CrudRepository<ExampleEntity, Long> repository) {

		return AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer.create(repository, "Example")
            .withQueueBatchConflationEnabled()
            .withQueueBatchSize(50)
            .withQueueBatchTimeInterval(Duration.ofSeconds(15))
            .withQueueMaxMemory(64);
    }
}

The AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer.create(..) method is overloaded to accept a Predicate in place of the String to programmatically express more powerful matching logic and identify the target Region (by name) on which to configure asynchronous Inline caching functionality.

The AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer uses the Builder software design pattern and withQueue*(..) builder methods to configure the underlying AsyncEventQueue (AEQ) when the queue’s configuration deviates from the defaults, as specified by Apache Geode.

Under the hood, the AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer constructs a new instance of the RepositoryAsyncEventListener class initialized with the given Spring Data CrudRepository. The RegionConfigurer then registers the listener with the AEQ and attaches it to the target Region.

With the power of Spring Boot auto-configuration and SBDG, the configuration is much more concise and intuitive.

About RepositoryAsyncEventListener

The SBDG RepositoryAsyncEventListener class is the magic ingredient behind the integration of the cache with an external data source.

The listener is a specialized adapter that processes AsyncEvents by invoking an appropriate CrudRepository method based on the cache operation. The listener requires an instance of CrudRepository. The listener supports any external data source supported by Spring Data’s Repository abstraction.

Backend data store, data access operations (such as INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and so on) triggered by cache events are performed asynchronously from the cache operation. This means the state of the cache and backend data store will be "eventually consistent".

Given the complex nature of "eventually consistent" systems and asynchronous concurrent processing, the RepositoryAsyncEventListener lets you register a custom AsyncEventErrorHandler to handle the errors that occur during processing of AsyncEvents, perhaps due to a faulty backend data store data access operation (such as OptimisticLockingFailureException), in an application-relevant way.

The AsyncEventErrorHandler interface is a java.util.function.Function implementation and @FunctionalInterface defined as:

Example 99. AsyncEventErrorHandler interface definition
@FunctionalInterface
interface AsyncEventErrorHandler implements Function<AsyncEventError, Boolean> { }

The AsyncEventError class encapsulates AsyncEvent along with the Throwable that was thrown while processing the AsyncEvent.

Since the AsyncEventErrorHandler interface implements Function, you should override the apply(:AsyncEventError) method to handle the error with application-specific actions. The handler returns a Boolean to indicate whether it was able to handle the error or not:

Example 100. Custom AsyncEventErrorHandler implementation
class CustomAsyncEventErrorHandler implements AsyncEventErrorHandler {

	@Override
    public Boolean apply(AsyncEventError error) {

		if (error.getCause() instanceof OptimisticLockingFailureException) {
			// handle optimistic locking failure if you can
            return true; // if error was successfully handled
		}
		else if (error.getCause() instanceof IncorrectResultSizeDataAccessException) {
			// handle no row or too many row update if you can
            return true; // if error was successfully handled
		}
		else {
			// ...
		}

		return false;
    }
}

You can configure the RepositoryAsyncEventListener with your custom AsyncEventErrorHandler by using the AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer:

Example 101. Configuring a custom AsyncEventErrorHandler
@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

	@Bean
	CustomAsyncEventErrorHandler customAsyncEventErrorHandler() {
		return new CustomAsyncEventErrorHandler();
	}

	@Bean
    AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer asyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer(
    	    CrudRepository<?, ?> repository,
            CustomAsyncEventErrorHandler errorHandler) {

		return AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer.create(repository, "Example")
            .withAsyncEventErrorHandler(errorHandler);
    }
}

Also, since AsyncEventErrorHandler implements Function, you can compose multiple error handlers by using Function.andThen(:Function).

By default, the RepositoryAsyncEventListener handles CREATE, UPDATE, and REMOVE cache event, entry operations.

CREATE and UPDATE translate to CrudRepository.save(entity). The entity is derived from AsyncEvent.getDeserializedValue().

REMOVE translates to CrudRepository.delete(entity). The entity is derived from AsyncEvent.getDeserializedValue().

The cache Operation to CrudRepository method is supported by the AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction interface, which implements java.util.function.Function and is a @FunctionalInterface.

This interface becomes useful if and when you want to implement CrudRepository method invocations for other AsyncEvent Operations not handled by SBDG’s RepositoryAsyncEventListener.

The AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction interface is defined as follows:

Example 102. AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction interface definition
@FunctionalInterface
interface AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction<T, ID> implements Function<AsyncEvent<ID, T>,  Boolean> {

	default boolean canProcess(AsyncEvent<ID, T> event) {
		return false;
	}
}

T is the class type of the entity and ID is the class type of the entity’s identifier (ID), possibly declared with Spring Data’s org.springframework.data.annotation.Id annotation.

For convenience, SBDG provides the AbstractAsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction class for extension, where you can provide implementations for the cacheProcess(:AsyncEvent) and doRepositoryOp(entity) methods.

The AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction.apply(:AsyncEvent) method is already implemented in terms of canProcess(:AsyncEvent), resolveEntity(:AsyncEvent), doRepositoryOp(entity), and catching and handling any Throwable (errors) by calling the configured AsyncEventErrorHandler.

For example, you may want to handle Operation.INVALIDATE cache events as well, deleting the entity from the backend data store by invoking the CrudRepository.delete(entity) method:

Example 103. Handling AsyncEvent, Operation.INVALIDATE
@Component
class InvalidateAsyncEventRepositoryFunction
        extends RepositoryAsyncEventListener.AbstractAsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction<?, ?> {

	InvalidateAsyncEventRepositoryFunction(RepositoryAsyncEventListener<?, ?> listener) {
		super(listener);
	}

	@Override
	public boolean canProcess(AsyncEvent<?, ?> event) {
		return event != null && Operation.INVALIDATE.equals(event.getOperation());
	}


	@Override
	protected Object doRepositoryOperation(Object entity) {
		getRepository().delete(entity);
		return null;
	}
}

You can then register your user-defined, AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction (that is, InvalidateAsyncEventRepositoryFunction) with the RepositoryAsyncEventListener by using the AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer:

Example 104. Configuring a user-defined AsyncEventOperationRepositoryFunction
import org.springframework.geode.cache.RepositoryAsyncEventListener;

@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

	@Bean
    AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer asyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer(
    	    CrudRepository<?, ?> repository,
            CustomAsyncEventErrorHandler errorHandler ) {

		return AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer.create(repository, "ExampleRegion")
            .applyToListener(listener -> {

            	if (listener instanceof RepositoryAsyncEventListener) {

            		RepositoryAsyncEventListener<?, ?> repositoryListener =
                        (RepositoryAsyncEventListener<?, ?>) listener;

             		repositoryListener.register(new InvalidAsyncEventRepositoryFunction(repositoryListener));
            	}

            	return listener;
            });
    }
}

This same technique can be applied to CREATE, UPDATE, and REMOVE cache operations as well, effectively overriding the default behavior for these cache operations handled by SBDG.

About AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer

As we saw in the previous section, you can intercept and post-process the essential components that are constructed and configured by the AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer class during initialization.

SBDG’s lets you intercept and post-process the AsyncEventListener (such as RepositoryAsyncEventListener), the AsyncEventQueueFactory and even the AsyncEventQueue created by the AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer (a SDG RegionConfigurer) during Spring ApplicationContext bean initialization.

The AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer class provides the following builder methods to intercept and post-process any of the following Apache Geode objects:

  • applyToListener(:Function<AsyncEventListener, AsyncEventListener>)

  • applyToQueue(:Function<AsyncEventQueue, AsyncEventQueue>)

  • applyToQueueFactory(:Function<AsyncEventQueueFactory, AsyncEventQueueFactory>)

All of these apply* methods accept a java.util.function.Function that applies the logic of the Function to the Apache Geode object (such as AsyncEventListener), returning the object as a result.

The Apache Geode object returned by the Function may be the same object, a proxy, or a completely new object. Essentially, the returned object can be anything you want. This is the fundamental premise behind Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and the Decorator software design pattern.

The apply* methods and the supplied Function let you decorate, enhance, post-process, or otherwise modify the Apache Geode objects created by the configurer.

The AsyncInlineCachingRegionConfigurer strictly adheres to the open/close principle and is, therefore, flexibly extensible.

10.1.4. Multi-Site Caching

The final pattern of caching presented in this chapter is Multi-site caching.

As described earlier, there are two configuration arrangements, depending on your application usage patterns, requirements and user demographic: active-active and active-passive.

Multi-site caching, along with active-active and active-passive configuration arrangements, are described in more detail in the sample guide. Also, be sure to review the sample code.

10.2. Advanced Caching Configuration

Apache Geode supports additional caching capabilities to manage the entries stored in the cache.

As you can imagine, given that cache entries are stored in-memory, it becomes important to manage and monitor the available memory used by the cache. After all, by default, Apache Geode stores data in the JVM Heap.

You can employ several techniques to more effectively manage memory, such as using eviction, possibly overflowing data to disk, configuring both entry Idle-Timeout_ (TTI) and Time-to-Live_ (TTL) expiration policies, configuring compression, and using off-heap or main memory.

You can use several other strategies as well, as described in Managing Heap and Off-heap Memory.

While this is beyond the scope of this document, know that Spring Data for Apache Geode makes all of these configuration options available to you.

10.3. Disable Caching

There may be cases where you do not want your Spring Boot application to cache application state with Spring’s Cache Abstraction using Apache Geode. In certain cases, you may use another Spring supported caching provider, such as Redis, to cache and manage your application state. In other cases, you may not want to use Spring’s Cache Abstraction at all.

Either way, you can specifically call out your Spring Cache Abstraction provider by using the spring.cache.type property in application.properties:

Example 105. Use Redis as the Spring Cache Abstraction Provider
#application.properties

spring.cache.type=redis
...

If you prefer not to use Spring’s Cache Abstraction to manage your Spring Boot application’s state at all, then set the spring.cache.type property to "none":

Example 106. Disable Spring’s Cache Abstraction
#application.properties

spring.cache.type=none
...

See the Spring Boot documentation for more detail.

You can include multiple caching providers on the classpath of your Spring Boot application. For instance, you might use Redis to cache your application’s state while using Apache Geode as your application’s persistent data store (that is, the System of Record (SOR)).
Spring Boot does not properly recognize spring.cache.type=[gemfire|geode], even though Spring Boot for Apache Geode is set up to handle either of these property values (that is, either gemfire or geode).

11. Data Access with GemfireTemplate

There are several ways to access data stored in Apache Geode.

For instance, you can use the Region API directly. If you are driven by the application’s domain context, you can use the power of Spring Data Repositories instead.

While the Region API offers flexibility, it couples your application to Apache Geode, which is usually undesirable and unnecessary. While using Spring Data Repositories provides a very powerful and convenient abstraction, you give up the flexibility provided by a lower-level Region API.

A good compromise is to use the Template software design pattern. This pattern is consistently and widely used throughout the entire Spring portfolio.

For example, the Spring Framework provides JdbcTemplate and JmsTemplate.

Other Spring Data modules, such as Spring Data Redis, offer the RedisTemplate, and Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) itself offers the GemfireTemplate.

The GemfireTemplate provides a highly consistent and familiar API to perform data access operations on Apache Geode cache Regions.

GemfireTemplate offers:

  • A simple and convenient data access API to perform basic CRUD and simple query operations on cache Regions.

  • Use of Spring Framework’s consistent data access Exception hierarchy.

  • Automatic enlistment in the presence of local cache transactions.

  • Consistency and protection from Region API breaking changes.

Given these advantages, Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) auto-configures GemfireTemplate beans for each Region present in the Apache Geode cache.

Additionally, SBDG is careful not to create a GemfireTemplate if you have already declared a GemfireTemplate bean in the Spring ApplicationContext for a given Region.

11.1. Explicitly Declared Regions

Consider an explicitly declared Region bean definition:

  1. Explicitly Declared Region Bean Definition

@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean("Example")
    ClientRegionFactoryBean<?, ?> exampleRegion(GemFireCache gemfireCache) {
        // ...
    }
}

SBDG automatically creates a GemfireTemplate bean for the Example Region by using the bean name exampleTemplate. SBDG names the GemfireTemplate bean after the Region by converting the first letter in the Region’s name to lower case and appending Template to the bean name.

In a managed Data Access Object (DAO), you can inject the Template:

@Repository
class ExampleDataAccessObject {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("exampleTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate exampleTemplate;

}

You should use the @Qualifier annotation to qualify which GemfireTemplate bean you are specifically referring, especially if you have more than one Region bean definition.

11.2. Entity-defined Regions

SBDG auto-configures GemfireTemplate beans for entity-defined Regions.

Consider the following entity class:

Example 107. Customer class
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {
    // ...
}

Further consider the following configuration:

Example 108. Apache Geode Configuration
@Configuration
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class GeodeConfiguration {
    // ...
}

SBDG auto-configures a GemfireTemplate bean for the Customers Region named customersTemplate, which you can then inject into an application component:

Example 109. CustomerService application component
@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Bean
    @Qualifier("customersTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate customersTemplate;

}

Again, be careful to qualify the GemfireTemplate bean injection if you have multiple Regions, whether declared explicitly or implicitly, such as when you use the @EnableEntityDefineRegions annotation.

11.3. Caching-defined Regions

SBDG auto-configures GemfireTemplate beans for caching-defined Regions.

When you use Spring Framework’s Cache Abstraction backed by Apache Geode, one requirement is to configure Regions for each of the caches specified in the caching annotations of your application service components.

Fortunately, SBDG makes enabling and configuring caching easy and automatic.

Consider the following cacheable application service component:

Example 110. Cacheable CustomerService class
@Service
class CacheableCustomerService {

    @Bean
    @Qualifier("customersByNameTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate customersByNameTemplate;

    @Cacheable("CustomersByName")
    public Customer findBy(String name) {
        return toCustomer(customersByNameTemplate.query("name = " + name));
    }
}

Further consider the following configuration:

Example 111. Apache Geode Configuration
@Configuration
@EnableCachingDefinedRegions
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public CustomerService customerService() {
        return new CustomerService();
    }
}

SBDG auto-configures a GemfireTemplate bean named customersByNameTemplate to perform data access operations on the CustomersByName (@Cacheable) Region. You can then inject the bean into any managed application component, as shown in the preceding application service component example.

Again, be careful to qualify the GemfireTemplate bean injection if you have multiple Regions, whether declared explicitly or implicitly, such as when you use the @EnableCachingDefineRegions annotation.

Autowiring (that is, injecting) GemfireTemplate beans auto-configured by SBDG for caching-defined Regions into your application components does not always work. This has to do with the Spring container bean creation process. In those cases, you may need to lazily lookup the GemfireTemplate by using applicationContext.getBean("customersByNameTemplate", GemfireTemplate.class). This is not ideal, but it works when autowiring does not.

11.4. Native-defined Regions

SBDG even auto-configures GemfireTemplate beans for Regions that have been defined with Apache Geode native configuration metadata, such as cache.xml.

Consider the following Apache Geode native cache.xml:

Example 112. Client cache.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<client-cache xmlns="http://geode.apache.org/schema/cache"
			  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
			  xsi:schemaLocation="http://geode.apache.org/schema/cache http://geode.apache.org/schema/cache/cache-1.0.xsd"
			  version="1.0">

	<region name="Example" refid="LOCAL"/>

</client-cache>

Further consider the following Spring configuration:

Example 113. Apache Geode Configuration
@Configuration
@EnableGemFireProperties(cacheXmlFile = "cache.xml")
class GeodeConfiguration {
    // ...
}

SBDG auto-configures a GemfireTemplate bean named exampleTemplate after the Example Region defined in cache.xml. You can inject this template as you would any other Spring-managed bean:

Example 114. Injecting the GemfireTemplate
@Service
class ExampleService {

    @Autowired
    @Qualifier("exampleTemplate")
    private GemfireTemplate exampleTemplate;

}

The rules described earlier apply when multiple Regions are present.

11.5. Template Creation Rules

Fortunately, SBDG is careful not to create a GemfireTemplate bean for a Region if a template by the same name already exists.

For example, consider the following configuration:

Example 115. Apache Geode Configuration
@Configuration
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public GemfireTemplate customersTemplate(GemFireCache cache) {
        return new GemfireTemplate(cache.getRegion("/Customers"));
    }
}

Further consider the following example:

Example 116. Customer class
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {
    // ...
}

Because you explicitly defined and declared the customersTemplate bean, SBDG does not automatically create a template for the Customers Region. This applies regardless of how the Region was created, whether by using @EnableEntityDefinedRegions, @EnableCachingDefinedRegions, explicitly declaring Regions, or natively defining Regions.

Even if you name the template differently from the Region for which the template was configured, SBDG conserves resources and does not create the template.

For example, suppose you named the GemfireTemplate bean vipCustomersTemplate, even though the Region name is Customers, based on the @Region annotated Customer class, which specified the Customers Region.

With the following configuration, SBDG is still careful not to create the template:

Example 117. Apache Geode Configuration
@Configuration
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class GeodeConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public GemfireTemplate vipCustomersTemplate(GemFireCache cache) {
        return new GemfireTemplate(cache.getRegion("/Customers"));
    }
}

SBDG identifies that your vipCustomersTemplate is the template used with the Customers Region, and SBDG does not create the customersTemplate bean, which would result in two GemfireTemplate beans for the same Region.

The name of your Spring bean defined in Java configuration is the name of the method if the Spring bean is not explicitly named by using the name attribute or the value attribute of the @Bean annotation.

12. Spring Data Repositories

Using Spring Data Repositories with Apache Geode makes short work of data access operations when you use Apache Geode as your System of Record (SoR) to persist your application’s state.

Spring Data Repositories provide a convenient and powerful way to define basic CRUD and simple query data access operations by specifying the contract of those data access operations in a Java interface.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode auto-configures the Spring Data for Apache Geode Repository extension when either is declared on your application’s classpath. You need not do anything special to enable it. You can start coding your application-specific Repository interfaces.

The following example defines a Customer class to model customers and map it to the Apache Geode Customers Region by using the SDG @Region mapping annotation:

Example 118. Customer entity class
package example.app.crm.model;

@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

    @Id
    private Long id;

    private String name;

}

The following example shows how to declare your Repository (a.k.a. Data Access Object (DAO)) for Customers:

Example 119. CustomerRepository for peristing and accessing Customers
package example.app.crm.repo;

interface CustomerRepository extends CrudRepository<Customer, Long> {

    List<Customer> findByLastNameLikeOrderByLastNameDescFirstNameAsc(String customerLastNameWildcard);

}

Then you can use the CustomerRepository in an application service class:

Example 120. Inject and use the CustomerRepository
package example.app;

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    ApplicationRunner runner(CustomerRepository customerRepository) {

        // Matches Williams, Wilson, etc.
        List<Customer> customers =
            customerRepository.findByLastNameLikeOrderByLastNameDescFirstNameAsc("Wil%");

        // process the list of matching customers...
    }
}

See Spring Data Commons' Repositories abstraction and Spring Data for Apache Geode’s Repositories extension for more detail.

13. Function Implementations & Executions

This chapter is about using Apache Geode in a Spring context for distributed computing use cases.

13.1. Background

Distributed computing, particularly in conjunction with data access and mutation operations, is a very effective and efficient use of clustered computing resources. This is similar to MapReduce.

A naively conceived query returning potentially hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of rows of data in a result set to the application that queried and requested the data can be very costly, especially under load. Therefore, it is typically more efficient to move the processing and computations on the predicated data set to where the data resides, perform the required computations, summarize the results, and then send the reduced data set back to the client.

Additionally, when the computations are handled in parallel, across the cluster of computing resources, the operation can be performed much more quickly. This typically involves intelligently organizing the data using various partitioning (a.k.a. sharding) strategies to uniformly balance the data set across the cluster.

Apache Geode addresses this very important application concern in its Function execution framework.

Spring Data for Apache Geode builds on this Function execution framework by letting developers implement and execute Apache Geode functions with a simple POJO-based annotation configuration model.

See the section about implementation versus execution for the difference between Function implementation and execution.

Taking this a step further, Spring Boot for Apache Geode auto-configures and enables both Function implementation and execution out-of-the-box. Therefore, you can immediately begin writing Functions and invoking them without having to worry about all the necessary plumbing to begin with. You can rest assured that it works as expected.

13.2. Applying Functions

Earlier, when we talked about caching, we described a FinancialLoanApplicationService class that could process eligibility when someone (represented by a Person object) applied for a financial loan.

This can be a very resource intensive and expensive operation, since it might involve collecting credit and employment history, gathering information on outstanding loans, and so on. We applied caching in order to not have to recompute or redetermine eligibility every time a loan office may want to review the decision with the customer.

But, what about the process of computing eligibility in the first place?

Currently, the application’s FinancialLoanApplicationService class seems to be designed to fetch the data and perform the eligibility determination in place. However, it might be far better to distribute the processing and even determine eligibility for a larger group of people all at once, especially when multiple, related people are involved in a single decision, as is typically the case.

We can implement an EligibilityDeterminationFunction class by using SDG:

Example 121. Function implementation
@Component
class EligibilityDeterminationFunction {

    @GemfireFunction(HA = true, hasResult = true, optimizeForWrite=true)
    public EligibilityDecision determineEligibility(FunctionContext functionContext, Person person, Timespan timespan) {
        // ...
    }
}

By using the SDG @GemfireFunction annotation, we can implement our Function as a POJO method. SDG appropriately handles registering this POJO method as a proper Function with Apache Geode.

If we now want to call this function from our Spring Boot ClientCache application, we can define a function execution interface with a method name that matches the function name and that targets the execution on the EligibilityDecisions Region:

Example 122. Function execution
@OnRegion("EligibilityDecisions")
interface EligibilityDeterminationExecution {

  EligibilityDecision determineEligibility(Person person, Timespan timespan);

}

We can then inject an instance of the EligibilityDeterminationExecution interface into our FinancialLoanApplicationService, as we would any other object or Spring bean:

Example 123. Function use
@Service
class FinancialLoanApplicationService {

    private final EligibilityDeterminationExecution execution;

    public LoanApplicationService(EligibilityDeterminationExecution execution) {
        this.execution = execution;
    }

    @Cacheable("EligibilityDecisions")
    EligibilityDecision processEligibility(Person person, Timespan timespan) {
        return this.execution.determineEligibility(person, timespan);
    }
}

As with caching, no additional configuration is required to enable and find your application Function implementations and executions. You can simply build and run. Spring Boot for Apache Geode handles the rest.

It is common to "implement" and register your application Functions on the server and "execute" them from the client.

14. Continuous Query

Some applications must process a stream of events as they happen and intelligently react in (near) real-time to the countless changes in the data over time. Those applications need frameworks that can make processing a stream of events as they happen as easy as possible.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode does just that, without users having to perform any complex setup or configure any necessary infrastructure components to enable such functionality. Developers can define the criteria for the data of interest and implement a handler (listener) to process the stream of events as they occur.

Continuous Query (CQ) lets you easily define your criteria for the data you need. With CQ, you can express the criteria that match the data you need by specifying a query predicate. Apache Geode implements the Object Query Language (OQL) for defining and executing queries. OQL resembles SQL and supports projections, query predicates, ordering, and aggregates. Also, when used in CQs, they execute continuously, firing events when the data changes in such ways as to match the criteria expressed in the query predicate.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode combines the ease of identifying the data you need by using an OQL query statement with implementing the listener callback (handler) in one easy step.

For example, suppose you want to perform some follow-up action when a customer’s financial loan application is either approved or denied.

First, the application model for our EligibilityDecision class might look something like the following:

Example 124. EligibilityDecision class
@Region("EligibilityDecisions")
class EligibilityDecision {

    private final Person person;

    private Status status = Status.UNDETERMINED;

    private final Timespan timespan;

    enum Status {

        APPROVED,
        DENIED,
        UNDETERMINED,

    }
}

Then we can implement and declare our CQ event handler methods to be notified when an eligibility decision is either APPROVED or DENIED:

@Component
class EligibilityDecisionPostProcessor {

    @ContinuousQuery(name = "ApprovedDecisionsHandler",
        query = "SELECT decisions.*
                 FROM /EligibilityDecisions decisions
                 WHERE decisions.getStatus().name().equalsIgnoreCase('APPROVED')")
    public void processApprovedDecisions(CqEvent event) {
        // ...
    }

    @ContinuousQuery(name = "DeniedDecisionsHandler",
        query = "SELECT decisions.*
                 FROM /EligibilityDecisions decisions
                 WHERE decisions.getStatus().name().equalsIgnoreCase('DENIED')")
    public void processDeniedDecisions(CqEvent event) {
        // ...
    }
}

Thus, when eligibility is processed and a decision has been made, either approved or denied, our application gets notified, and as an application developer, you are free to code your handler and respond to the event any way you like. Also, because our Continuous Query (CQ) handler class is a component (or a bean in the Spring ApplicationContext) you can auto-wire any other beans necessary to carry out the application’s intended function.

This is not unlike Spring’s annotation-driven listener endpoints, which are used in (JMS) message listeners and handlers, except in Spring Boot for Apache Geode, you need not do anything special to enable this functionality. You can declare the @ContinuousQuery annotation on any POJO method and go to work on other things.

15. Using Data

One of the most important tasks during development is ensuring your Spring Boot application handles data correctly. To verify the accuracy, integrity, and availability of your data, your application needs data with which to work.

For those of you already familiar with Spring Boot’s support for SQL database initialization, the approach when using Apache Geode should be easy to understand.

Apache Geode provides built-in support, similar in function to Spring Boot’s SQL database initialization, by using:

For example, by enabling persistence with disk storage, you could backup and restore persistent DiskStore files from one cluster to another.

Alternatively, using Apache Geode’s Snapshot Service, you can export data contained in targeted Regions from one cluster during shutdown and import the data into another cluster on startup. The Snapshot Service lets you filter data while it is being imported and exported.

Finally, you can use Apache Geode shell (Gfsh) commands to export data and import data.

Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) contains dedicated support for persistence and the Snapshot Service.

In all cases, the files generated by persistence, the Snapshot Service and Gfsh’s export command are in a proprietary binary format.

Furthermore, none of these approaches are as convenient as Spring Boot’s database initialization automation. Therefore, Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) offers support to import data from JSON into Apache Geode as PDX.

Unlike Spring Boot, SBDG offers support to export data as well. By default, data is imported and exported in JSON format.

SBDG does not provide an equivalent to Spring Boot’s schema.sql file. The best way to define the data structures (the Region instances) that manage your data is with SDG’s annotation-based configuration support for defining cache Region instances from your application’s entity classes or indirectly from Spring and JSR-107 or JCache caching annotations.
See SBDG’s documentation on the same.
While this feature works and many edge cases were thought through and tested thoroughly, there are still some limitations that need to be ironed out. See issue-82 and issue-83 for more details. The Spring team strongly recommends that this feature be used only for development and testing purposes.

15.1. Importing Data

You can import data into a Region by defining a JSON file that contain the JSON objects you wish to load. The JSON file must follow a predefined naming convention and be placed in the root of your application classpath:

data-<regionName>.json

<regionName> refers to the lowercase "name" of the Region, as defined by Region.getName().

For example, if you have a Region named "Orders", you would create a JSON file called data-orders.json and place it in the root of your application classpath (for example, in src/test/resources).

Create JSON files for each Region that is implicitly defined (for example, by using @EnableEntityDefinedRegions) or explicitly defined (with ClientRegionFactoryBean in Java configuration) in your Spring Boot application configuration that you want to load with data.

The JSON file that contains JSON data for the "Orders" Region might appear as follows:

Example 125. data-orders.json
[{
  "@type": "example.app.pos.model.PurchaseOrder",
  "id": 1,
  "lineItems": [
    {
      "@type": "example.app.pos.model.LineItem",
      "product": {
        "@type": "example.app.pos.model.Product",
        "name": "Apple iPad Pro",
        "price": 1499.00,
        "category": "SHOPPING"
      },
      "quantity": 1
    },
    {
      "@type": "example.app.pos.model.LineItem",
      "product": {
        "@type": "example.app.pos.model.Product",
        "name": "Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max",
        "price": 1249.00,
        "category": "SHOPPING"
      },
      "quantity": 2
    }
  ]
}, {
  "@type": "example.app.pos.model.PurchaseOrder",
  "id": 2,
  "lineItems": [
    {
      "@type": "example.app.pos.model.LineItem",
      "product": {
        "@type": "example.app.pos.model.Product",
        "name": "Starbucks Vente Carmel Macchiato",
        "price": 5.49,
        "category": "SHOPPING"
      },
      "quantity": 1
    }
  ]
}]

The application entity classes that matches the JSON data from the JSON file might look something like the following listing:

Example 126. Point-of-Sale (POS) Application Domain Model Classes
@Region("Orders")
class PurchaseOrder {

	@Id
    Long id;

	List<LineItem> lineItems;

}

class LineItem {

	Product product;
	Integer quantity;

}

@Region("Products")
class Product {

	String name;
	Category category;
	BigDecimal price;

}

As the preceding listings show, the object model and corresponding JSON can be arbitrarily complex with a hierarchy of objects that have complex types.

15.1.1. JSON metadata

We want to draw your attention to a few other details contained in the object model and JSON shown earlier.

The @type metadata field

First, we declared a @type JSON metadata field. This field does not map to any specific field or property of the application domain model class (such as PurchaseOrder). Rather, it tells the framework and Apache Geode’s JSON/PDX converter the type of object the JSON data would map to if you were to request an object (by calling PdxInstance.getObject()).

Consider the following example:

Example 127. Deserializing PDX as an Object
@Repository
class OrdersRepository {

    @Resource(name = "Orders")
    Region<Long, PurchaseOrder> orders;

    PurchaseOrder findBy(Long id) {

        Object value = this.orders.get(id);

        return value instanceof PurchaseOrder ? (PurchaseOrder) value
            : value instanceof PdxInstance ? ((PdxInstance) value).getObject()
            : null;
    }
}

Basically, the @type JSON metadata field informs the PdxInstance.getObject() method about the type of Java object to which the JSON object maps. Otherwise, the PdxInstance.getObject() method would silently return a PdxInstance.

It is possible for Apache Geode’s PDX serialization framework to return a PurchaseOrder from Region.get(key) as well, but it depends on the value of PDX’s read-serialized, cache-level configuration setting, among other factors.

When JSON is imported into a Region as PDX, the PdxInstance.getClassName() does not refer to a valid Java class. It is JSONFormatter.JSON_CLASSNAME. As a result, Region data access operations, such as Region.get(key), return a PdxInstance and not a Java object.
You may need to proxy Region read data access operations (such as Region.get(key)) by setting the SBDG property spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.region.advice.enabled to true. When this property is set, Region instances are proxied to wrap a PdxInstance in a PdxInstanceWrapper to appropriately handle the PdxInstance.getObject() call in your application code.
The id field and the @identifier metadata field

Top-level objects in your JSON must have an identifier, such as an id field. This identifier is used as the identity and key of the object (or PdxInstance) when stored in the Region (for example, Region.put(key, object)).

You may have noticed that the JSON for the "Orders" Region shown earlier declared an id field as the identifier:

Example 128. PurchaseOrder identifier ("id")
[{
  "@type": "example.app.pos.model.PurchaseOrder",
  "id": 1,
  ...

This follows the same convention used in Spring Data. Typically, Spring Data mapping infrastructure looks for a POJO field or property annotated with @Id. If no field or property is annotated with @Id, the framework falls back to searching for a field or property named id.

In Spring Data for Apache Geode, this @Id-annotated or id-named field or property is used as the identifier and as the key for the object when storing it into a Region.

However, what happens when an object or entity does not have a surrogate ID defined? Perhaps the application domain model class is appropriately using natural identifiers, which is quite common in practice.

Consider a Book class defined as follows:

Example 129. Book class
@Region("Books")
class Book {

	Author author;

	@Id
	ISBN isbn;

	LocalDate publishedDate;

	Sring title;

}

As declared in the Book class, the identifier for Book is its ISBN, since the isbn field was annotated with Spring Data’s @Id mapping annotation. However, we cannot know this by searching for an @Id annotation in JSON.

You might be tempted to argue that if the @type metadata field is set, we would know the class type and could load the class definition to learn about the identifier. That is all fine until the class is not actually on the application classpath in the first place. This is one of the reasons why SBDG’s JSON support serializes JSON to Apache Geode’s PDX format. There might not be a class definition, which would lead to a NoClassDefFoundError or ClassNotFoundException.

So, what then?

In this case, SBDG lets you declare the @identifier JSON metadata field to inform the framework what to use as the identifier for the object.

Consider the following example:

Example 130. Using "@identifer"
{
  "@type": "example.app.books.model.Book",
  "@identifier": "isbn",
  "author": {
    "id": 1,
    "name": "Josh Long"
  },
  "isbn": "978-1-449-374640-8",
  "publishedDate": "2017-08-01",
  "title": "Cloud Native Java"
}

The @identifier JSON metadata field informs the framework that the isbn field is the identifier for a Book.

15.1.2. Conditionally Importing Data

While the Spring team recommends that users should only use this feature when developing and testing their Spring Boot applications with Apache Geode, you may still occasionally use this feature in production.

You might use this feature in production to preload a (REPLICATE) Region with reference data. Reference data is largely static, infrequently changing, and non-transactional. Preloading reference data is particularly useful when you want to warm the cache.

When you use this feature for development and testing purposes, you can put your Region-specific JSON files in src/test/resources. This ensures that the files are not included in your application artifact (such as a JAR or WAR) when built and deployed to production.

However, if you must use this feature to preload data in your production environment, you can still conditionally load data from JSON. To do so, configure the spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.active-profiles property set to the Spring profiles that must be active for the import to take effect.

Consider the following example:

Example 131. Conditional Importing JSON
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.active-profiles=DEV, QA

For import to have an effect in this example, you must specifically set the spring.profiles.active property to one of the valid, active-profiles listed in the import property (such as QA). Only one needs to match.

There are many ways to conditionally build application artifacts. You might prefer to handle this concern in your Gradle or Maven build.

15.2. Exporting Data

Certain data stored in your application’s Regions may be sensitive or confidential, and keeping the data secure is of the utmost concern and priority. Therefore, exporting data is disabled by default.

However, if you use this feature for development and testing purposes, enabling the export capability may be useful to move data from one environment to another. For example, if your QA team finds a bug in the application that uses a particular data set, they can export the data and pass it back to the development team to import in their local development environment to help debug the issue.

To enable export, set the spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.export.enabled property to true:

Example 132. Enable Export
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.export.enabled=true

SBDG is careful to export data to JSON in a format that Apache Geode expects on import and includes things such as @type metadata fields.

The @identifier metadata field is not generated automatically. While it is possible for POJOs stored in a Region to include an @identifier metadata field when exported to JSON, it is not possible when the Region value is a PdxInstance that did not originate from JSON. In this case, you must manually ensure that the PdxInstance includes an @identifier metadata field before it is exported to JSON if necessary (for example, Book.isbn). This is only necessary if your entity classes do not declare an explicit identifier field, such as with the @Id mapping annotation, or do not have an id field. This scenario can also occur when inter-operating with native clients that model the application domain objects differently and then serialize the objects by using PDX, storing them in Regions on the server that are then later consumed by your Java-based, Spring Boot application.
You may need to set the -Dgemfire.disableShutdownHook JVM System property to true before your Spring Boot application starts up when using export. Unfortunately, this Java runtime shutdown hook is registered and enabled in Apache Geode by default, which results in the cache and the Regions being closed before the SBDG Export functionality can export the data, thereby resulting in a CacheClosedException. SBDG makes a best effort to disable the Apache Geode JVM shutdown hook when export is enabled, but it is at the mercy of the JVM ClassLoader, since Apache Geode’s JVM shutdown hook registration is declared in a static initializer.

15.3. Import/Export API Extensions

The API in SBDG for import and export functionality is separated into the following concerns:

  • Data Format

  • Resource Resolving

  • Resource Reading

  • Resource Writing

By breaking each of these functions apart into separate concerns, a developer can customize each aspect of the import and export functions.

For example, you could import XML from the filesystem and then export JSON to a REST-based Web Service. By default, SBDG imports JSON from the classpath and exports JSON to the filesystem.

However, not all environments expose a filesystem, such as cloud environments like PCF. Therefore, giving users control over each aspect of the import and export processes is essential for performing the functions in any environment.

15.3.1. Data Format

The primary interface to import data into a Region is CacheDataImporter.

CacheDataImporter is a @FunctionalInterface that extends Spring’s BeanPostProcessor interface to trigger the import of data after the Region has been initialized.

The interface is defined as follows:

Example 133. CacheDataImporter
interface CacheDataImporter extends BeanPostProcessor {

	Region importInto(Region region);

}

You can code the importInto(:Region) method to handle any data format (JSON, XML, and others) you prefer. Register a bean that implements the CacheDataImporter interface in the Spring container, and the importer does its job.

On the flip side, the primary interface to export data from a Region is the CacheDataExporter.

CacheDataExporter is a @FunctionalInterface that extends Spring’s DestructionAwareBeanPostProcessor interface to trigger the export of data before the Region is destroyed.

The interface is defined as follows:

Example 134. CacheDataExporter
interface CacheDataExporter extends DestructionAwareBeanPostProcessor {

	Region exportFrom(Region region);
}

You can code the exportFrom(:Region) method to handle any data format (JSON, XML, and others) you prefer. Register a bean implementing the CacheDataExporter interface in the Spring container, and the exporter does its job.

For convenience, when you want to implement both import and export functionality, SBDG provides the CacheDataImporterExporter interface, which extends both CacheDataImporter and CacheDataExporter:

Example 135. CacheDataImporterExporter
interface CacheDataImporterExporter extends CacheDataExporter, CacheDataImporter { }

For added support, SBDG also provides the AbstractCacheDataImporterExporter abstract base class to simplify the implementation of your importer/exporter.

Lifecycle Management

Sometimes, it is necessary to precisely control when data is imported or exported.

This is especially true on import, since different Region instances may be collocated or tied together through a cache callback, such as a CacheListener. In these cases, the other Region may need to exist before the import on the dependent Region proceeds, particularly if the dependencies were loosely defined.

Controlling the import is also important when you use SBDG’s @EnableClusterAware annotation to push configuration metadata from the client to the cluster in order to define server-side Region instances that match the client-side Region instances, especially client Region instances targeted for import. The matching Region instances on the server side must exist before data is imported into client (PROXY) Region instances.

In all cases, SBDG provides the LifecycleAwareCacheDataImporterExporter class to wrap your CacheDataImporterExporter implementation. This class implements Spring’s SmartLifecycle interface.

By implementing the SmartLifecycle interface, you can control in which phase of the Spring container the import occurs. SBDG also exposes two more properties to control the lifecycle:

Example 136. Lifecycle Management Properties
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.lifecycle=[EAGER|LAZY]
spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.phase=1000000

EAGER acts immediately, after the Region is initialized (the default behavior). LAZY delays the import until the start() method is called, which is invoked according to the phase, thereby ordering the import relative to the other lifecycle-aware components that are registered in the Spring container.

The following example shows how to make your CacheDataImporterExporter lifecycle-aware:

@Configuration
class MyApplicationConfiguration {

	@Bean
    CacheDataImporterExporter importerExporter() {
		return new LifecycleAwareCacheDataImporterExporter(new MyCacheDataImporterExporter());
    }
}

15.3.2. Resource Resolution

Resolving resources used for import and export results in the creation of a Spring Resource handle.

Resource resolution is a vital step to qualifying a resource, especially if the resource requires special logic or permissions to access it. In this case, specific Resource handles can be returned and used by the reader and writer of the Resource as appropriate for import or export operation.

SBDG encapsulates the algorithm for resolving Resources in the ResourceResolver (Strategy) interface:

Example 137. ResourceResolver
@FunctionalInterface
interface ResourceResolver {

	Optional<Resource> resolve(String location);

	default Resouce required(String location) {
		// ...
    }
}

Additionally, SBDG provides the ImportResourceResolver and ExportResourceResolver marker interfaces and the AbstractImportResourceResolver and AbstractExportResourceResolver abstract base classes for implementing the resource resolution logic used by both import and export operations.

If you wish to customize the resolution of Resources used for import or export, your CacheDataImporterExporter implementation can extend the ResourceCapableCacheDataImporterExporter abstract base class, which provides the aforementioned interfaces and base classes.

As stated earlier, SBDG resolves resources on import from the classpath and resources on export to the filesystem.

You can customize this behavior by providing an implementation of ImportResourceResolver, ExportResourceResolver, or both interfaces and declare instances as beans in the Spring context:

Example 138. Import & Export ResourceResolver beans
@Configuration
class MyApplicationConfiguration {

	@Bean
    ImportResourceResolver importResourceResolver() {
		return new MyImportResourceResolver();
    }

    @Bean
    ExportResourceResolver exportResourceResolver() {
		return new MyExportResourceResolver();
    }
}
If you need to customize the resource resolution process for each location (or Region) on import or export, you can use the Composite software design pattern.
Customize Default Resource Resolution

If you are content with the provided defaults but want to target specific locations on the classpath or filesystem used by the import or export, SBDG additionally provides the following properties:

Example 139. Import/Export Resource Location Properties
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.resource.location=...
spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.export.resource.location=...

The properties accept any valid resource string, as specified in the Spring documentation (see Table 10. Resource strings).

This means that, even though import defaults from the classpath, you can change the location from classpath to filesystem, or even network (for example, https://) by changing the prefix (or protocol).

Import/export resource location properties can refer to other properties through property placeholders, but SBDG further lets you use SpEL inside the property values.

Consider the following example:

Example 140. Using SpEL
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.import.resource.location=\
  https://#{#env['user.name']}:#{someBean.lookupPassword(#env['user.name'])}@#{host}:#{port}/cache/#{#regionName}/data/import

In this case, the import resource location refers to a rather sophisticated resource string by using a complex SpEL expression.

SBDG populates the SpEL EvaluationContext with three sources of information:

  • Access to the Spring BeanFactory

  • Access to the Spring Environment

  • Access to the current Region

Simple Java System properties or environment variables can be accessed with the following expression:

#{propertyName}

You can access more complex property names (including properties that use dot notation, such as the user.home Java System property), directly from the Environment by using map style syntax as follows:

#{#env['property.name']}

The #env variable is set in the SpEL EvaluationContext to the Spring Environment.

Because the SpEL EvaluationContext is evaluated with the Spring ApplicationContext as the root object, you also have access to the beans declared and registered in the Spring container and can invoke methods on them, as shown earlier with someBean.lookupPassword(..). someBean must be the name of the bean as declared and registered in the Spring container.

Be careful when accessing beans declared in the Spring container with SpEL, particularly when using EAGER import, as it may force those beans to be eagerly (or even prematurely) initialized.

SBDG also sets the #regionName variable in the EvaluationContext to the name of the Region, as determined by Region.getName(), targeted for import and export.

This lets you not only change the location of the resource but also change the resource name (such as a filename).

Consider the following example:

Example 141. Using #regionName
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cache.data.export.resource.location=\
    file://#{#env['user.home']}/gemfire/cache/data/custom-filename-for-#{#regionName}.json
By default, the exported file is stored in the working directory (System.getProperty("user.dir")) of the Spring Boot application process.
See the Spring Framework documentation for more information on SpEL.

15.3.3. Reading & Writing Resources

The Spring Resource handle specifies tion of a resource, not how the resource is read or written. Even the Spring ResourceLoader, which is an interface for loading Resources, does not specifically read or write any content to the Resource.

SBDG separates these concerns into two interfaces: ResourceReader and ResourceWriter, respectively. The design follows the same pattern used by Java’s InputStream/OutputStream and Reader/Writer classes in the java.io package.

The ResourceReader interfaces is defined as:

Example 142. ResourceReader
@FunctionalInterface
interface ResourceReader {

    byte[] read(Resource resource);

}

The ResourceWriter interfaces is defined as:

Example 143. ResourceWriter
@FunctionalInterface
interface ResourceWriter {

    void write(Resource resource, byte[] data);

}

Both interfaces provide additional methods to compose readers and writers, much like Java’s Consumer and Function interfaces in the java.util.function package. If a particular reader or writer is used in a composition and is unable to handle the given Resource, it should throw a UnhandledResourceException to let the next reader or writer in the composition try to read from or write to the Resource.

The reader or writer are free to throw a ResourceReadException or ResourceWriteException to break the chain of reader and writer invocations in the composition.

To override the default export/import reader and writer used by SBDG, you can implement the ResourceReader or ResourceWriter interfaces as appropriate and declare instances of these classes as beans in the Spring container:

Example 144. Custom ResourceReader & ResourceWriter beans
@Configuration
class MyApplicationConfiguration {

	@Bean
    ResourceReader myResourceReader() {
		return new MyResourceReader()
            .thenReadFrom(new MyOtherResourceReader());
    }

    @Bean
    ResourceWriter myResourceWriter() {
		return new MyResourceWriter();
    }
}

16. Data Serialization with PDX

Anytime data is overflowed or persisted to disk, transferred between clients and servers, transferred between peers in a cluster or between different clusters in a multi-site WAN topology, all data stored in Apache Geode must be serializable.

To serialize objects in Java, object types must implement the java.io.Serializable interface. However, if you have a large number of application domain object types that currently do not implement java.io.Serializable, refactoring hundreds or even thousands of class types to implement java.io.Serializable would be a tedious task just to store and manage those objects in Apache Geode.

Additionally, it is not only your application domain object types you necessarily need to consider. If you used third-party libraries in your application domain model, any types referred to by your application domain object types stored in Apache Geode must also be serializable. This type explosion may bleed into class types for which you may have no control over.

Furthermore, Java serialization is not the most efficient format, given that metadata about your types is stored with the data itself. Therefore, even though Java serialized bytes are more descriptive, it adds a great deal of overhead.

Then, along came serialization using Apache Geode’s PDX format. PDX stands for Portable Data Exchange and achieves four goals:

  • Separates type metadata from the data itself, streamlining the bytes during transfer. Apache Geode maintains a type registry that stores type metadata about the objects serialized with PDX.

  • Supports versioning as your application domain types evolve. It is common to have old and new versions of the same application deployed to production, running simultaneously, sharing data, and possibly using different versions of the same domain types. PDX lets fields be added or removed while still preserving interoperability between old and new application clients without loss of data.

  • Enables objects stored as PDX to be queried without being de-serialized. Constant serialization and deserialization of data is a resource-intensive task that adds to the latency of each data request when redundancy is enabled. Since data is replicated across peers in the cluster to preserve High Availability (HA) and must be serialized to be transferred, keeping data serialized is more efficient when data is updated frequently, since it is likely the data will need to be transferred again in order to maintain consistency in the face of redundancy and availability.

  • Enables interoperability between native language clients (such as C, C++ and C#) and Java language clients, with each being able to access the same data set regardless from where the data originated.

However, PDX does have limitations.

For instance, unlike Java serialization, PDX does not handle cyclic dependencies. Therefore, you must be careful how you structure and design your application domain object types.

Also, PDX cannot handle field type changes.

Furthermore, while Apache Geode’s general Data Serialization handles Deltas, this is not achievable without de-serializing the object, since it involves a method invocation, which defeats one of the key benefits of PDX: preserving format to avoid the cost of serialization and deserialization.

However, we think the benefits of using PDX outweigh the limitations and, therefore, have enabled PDX by default.

You need do nothing special. You can code your domain types and rest assured that objects of those domain types are properly serialized when overflowed and persisted to disk, transferred between clients and servers, transferred between peers in a cluster, and even when data is transferred over the network when you use Apache Geode’s multi-site WAN topology.

Example 145. EligibilityDecision is automatically serialiable without implementing Java Serializable.
@Region("EligibilityDecisions")
class EligibilityDecision {
    // ...
}
Apache Geode does support the standard Java Serialization format.

16.1. SDG MappingPdxSerializer vs. Apache Geode’s ReflectionBasedAutoSerializer

Under-the-hood, Spring Boot for Apache Geode enables and uses Spring Data for Apache Geode’s MappingPdxSerializer to serialize your application domain objects with PDX.

See the SDG Reference Guide for more details on the MappingPdxSerializer class.

The MappingPdxSerializer class offers several advantages above and beyond Apache Geode’s own ReflectionBasedAutoSerializer class.

See Apache Geode’s User Guide for more details about the ReflectionBasedAutoSerializer.

The SDG MappingPdxSerializer class offers the following benefits and capabilities:

  • PDX serialization is based on Spring Data’s powerful mapping infrastructure and metadata.

  • Includes support for both includes and excludes with first-class type filtering. Additionally, you can implement type filters by using Java’s java.util.function.Predicate interface as opposed to the limited regex capabilities provided by Apache Geode’s ReflectionBasedAutoSerializer class. By default, MappingPdxSerializer excludes all types in the following packages: java, org.apache.geode, org.springframework and com.gemstone.gemfire.

  • Handles transient object fields and properties when either Java’s transient keyword or Spring Data’s @Transient annotation is used.

  • Handles read-only object properties.

  • Automatically determines the identifier of your entities when you annotate the appropriate entity field or property with Spring Data’s @Id annotation.

  • Lets additional o.a.g.pdx.PdxSerializers be registered to customize the serialization of nested entity/object field and property types.

The support for includes and excludes deserves special attention, since the MappingPdxSerializer excludes all Java, Spring, and Apache Geode types, by default. However, what happens when you need to serialize one of those types?

For example, suppose you need to serialize objects of type java.security.Principal. Then you can override the excludes by registering an include type filter:

package example.app;

import java.security.Principal;

@SpringBootApplication
@EnablePdx(serializerBeanName = "myCustomMappingPdxSerializer")
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.class, args);
    }

    @Bean
    MappingPdxSerializer myCustomMappingPdxSerializer() {

        MappingPdxSerializer customMappingPdxSerializer =
            MappingPdxSerializer.newMappginPdxSerializer();

        customMappingPdxSerializer.setIncludeTypeFilters(
            type -> Principal.class.isAssignableFrom(type));

        return customMappingPdxSerializer;
    }
}
Normally, you need not explicitly declare SDG’s @EnablePdx annotation to enable and configure PDX. However, if you want to override auto-configuration, as we have demonstrated above, you must do this.

17. Logging

Apache Geode 1.9.2 was modularized to separate its use of the Apache Log4j API to log output in Apache Geode code from the underlying implementation of logging, which uses Apache Log4j as the logging provider by default.

Prior to 1.9.2, the Apache Log4j API (log4j-api) and the Apache Log4j service provider (log4j-core) were automatically pulled in by Apache Geode core (org.apache.geode:geode-core), thereby making it problematic to change logging providers when using Apache Geode in Spring Boot applications.

However, now, in order to get any log output from Apache Geode whatsoever, Apache Geode requires a logging provider declared on your Spring Boot application classpath. Consequently, this also means the old Apache Geode Properties (such as log-level) no longer have any effect, regardless of whether the property is specified in gemfire.properties, in Spring Boot application.properties, or even as a JVM System Property (-Dgemfire.log-level).

See Apache Geode’s documentation for a complete list of valid Properties, including the Properties used to configure logging.

Unfortunately, this also means the Spring Data for Apache Geode @EnableLogging annotation no longer has any effect on Apache Geode logging either. Consequently, it has been deprecated. The reason @EnableLogging no longer has any effect on logging is because this annotation’s attributes and associated SDG properties indirectly set the corresponding Apache Geode properties, which, again, are useless from Apache Geode 1.9.2 onward.

By way of example, and to make this concrete, none of the following approaches have any effect on Apache Geode logging:

Example 146. Command-line configuration
$ java -classpath ...:/path/to/MySpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication.jar -Dgemfire.log-level=DEBUG
    example.app.MySpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication
Example 147. Externalized configuration using Apache Geode gemfire.properties
# {geode-name} only/specific properties
log-level=INFO
Example 148. Externalized configuration using Spring Boot application.properties
spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level=DEBUG
spring.data.gemfire.logging.level=DEBUG
Example 149. Java configuration using SDG’s @EnableLogging annotation
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableLogging(logLevel = "DEBUG")
class MySpringBootApacheGeodeClientApplication {

}

None of the preceding approaches have any effect without the new SBDG logging starter.

17.1. Configure Apache Geode Logging

So, how do you configure logging for Apache Geode?

Three things are required to get Apache Geode to log output:

  1. You must declare a logging provider (such as Logback, or Log4j) on your Spring Boot application classpath.

  2. (optional) You can declare an adapter (a bridge JAR) between Log4j and your logging provider if your declared logging provider is not Apache Log4j.

    For example, if you use the SLF4J API to log output from your Spring Boot application and use Logback as your logging provider or implementation, you must include the org.apache.logging.log4j.log4j-to-slf4j adapter or bridge JAR as well.

    Internally, Apache Geode uses the Apache Log4j API to log output from Geode components. Therefore, you must bridge Log4j to any other logging provider (such as Logback) that is not Log4j (log4j-core). If you use Log4j as your logging provider, you need not declare an adapter or bridge JAR on your Spring Boot application classpath.

  3. Finally, you must supply logging provider configuration to configure Loggers, Appenders, log levels, and other details.

    For example, when you use Logback, you must provide a logback.xml configuration file on your Spring Boot application classpath or in the filesystem. Alternatively, you can use other means to configure your logging provider and get Apache Geode to log output.

Apache Geode’s geode-log4j module covers the required configuration for steps 1-3 above and uses Apache Log4j (org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core) as the logging provider. The geode-log4j module even provides a default log4j2.xml configuration file to configure Loggers, Appenders, and log levels for Apache Geode.

If you declare Spring Boot’s own org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-logging on your application classpath, it covers steps 1 and 2 above.

The spring-boot-starter-logging dependency declares Logback as the logging provider and automatically adapts (bridges) java.util.logging (JUL) and Apache Log4j to SLF4J. However, you still need to supply logging provider configuration (such as a logback.xml file for Logback) to configure logging not only for your Spring Boot application but for Apache Geode as well.

If no user-specified logging configuration is supplied, Logback will apply default configuration using the BasicConfigurator. See Logback documentation for complete details.

SBDG has simplified the setup of Apache Geode logging. You need only declare the org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter-logging dependency on your Spring Boot application classpath.

Unlike Apache Geode’s default Log4j XML configuration file (log4j2.xml from geode-log4j), SBDG’s provided logback.xml configuration file is properly parameterized, letting you adjust log levels, add Appenders as well as adjust other logging settings.

In addition, SBDG’s provided Logback configuration uses templates so that you can compose your own logging configuration while still including snippets from SBDG’s provided logging configuration, such as Loggers and Appenders.

17.1.1. Configuring Log Levels

One of the most common logging tasks is to adjust the log level of one or more Loggers or the ROOT Logger. However, you may want to only adjust the log level for specific components of your Spring Boot application, such as for Apache Geode, by setting the log level for only the Logger that logs Apache Geode events.

SBDG’s Logback configuration defines three Loggers to control the log output from Apache Geode:

Example 150. Apache Geode Loggers by Name
<comfiguration>
  <logger name="com.gemstone.gemfire" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level:-INFO}"/>
  <logger name="org.apache.geode" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level:-INFO}"/>
  <logger name="org.jgroups" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.jgroups.log.level:-WARN}"/>
</comfiguration>

The com.gemstone.gemfire Logger covers old GemFire components that are still present in Apache Geode for backwards compatibility. By default, it logs output at INFO. This Logger’s use should be mostly unnecessary.

The org.apache.geode Logger is the primary Logger used to control log output from all Apache Geode components during the runtime operation of Apache Geode. By default, it logs output at INFO.

The org.jgroups Logger is used to log output from Apache Geode’s message distribution and membership system. Apache Geode uses JGroups for membership and message distribution between peer members (nodes) in the cluster (distributed system). By default, JGroups logs output at WARN.

You can configure the log level for the com.gemstone.gemfire and org.apache.geode Loggers by setting the spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level property. You can independently configure the org.jgroups Logger by setting the spring.boot.data.gemfire.jgroups.log.level property.

You can set the SBDG logging properties on the command line as JVM System properties when you run your Spring Boot application:

Example 151. Setting the log-level from the CLI
$ java -classpath ...:/path/to/MySpringBootApplication.jar -Dspring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level=DEBUG
    package.to.MySpringBootApplicationClass
Setting JVM System properties by using $ java -jar MySpringBootApplication.jar -Dspring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level=DEBUG is not supported by the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

Alternatively, you can configure and control Apache Geode logging in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 152. Setting the log-level in Spring Boot application.properties
spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level=DEBUG

For backwards compatibility, SBDG additionally supports the Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) logging properties as well, by using either of the following properties:

Example 153. Setting log-level using SDG Properties
spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level=DEBUG
spring.data.gemfire.logging.level=DEBUG

If you previously used either of these SDG-based logging properties, they continue to work as designed in SBDG 1.3 or later.

17.1.2. Composing Logging Configuration

As mentioned earlier, SBDG lets you compose your own logging configuration from SBDG’s default Logback configuration metadata.

SBDG conveniently bundles the Properties, Loggers and Appenders from SBDG’s logging starter into several template files that you can include into your own custom Logback XML configuration file.

The Logback configuration template files are broken down into:

  • org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/properties-include.xml

  • org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/loggers-include.xml

  • org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/appenders-include.xml

As of SBDG 2.6, the logback-include.xml file has been deprecated.

The properties-include.xml defines Logback "local" scoped properties or variables common to SBDG’s configuration of Apache Geode logging.

Example 154. properties-include.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<included>

	<property name="SPRING_BOOT_LOG_CHARSET" value="${SPRING_BOOT_LOG_CHARSET:-${file.encoding:-UTF-8}}"/>
	<property name="SPRING_BOOT_LOG_PATTERN" value="${SPRING_BOOT_LOG_PATTERN:-%d %5p %40.40c:%4L - %msg%n}"/>
	<property name="APACHE_GEODE_LOG_CHARSET" value="${APACHE_GEODE_LOG_CHARSET:-${file.encoding:-UTF-8}}"/>
	<property name="APACHE_GEODE_LOG_PATTERN" value="${APACHE_GEODE_LOG_PATTERN:-[%level{lowerCase=true} %date{yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.SSS z} &lt;%thread&gt;] %message%n%throwable%n}"/>

</included>

The loggers-include.xml file defines the Loggers used to log output from Apache Geode components.

Example 155. loggers-include.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<included>

	<logger name="com.gemstone.gemfire" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level:-INFO}" additivity="false">
		<appender-ref ref="${spring.geode.logging.appender-ref:-CONSOLE}"/>
		<appender-ref ref="delegate"/>
	</logger>

	<logger name="org.apache.geode" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.log.level:-INFO}" additivity="false">
		<appender-ref ref="${spring.geode.logging.appender-ref:-CONSOLE}"/>
		<appender-ref ref="delegate"/>
	</logger>

	<logger name="org.jgroups" level="${spring.boot.data.gemfire.jgroups.log.level:-WARN}" additivity="false">
		<appender-ref ref="${spring.geode.logging.appender-ref:-CONSOLE}"/>
		<appender-ref ref="delegate"/>
	</logger>

</included>

The appenders-include.xml file defines Appenders to send the log output to. If Spring Boot is on the application classpath, then Spring Boot logging configuration will define the "CONSOLE" Appender, otherwise, SBDG will provide a default definition.

The "geode" Appender defines the Apache Geode logging pattern as seen in Apache Geode’s Log4j configuration.

Example 156. appenders-include.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<included>

	<if condition='property("bootPresent").equals("false")'>
		<then>
			<appender name="CONSOLE" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
				<encoder>
					<charset>${SPRING_BOOT_LOG_CHARSET}</charset>
					<pattern>${SPRING_BOOT_LOG_PATTERN}</pattern>
				</encoder>
			</appender>
		</then>
	</if>

	<appender name="delegate" class="org.springframework.geode.logging.slf4j.logback.DelegatingAppender"/>

	<appender name="geode" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
		<encoder>
			<charset>${APACHE_GEODE_LOG_CHARSET}</charset>
			<pattern>${APACHE_GEODE_LOG_PATTERN}</pattern>
		</encoder>
	</appender>

</included>

Then you can include any of SBDG’S Logback configuration metadata files as needed in your application-specific Logback XML configuration file, as follows:

Example 157. application-specific logback.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>

	<include resource="org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/properties-include.xml"/>
	<include resource="org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/appender-include.xml"/>

	<logger name="org.apache.geode" level="INFO" additivity="false">
		<appender-ref ref="geode"/>
	</logger>

	<root level="${logback.root.log.level:-INFO}">
		<appender-ref ref="CONSOLE"/>
		<appender-ref ref="delegate"/>
	</root>

</configuration>

17.1.3. Customizing Logging Configuration

It is now possible to customize the configuration of Apache Geode logging using properties defined in a spring-geode-logging.properties file included on the Spring Boot application classpath.

Any of the properties defined in org/springframework/geode/logging/slf4j/logback/properties-include.xml (shown above), such as APACHE_GEODE_LOG_PATTERN, or the spring.geode.logging.appender-ref property, can be set.

For instance, and by default, Apache Geode components log output using the Spring Boot log pattern. However, if you prefer the fine-grained details of Apache Geode’s logging behavior, you can change the Appender used by the Apache Geode Logger’s to use the pre-defined "geode" Appender instead. Simply set the spring-geode.logging.appender-ref property to "geode" in a spring-geode-logging.properties file on your Spring Boot application classpath, as follows:

Example 158. spring-geode-logging.properties
# spring-geode-logging.properties
spring.geode.logging.appender-ref=geode

Alternatively, if you want to configure the log output of your entire Spring Boot application, including log output from all Apache Geode components, then you can set the SPRING_BOOT_LOG_PATTERN property, or Spring Boot’s CONSOLE_LOG_PATTERN property, in spring-geode-logging.properties, as follows:

Example 159. spring-geode-logging.properties
# spring-geode-logging.properties
CONSOLE_LOG_PATTERN=TEST - %msg%n
The spring-geode-logging.properties file is only recognized when the spring-geode-starter-logging module is used.

17.2. SLF4J and Logback API Support

SBDG provides additional support when working with the SLF4J and Logback APIs. This support is available when you declare the org.springframework.geode:spring-geode-starter-logging dependency on your Spring Boot application classpath.

One of the main supporting classes from the spring-geode-starter-logger is the org.springframework.geode.logging.slf4j.logback.LogbackSupport class. This class provides methods to:

  • Resolve a reference to the Logback LoggingContext.

  • Resolve the SLF4J ROOT Logger as a Logback Logger.

  • Look up Appenders by name and required type.

  • Add or remove Appenders to Loggers.

  • Reset the state of the Logback logging system, which can prove to be most useful during testing.

LogbackSupport can even suppress the auto-configuration of Logback performed by Spring Boot on startup, which is another useful utility during automated testing.

In addition to the LogbackSupport class, SBDG also provides some custom Logback Appenders.

17.2.1. CompositeAppender

The org.springframework.geode.logging.slf4j.logback.CompositeAppender class is an implementation of the Logback Appender interface and the Composite software design pattern.

CompositeAppender lets developers compose multiple Appenders and use them as if they were a single Appender.

For example, you could compose both the Logback ConsoleAppender and FileAppender into one Appender:

Example 160. Composing multiple Appenders
class LoggingConfiguration {

  Appender<ILoggingEvent> compositeAppender() {

    ConsoleAppender<ILoggingEvent> consoleAppender = new ConsoleAppender<>();

    FileAppender<ILoggingEvent> fileAppender = new FileApender<>();

    Appender<ILoggingEvent> compositeAppender = CompositeAppender.compose(consoleAppender, fileAppender);

    return compositeAppender;
  }
}

// do something with the compositeAppender

You could then add the CompositeAppender to a named Logger:

Example 161. Register CompositeAppender on "named" Logger
class LoggerConfiguration {

  void registerAppenderOnLogger() {

    Logger namedLogger = LoggerFactory.getLogger("loggerName");

    LogbackSupport.toLogbackLogger(namedLogger)
      .ifPresent(it -> LogbackSupport.addAppender(it, compositeAppender));
  }
}

In this case, the named Logger logs events (or log messages) to both the console and file Appenders.

You can compose an array or Iterable of Appenders by using either the CompositeAppender.compose(:Appender<T>[]) method or the CompositeAppender.compose(:Iterable<Appender<T>>) method.

17.2.2. DelegatingAppender

The org.springframework.geode.logging.slf4j.logback.DelegatingAppender is a pass-through Logback Appender implementation that wraps another Logback Appender or collection of Appenders, such as the ConsoleAppender, a FileAppender, a SocketAppender, or others. By default, the DelegatingAppender delegates to the NOPAppender, thereby doing no actual work.

By default, SBDG registers the org.springframework.geode.logging.slfj4.logback.DelegatingAppender with the ROOT Logger, which can be useful for testing purposes.

With a reference to a DelegatingAppender, you can add any Appender (even a CompositeAppender) as the delegate:

Example 162. Add ConsoleAppender as the "delegate" for the DelegatingAppender
class LoggerConfiguration {

  void setupDelegation() {

    ConsoleAppender consoleAppender = new ConsoleAppender();

    LogbackSupport.resolveLoggerContext().ifPresent(consoleAppender::setContext);

    consoleAppender.setImmediateFlush(true);
    consoleAppender.start();

    LogbackSupport.resolveRootLogger()
      .flatMap(LogbackSupport::toLogbackLogger)
      .flatMap(rootLogger -> LogbackSupport.resolveAppender(rootLogger,
        LogbackSupport.DELEGATE_APPENDER_NAME, DelegatingAppender.class))
      .ifPresent(delegateAppender -> delegateAppender.setAppender(consoleAppender));
  }
}

17.2.3. StringAppender

The org.springframework.geode.logging.slf4j.logback.StringAppender stores a log message in-memory, appended to a String.

The StringAppender is useful for testing purposes. For instance, you can use the StringAppender to assert that a Logger used by certain application components logged messages at the appropriately configured log level while other log messages were not logged.

Consider the following example:

Example 163. StringAppender in Action
class ApplicationComponent {

	private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(getClass());

	public void someMethod() {
		logger.debug("Some debug message");
		// ...
	}

	public void someOtherMethod() {
		logger.info("Some info message");
	}
}

// Assuming the ApplicationComponent Logger was configured with log-level 'INFO', then...
class ApplicationComponentUnitTests {

	private final ApplicationComponent applicationComponent = new ApplicationComponent();

	private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ApplicationComponent.class);

	private StringAppender stringAppender;

	@Before
    public void setup() {

        LogbackSupport.toLogbackLogger(logger)
            .map(Logger::getLevel)
            .ifPresent(level -> assertThat(level).isEqualTo(Level.INFO));

        stringAppender = new StringAppender.Builder()
            .applyTo(logger)
            .build();
    }

    @Test
    public void someMethodDoesNotLogDebugMessage() {

        applicationComponent.someMethod();

        assertThat(stringAppender.getLogOutput).doesNotContain("Some debug message");
    }

    @Test
    public void someOtherMethodLogsInfoMessage() {

        applicationComponent.someOtherMethod();

        assertThat(stringAppender.getLogOutput()).contains("Some info message");
    }
}

There are many other uses for the StringAppender and you can use it safely in a multi-Threaded context by calling StringAppender.Builder.useSynchronization().

When combined with other SBDG provided Appenders in conjunction with the LogbackSupport class, you have a lot of power both in application code as well as in your tests.

18. Security

This chapter covers security configuration for Apache Geode, which includes both authentication and authorization (collectively, auth) as well as Transport Layer Security (TLS) using SSL.

Securing data at rest is not supported by Apache Geode.
See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Spring Boot Security for Apache Geode in action.

18.1. Authentication and Authorization

Apache Geode employs username- and password-based authentication and role-based authorization to secure your client to server data exchanges and operations.

Spring Data for Apache Geode provides first-class support for Apache Geode’s Security framework, which is based on the SecurityManager interface. Additionally, Apache Geode’s Security framework is integrated with Apache Shiro.

SBDG will eventually provide support for and integration with Spring Security.

When you use Spring Boot for Apache Geode, which builds Spring Data for Apache Geode, it makes short work of enabling auth in both your clients and servers.

18.1.1. Auth for Servers

The easiest and most standard way to enable auth in the servers of your cluster is to simply define one or more Apache Shiro Realms as beans in the Spring ApplicationContext.

Consider the following example:

Example 164. Declaring an Apache Shiro Realm
@Configuration
class ApacheGeodeSecurityConfiguration {

    @Bean
    DefaultLdapRealm ldapRealm() {
        return new DefaultLdapRealm();
    }

    // ...
}

When an Apache Shiro Realm (such as DefaultLdapRealm) is declared and registered in the Spring ApplicationContext as a Spring bean, Spring Boot automatically detects this Realm bean (or Realm beans if more than one is configured), and the servers in the Apache Geode cluster are automatically configured with authentication and authorization enabled.

Alternatively, you can provide a custom, application-specific implementation of Apache Geode’s SecurityManager interface, declared and registered as a bean in the Spring ApplicationContext:

Example 165. Declaring a custom Apache Geode SecurityManager
@Configuration
class ApacheGeodeSecurityConfiguration {

    @Bean
    CustomSecurityManager customSecurityManager() {
        return new CustomSecurityManager();
    }

    // ...
}

Spring Boot discovers your custom, application-specific SecurityManager implementation and configures the servers in the Apache Geode cluster with authentication and authorization enabled.

The Spring team recommends that you use Apache Shiro to manage the authentication and authorization of your servers over implementing Apache Geode’s SecurityManager interface.

18.1.2. Auth for Clients

When servers in an Apache Geode cluster have been configured with authentication and authorization enabled, clients must authenticate when connecting.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode makes this easy, regardless of whether you run your Spring Boot ClientCache applications in a local, non-managed environment or run in a cloud-managed environment.

Non-Managed Auth for Clients

To enable auth for clients that connect to a secure Apache Geode cluster, you need only set a username and password in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 166. Spring Boot application.properties for the client
# Spring Boot client application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.security.username = jdoe
spring.data.gemfire.security.password = p@55w0rd

Spring Boot for Apache Geode handles the rest.

Managed Auth for Clients

Enabling auth for clients that connect to a VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs service instance (PCC) in VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) (PCF) is even easier: You need do nothing.

If your Spring Boot application uses SBDG and is bound to PCC, when you deploy (that is, cf push) your application to PCF, Spring Boot for Apache Geode extracts the required auth credentials from the environment that you set up when you provisioned a PCC service instance in your PCF organization and space. PCC automatically assigns two users with roles of cluster_operator and developer, respectively, to any Spring Boot application bound to the PCC service instance.

By default, SBDG auto-configures your Spring Boot application to run with the user that has the cluster_operator role. This ensures that your Spring Boot application has the necessary permission (authorization) to perform all data access operations on the servers in the PCC cluster, including, for example, pushing configuration metadata from the client to the servers in the PCC cluster.

See the Running Spring Boot applications as a specific user section in the Pivotal CloudFoundry chapter for additional details on user authentication and authorization.

See the chapter (titled “Pivotal CloudFoundry”) for more general details.

See the Pivotal Cloud Cache documentation for security details when you use PCC and PCF.

18.2. Transport Layer Security using SSL

Securing data in motion is also essential to the integrity of your Spring [Boot] applications.

For instance, it would not do much good to send usernames and passwords over plain text socket connections between your clients and servers nor to send other sensitive data over those same connections.

Therefore, Apache Geode supports SSL between clients and servers, between JMX clients (such as Gfsh) and the Manager, between HTTP clients when you use the Developer REST API or Pulse, between peers in the cluster, and when you use the WAN Gateway to connect multiple sites (clusters).

Spring Data for Apache Geode provides first-class support for configuring and enabling SSL as well. Still, Spring Boot makes it even easier to configure and enable SSL, especially during development.

Apache Geode requires certain properties to be configured. These properties translate to the appropriate javax.net.ssl.* properties required by the JRE to create secure socket connections by using JSSE.

However, ensuring that you have set all the required SSL properties correctly is an error prone and tedious task. Therefore, Spring Boot for Apache Geode applies some basic conventions for you.

You can create a trusted.keystore as a JKS-based KeyStore file and place it in one of three well-known locations:

  • In your application JAR file at the root of the classpath.

  • In your Spring Boot application’s working directory.

  • In your user home directory (as defined by the user.home Java System property).

When this file is named trusted.keystore and is placed in one of these three well-known locations, Spring Boot for Apache Geode automatically configures your client to use SSL socket connections.

If you use Spring Boot to configure and bootstrap an Apache Geode server:

Example 167. Spring Boot configured and bootstrapped Apache Geode server
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {
    // ...
}

Then Spring Boot also applies the same procedure to enable SSL on the servers (between peers).

During development, it is convenient to not set a trusted.keystore password when accessing the keys in the JKS file. However, it is highly recommended that you secure the trusted.keystore file when deploying your application to a production environment.

If your trusted.keystore file is secured with a password, you need to additionally specify the following property:

Example 168. Accessing a secure trusted.keystore
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.security.ssl.keystore.password=p@55w0rd!

You can also configure the location of the keystore and truststore files, if they are separate and have not been placed in one of the default, well-known locations searched by Spring Boot:

Example 169. Accessing a secure trusted.keystore by location
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.security.ssl.keystore = /absolute/file/system/path/to/keystore.jks
spring.data.gemfire.security.ssl.keystore.password = keystorePassword
spring.data.gemfire.security.ssl.truststore = /absolute/file/system/path/to/truststore.jks
spring.data.gemfire.security.ssl.truststore.password = truststorePassword

See the SDG EnableSsl annotation for all the configuration attributes and the corresponding properties expressed in application.properties.

18.3. Securing Data at Rest

Currently, neither Apache Geode nor Spring Boot nor Spring Data for Apache Geode offer any support for securing your data while at rest (for example, when your data has been overflowed or persisted to disk).

To secure data at rest when using Apache Geode, with or without Spring, you must employ third-party solutions, such as disk encryption, which is usually highly contextual and technology-specific.

For example, to secure data at rest when you use Amazon EC2, see Instance Store Encryption.

19. Testing

Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG), with help from Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG), offers first-class support for both unit and integration testing with Apache Geode in your Spring Boot applications.

See the Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG) documentation for more details.

19.1. Unit Testing

Unit testing with Apache Geode using mock objects in a Spring Boot Test requires only that you declare the STDG @EnableGemFireMockObjects annotation in your test configuration:

Example 170. Unit Test with Apache Geode using Spring Boot
@SpringBootTest
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeUnitTest extends IntegrationTestsSupport {

	@Autowired
	private UserRepository userRepository;

	@Test
	public void saveAndFindUserIsSuccessful() {

		User jonDoe = User.as("jonDoe");

		assertThat(this.userRepository.save(jonDoe)).isNotNull();

		User jonDoeFoundById = this.userRepository.findById(jonDoe.getName()).orElse(null);

		assertThat(jonDoeFoundById).isEqualTo(jonDoe);
	}

	@SpringBootApplication
	@EnableGemFireMockObjects
	@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = User.class)
	static class TestConfiguration { }

}

@Getter
@ToString
@EqualsAndHashCode
@RequiredArgsConstructor(staticName = "as")
@Region("Users")
class User {

	@Id
	@lombok.NonNull
	private String name;

}

interface UserRepository extends CrudRepository<User, String> { }

This test class is not a “pure” unit test, particularly since it bootstraps an actual Spring ApplicationContext using Spring Boot. However, it does mock all Apache Geode objects, such as the Users Region declared by the User application entity class, which was annotated with SDG’s @Region mapping annotation.

This test class conveniently uses Spring Boot’s auto-configuration to auto-configure an Apache Geode ClientCache instance. In addition, SDG’s @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation was used to conveniently create the Apache Geode "Users` Region to store instances of User.

Finally, Spring Data’s Repository abstraction was used to conveniently perform basic CRUD (such as save) and simple (OQL) query (such as findById) data access operations on the Users Region.

Even though the Apache Geode objects (such as the Users Region) are “mock objects”, you can still perform many of the data access operations required by your Spring Boot application’s components in an Apache Geode API-agnostic way — that is, by using Spring’s powerful programming model and constructs.

By extending STDG’s org.springframework.data.gemfire.tests.integration.IntegrationTestSupport class, you ensure that all Apache Geode mock objects and resources are properly released after the test class runs, thereby preventing any interference with downstream tests.

While STDG tries to mock the functionality and behavior for many Region operations, it is not pragmatic to mock them all. For example, it would not be practical to mock Region query operations involving complex OQL statements that have sophisticated predicates.

If such functional testing is required, the test might be better suited as an integration test. Alternatively, you can follow the advice in this section about unsupported Region operations.

In general, STDG provides the following capabilities when mocking Apache Geode objects:

See the documentation on Unit Testing with STDG for more details.

19.2. Integration Testing

Integration testing with Apache Geode in a Spring Boot Test is as simple as not declaring STDG’s @EnableGemFireMockObjects annotation in your test configuration. You may then want to use SBDG’s @EnableClusterAware annotation to conditionally detect the presence of a Apache Geode cluster:

Example 171. Using @EnableClusterAware in test configuration
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterAware
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = User.class)
static class TestConfiguration { }

The SBDG @EnableClusterAware annotation conveniently toggles your auto-configured ClientCache instance between local-only mode and client/server. It even pushes configuration metadata (such as Region definitions) up to the servers in the cluster that are required by the application to store data.

In most cases, in addition to testing with “live” Apache Geode objects (such as Regions), we also want to test in a client/server capacity. This unlocks the full capabilities of the Apache Geode data management system in a Spring context and gets you as close as possible to production from the comfort of your IDE.

Building on our example from the section on Unit Testing, you can modify the test to use “live” Apache Geode objects in a client/server topology as follows:

Example 172. Integration Test with Apache Geode using Spring Boot
@ActiveProfiles("client")
@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(properties = "spring.data.gemfire.management.use-http=false")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeIntegrationTest extends ForkingClientServerIntegrationTestsSupport {

	@BeforeClass
	public static void startGeodeServer() throws IOException {
		startGemFireServer(TestGeodeServerConfiguration.class);
	}

	@Autowired
	private UserRepository userRepository;

	@Test
	public void saveAndFindUserIsSuccessful() {

		User jonDoe = User.as("jonDoe");

		assertThat(this.userRepository.save(jonDoe)).isNotNull();

		User jonDoeFoundById = this.userRepository.findById(jonDoe.getName()).orElse(null);

		assertThat(jonDoeFoundById).isEqualTo(jonDoe);
		assertThat(jonDoeFoundById).isNotSameAs(jonDoe);
	}

	@SpringBootApplication
	@EnableClusterAware
	@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = User.class)
	@Profile("client")
	static class TestGeodeClientConfiguration { }

	@CacheServerApplication
	@Profile("server")
	static class TestGeodeServerConfiguration {

		public static void main(String[] args) {

			new SpringApplicationBuilder(TestGeodeServerConfiguration.class)
				.web(WebApplicationType.NONE)
				.profiles("server")
				.build()
				.run(args);
		}
	}
}

@Getter
@ToString
@EqualsAndHashCode
@RequiredArgsConstructor(staticName = "as")
@Region("Users")
class User {

	@Id
	@lombok.NonNull
	private String name;

}

interface UserRepository extends CrudRepository<User, String> { }

The application client/server-based integration test class extend STDG’s org.springframework.data.gemfire.tests.integration.ForkingClientServerIntegrationTestsSupport class. This ensures that all Apache Geode objects and resources are properly cleaned up after the test class runs. In addition, it coordinates the client and server components of the test (for example connecting the client to the server using a random port).

The Apache Geode server is started in a @BeforeClass setup method:

Start the Apache Geode server
class SpringBootApacheGeodeIntegrationTest extends ForkingClientServerIntegrationTestsSupport {

  @BeforeClass
  public static void startGeodeServer() throws IOException {
    startGemFireServer(TestGeodeServerConfiguration.class);
  }
}

STDG lets you configure the Apache Geode server with Spring configuration, specified in the TestGeodeServerConfiguration class. The Java class needs to provide a main method. It uses the SpringApplicationBuilder to bootstrap the Apache Geode CacheServer application:

Example 173. Apache Geode server configuration
@CacheServerApplication
@Profile("server")
static class TestGeodeServerConfiguration {

  public static void main(String[] args) {

    new SpringApplicationBuilder(TestGeodeServerConfiguration.class)
      .web(WebApplicationType.NONE)
      .profiles("server")
      .build()
      .run(args);
  }
}

In this case, we provide minimal configuration, since the configuration is determined and pushed up to the server by the client. For example, we do not need to explicitly create the Users Region on the server since it is implicitly handled for you by the SBDG/STDG frameworks from the client.

We take advantage of Spring profiles in the test setup to distinguish between the client and server configuration. Keep in mind that the test is the “client” in this arrangement.

The STDG framework does what the supporting class demands: “forking” the Spring Boot-based, Apache Geode CacheServer application in a separate JVM process. Subsequently, the STDG framework stops the server upon completion of the tests in the test class.

You are free to start your servers or cluster however you choose. STDG provides this capability as a convenience for you, since it is a common concern.

This test class is simple. STDG can handle much more complex test scenarios.

Review SBDG’s test suite to witness the full power and functionality of the STDG framework for yourself.
See the documentation on Integration Testing with STDG for more details.

20. Apache Geode API Extensions

When using the Spring programming model and abstractions, it should not be necessary to use Apache Geode APIs at all — for example, when using the Spring Cache Abstraction for caching or the Spring Data Repository abstraction for DAO development. There are many more examples.

For certain use cases, users may require low level access to fine-grained functionally. Spring Boot for Apache Geode’s org.springframework.geode:apache-geode-extensions module and library builds on Apache Geode’s APIs by including several extensions with enhanced functionality to offer an experience familiar to Spring users inside a Spring context.

Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) also includes additional extensions to Apache Geode’s APIs.

20.1. SimpleCacheResolver

In some cases, it is necessary to acquire a reference to the cache instance in your application components at runtime. For example, you might want to create a temporary Region on the fly to aggregate data for analysis.

Typically, you already know the type of cache your application is using, since you must declare your application to be either a client (ClientCache) in the client/server topology, or a peer member or node (Cache) in the cluster on startup. This is expressed in configuration when creating the cache instance required to interact with the Apache Geode data management system. In most cases, your application will be a client. SBDG makes this decision easy, since it auto-configures a ClientCache instance, by default.

In a Spring context, the cache instance created by the framework is a managed bean in the Spring container. You can inject a reference to the Singleton cache bean into any other managed application component:

Example 174. Autowired Cache Reference using Dependency Injection (DI)
@Service
class CacheMonitoringService {

	@Autowired
    ClientCache clientCache;

    // use the clientCache object reference to monitor the cache as necessary

}

However, in cases where your application component or class is not managed by Spring and you need a reference to the cache instance at runtime, SBDG provides the abstract org.springframework.geode.cache.SimpleCacheResolver class (see its Javadoc).

Example 175. SimpleCacheResolver API
package org.springframework.geode.cache;

abstract class SimpleCacheResolver {

	<T extends GemFireCache> T require() { }

	<T extends GemFireCache> Optional<T> resolve() { }

	Optional<ClientCache> resolveClientCache() { }

	Optional<Cache> resolvePeerCache() { }

}

SimpleCacheResolver adheres to SOLID OO Principles. This class is abstract and extensible so that you can change the algorithm used to resolve client or peer cache instances as well as mock its methods in unit tests.

Additionally, each method is precise. For example, resolveClientCache() resolves a reference to a cache only if the cache instance is a “client.” If a cache exists but is a “peer” cache instance, resolveClientCache() returns Optional.EMPTY. The behavior of resolvePeerCache() is similar.

require() returns a non-Optional reference to a cache instance and throws an IllegalStateException if a cache is not present.

20.2. CacheUtils

Under the hood, SimpleCacheResolver delegates some of its functions to the CacheUtils abstract utility class, which provides additional, convenient capabilities when you use a cache.

While there are utility methods to determine whether a cache instance (that is, a GemFireCache) or Region is a client or a peer, one of the more useful functions is to extract all the values from a Region.

To extract all the values stored in a Region, call CacheUtils.collectValues(:Region<?, T>). This method returns a Collection<T> that contains all the values stored in the given Region. The method is smart and knows how to handle the Region appropriately regardless of whether the Region is a client or a peer. This distinction is important, since client PROXY Regions store no values.

Caution is advised when you get all values from a Region. While getting filtered reference values from a non-transactional, reference data only [REPLICATE] Region is quite useful, getting all values from a transactional, [PARTITION] Region can prove quite detrimental, especially in production. Getting all values from a Region can be useful during testing.

20.3. MembershipListenerAdapter and MembershipEvent

Another useful API hidden by Apache Geode is the membership events and listener interface. This API is especially useful on the server side when your Spring Boot application serves as a peer member of an Apache Geode distributed system.

When a peer member is disconnected from the distributed system, perhaps due to a network failure, the member is forcibly removed from the cluster. This node immediately enters a reconnecting state, trying to establish a connection back to the cluster. Once reconnected, the peer member must rebuild all cache objects (Cache, Region instances, Index instances, DiskStore instances, and so on). All previous cache objects are now invalid, and their references are stale.

In a Spring context, this is particularly problematic since most Apache Geode objects are Singleton beans declared in and managed by the Spring container. Those beans may be injected and used in other framework and application components. For instance, Region instances are injected into SDG’s GemfireTemplate, Spring Data Repositories and possibly application-specific data access objects (DAOs).

If references to those cache objects become stale on a forced disconnect event, there is no way to auto-wire fresh object references into the dependent application or framework components when the peer member is reconnected, unless the Spring ApplicationContext is “refreshed”. In fact, there is no way to even know that this event has occurred, since the Apache Geode MembershipListener API and corresponding events are “internal”.

The Spring team explored the idea of creating proxies for all types of cache objects (Cache, Region, Index, DiskStore, AsyncEventQueue, GatewayReceiver, GatewaySender, and others) used by Spring. The proxies would know how to obtain a fresh reference on a reconnect event. However, this turns out to be more problematic than it is worth. It is easier to “refresh” the Spring ApplicationContext, although doing so is no less expensive. Neither way is ideal. See SGF-921 and SGF-227 for further details.

In the case where membership events are useful to the Spring Boot application, SBDG provides the following API:

The abstract MembershipListenerAdapter class implements Apache Geode’s org.apache.geode.distributed.internal.MembershipListener interface to simplify the event handler method signatures by using an appropriate MembershipEvent type to encapsulate the actors in the event.

The abstract MembershipEvent class is further subclassed to represent specific membership event types that occur within the Apache Geode system:

The API is depicted in the following UML diagram:

membership api uml

The membership event type is further categorized with an appropriate enumerated value, MembershipEvent.Type, as a property of the MembershipEvent itself (see getType()).

The type hierarchy is useful in instanceof expressions, while the Enum is useful in switch statements.

You can see one particular implementation of the MembershipListenerAdapter with the ApplicationContextMembershipListener class, which does exactly as we described earlier, handling forced-disconnect/auto-reconnect membership events inside a Spring container in order to refresh the Spring ApplicationContext.

20.4. PDX

Apache Geode’s PDX serialization framework is yet another API that falls short of a complete stack.

For instance, there is no easy or direct way to serialize an object as PDX bytes. It is also not possible to modify an existing PdxInstance by adding or removing fields, since doing so would require a new PDX type. In this case, you must create a new PdxInstance and copy from an existing PdxInstance. Unfortunately, the Apache Geode API offers no help in this regard. It is also not possible to use PDX in a client, local-only mode without a server, since the PDX type registry is only available and managed on servers in a cluster.

20.4.1. PdxInstanceBuilder

In such cases, SBDG conveniently provides the PdxInstanceBuilder class, appropriately named after the Builder software design pattern. The PdxInstanceBuilder also offers a fluent API for constructing PdxInstances:

Example 176. PdxInstanceBuilder API
class PdxInstanceBuilder {

	PdxInstanceFactory copy(PdxInstance pdx);

	Factory from(Object target);

}

For example, you could serialize an application domain object as PDX bytes with the following code:

Example 177. Serializing an Object to PDX
@Component
class CustomerSerializer {

	PdxInstance serialize(Customer customer) {

		return PdxInstanceBuilder.create()
            .from(customer)
            .create();
	}
}

You could then modify the PdxInstance by copying from the original:

Example 178. Copy PdxInstance
@Component
class CustomerDecorator {

	@Autowired
    CustomerSerializer serializer;

	PdxIntance decorate(Customer customer) {

		PdxInstance pdxCustomer = serializer.serialize(customer);

		return PdxInstanceBuilder.create()
            .copy(pdxCustomer)
            .writeBoolean("vip", isImportant(customer))
            .create();
	}
}

20.4.2. PdxInstanceWrapper

SBDG also provides the PdxInstanceWrapper class to wrap an existing PdxInstance in order to provide more control during the conversion from PDX to JSON and from JSON back into a POJO. Specifically, the wrapper gives you more control over the configuration of Jackson’s ObjectMapper.

The ObjectMapper constructed by Apache Geode’s own PdxInstance implementation (PdxInstanceImpl) is not configurable, nor was it configured correctly. Unfortunately, since PdxInstance is not extensible, the getObject() method fails when converting the JSON generated from PDX back into a POJO for any practical application domain model type.

The following example wraps an existing PdxInstance:

Example 179. Wrapping an existing PdxInstance
PdxInstanceWrapper wrapper = PdxInstanceWrapper.from(pdxInstance);

For all operations on PdxInstance except getObject(), the wrapper delegates to the underlying PdxInstance method implementation called by the user.

In addition to the decorated getObject() method, the PdxInstanceWrapper provides a thorough implementation of the toString() method. The state of the PdxInstance is output in a JSON-like String.

Finally, the PdxInstanceWrapper class adds a getIdentifier() method. Rather than put the burden on the user to have to iterate the field names of the PdxInstance to determine whether a field is the identity field and then call getField(name) with the field name to get the ID (value) — assuming an identity field was marked in the first place — the PdxInstanceWrapper class provides the getIdentifier() method to return the ID of the PdxInstance directly.

The getIdentifier() method is smart in that it first iterates the fields of the PdxInstance, asking each field if it is the identity field. If no field was marked as the identity field, the algorithm searches for a field named id. If no field with the name id exists, the algorithm searches for a metadata field called @identifier, which refers to the field that is the identity field of the PdxInstance.

The @identifier metadata field is useful in cases where the PdxInstance originated from JSON and the application domain object uses a natural identifier, rather than a surrogate ID, such as Book.isbn.

Apache Geode’s JSONFormatter class is not capable of marking the identity field of a PdxInstance originating from JSON.
It is not currently possible to implement the PdxInstance interface and store instances of this type as a value in a Region. Apache Geode assumes all PdxInstance objects are an implementation created by Apache Geode itself (that is, PdxInstanceImpl), which has a tight coupling to the PDX type registry. An Exception is thrown if you try to store instances of your own PdxInstance implementation.

20.4.3. ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter

In rare cases, you may need to treat an Object as a PdxInstance, depending on the context without incurring the overhead of serializing an Object to PDX. For such cases, SBDG offers the ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter class.

This might be true when calling a method with a parameter expecting an argument of, or returning an instance of, type PdxInstance, particularly when Apache Geode’s read-serialized PDX configuration property is set to true and only an object is available in the current context.

Under the hood, SBDG’s ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter class uses Spring’s BeanWrapper class along with Java’s introspection and reflection functionality to adapt the given Object and access it with the full PdxInstance API. This includes the use of the WritablePdxInstance API, obtained from PdxInstance.createWriter(), to modify the underlying Object as well.

Like the PdxInstanceWrapper class, ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter contains special logic to resolve the identity field and ID of the PdxInstance, including consideration for Spring Data’s @Id mapping annotation, which can be introspected in this case, given that the underlying Object backing the PdxInstance is a POJO.

The ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter.getObject() method returns the wrapped Object used to construct the ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter and is, therefore, automatically deserializable, as determined by the PdxInstance.isDeseriable() method, which always returns true.

You can adapt any Object as a PdxInstance:

Example 180. Adapt an Object as a PdxInstance
class OfflineObjectToPdxInstanceConverter {

	@NonNull PdxInstance convert(@NonNull Object target) {
		return ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter.from(target);
	}
}

Once the Adapter is created, you can use it to access data on the underlying Object.

Consider the following example of a Customer class:

Example 181. Customer class
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

	@Id
    private Long id;

	String name;

	// constructors, getters and setters omitted

}

Then you can access an instance of Customer by using the PdxInstance API:

Example 182. Accessing an Object using the PdxInstance API
class ObjectPdxInstanceAdapterTest {

	@Test
    public void getAndSetObjectProperties() {

		Customer jonDoe = new Customer(1L, "Jon Doe");

		PdxInstance adapter = ObjectPdxInstanceAdapter.from(jonDoe);

		assertThat(jonDoe.getName()).isEqualTo("Jon Doe");
		assertThat(adapter.getField("name")).isEqualTo("Jon Doe");

		adapter.createWriter().setField("name", "Jane Doe");

		assertThat(adapter.getField("name")).isEqualTo("Jane Doe");
		assertThat(jonDoe.getName()).isEqualTo("Jane Doe");
    }
}

20.5. Security

For testing purposes, SBDG provides a test implementation of Apache Geode’s SecurityManager interface, which expects the password to match the username (case-sensitive) when authenticating.

By default, all operations are authorized.

To match the expectations of SBDG’s TestSecurityManager, SBDG additionally provides a test implementation of Apache Geode’s AuthInitialize interface, which supplies matching credentials for both the username and password.

21. Spring Boot Actuator

Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) adds Spring Boot Actuator support and dedicated HealthIndicators for Apache Geode. Equally, the provided HealthIndicators even work with Tanzu Cache (which is backed by VMware Tanzu GemFire) when you push your Spring Boot applications using Apache Geode to {VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS)} platform.

Spring Boot HealthIndicators provide details about the runtime operation and behavior of your Apache Geode-based Spring Boot applications. For instance, by querying the right HealthIndicator endpoint, you can get the current hit/miss count for your Region.get(key) data access operations.

In addition to vital health information, SBDG provides basic, pre-runtime configuration metadata about the Apache Geode components that are monitored by Spring Boot Actuator. This makes it easier to see how the application was configured all in one place, rather than in properties files, Spring configuration, XML, and so on.

The provided Spring Boot HealthIndicators fall into three categories:

  • Base HealthIndicators that apply to all Apache Geode, Spring Boot applications, regardless of cache type, such as Regions, Indexes, and DiskStores.

  • Peer Cache-based HealthIndicators that apply only to peer Cache applications, such as AsyncEventQueues, CacheServers, GatewayReceivers, and GatewaySenders.

  • ClientCache-based HealthIndicators that apply only to ClientCache applications, such as ContinuousQuery and connection Pools.

The following sections give a brief overview of all the available Spring Boot HealthIndicators provided for Apache Geode.

See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Spring Boot Actuator for Apache Geode in action.

21.1. Base HealthIndicators

This section covers Spring Boot HealthIndicators that apply to both Apache Geode peer Cache and ClientCache, Spring Boot applications. That is, these HealthIndicators are not specific to the cache type.

In Apache Geode, the cache instance is either a peer Cache instance (which makes your Spring Boot application part of a Apache Geode cluster) or, more commonly, a ClientCache instance (which talks to an existing cluster). Your Spring Boot application can only be one cache type or the other and can only have a single instance of that cache type.

21.1.1. GeodeCacheHealthIndicator

GeodeCacheHealthIndicator provides essential details about the (single) cache instance (client or peer) and the underlying DistributedSystem, the DistributedMember and configuration details of the ResourceManager.

When your Spring Boot application creates an instance of a peer Cache, the DistributedMember object represents your application as a peer member or node of the DistributedSystem. The distributed system (that is, the cluster) is formed from a collection of connected peers, to which your application also has access — indirectly, through the cache instance.

This is no different for a ClientCache even though the client is technically not part of the peer/server cluster. However, it still creates instances of the DistributedSystem and DistributedMember objects, respectively.

Each object has the following configuration metadata and health details:

Table 2. Cache Details
Name Description

geode.cache.name

Name of the member in the distributed system.

geode.cache.closed

Determines whether the cache has been closed.

geode.cache.cancel-in-progress

Indicates whether cancellation of operations is in progress.
Table 3. DistributedMember Details
Name Description

geode.distributed-member.id

DistributedMember identifier (used in logs internally).

geode.distributed-member.name

Name of the member in the distributed system.

geode.distributed-members.groups

Configured groups to which the member belongs.

geode.distributed-members.host

Name of the machine on which the member is running.

geode.distributed-members.process-id

Identifier of the JVM process (PID).
Table 4. DistributedSystem Details
Name Description

geode.distributed-system.connected

Indicates whether the member is currently connected to the cluster.

geode.distributed-system.member-count

Total number of members in the cluster (1 for clients).

geode.distributed-system.reconnecting

Indicates whether the member is in a reconnecting state, which happens when a network partition occurs and the member gets disconnected from the cluster.

geode.distributed-system.properties-location

Location of the standard configuration properties.

geode.distributed-system.security-properties-location

Location of the security configuration properties.
Table 5. ResourceManager Details
Name Description

geode.resource-manager.critical-heap-percentage

Percentage of heap at which the cache is in danger of becoming inoperable.

geode.resource-manager.critical-off-heap-percentage

Percentage of off-heap at which the cache is in danger of becoming inoperable.

geode.resource-manager.eviction-heap-percentage

Percentage of heap at which eviction begins on Regions configured with a heap LRU eviction policy.

geode.resource-manager.eviction-off-heap-percentage

Percentage of off-heap at which eviction begins on Regions configured with a heap LRU eviction policy.

21.1.2. GeodeRegionsHealthIndicator

GeodeRegionsHealthIndicator provides details about all the configured and known Regions in the cache. If the cache is a client, details include all LOCAL, PROXY, and CACHING_PROXY Regions. If the cache is a peer then details include all LOCAL, PARTITION, and REPLICATE Region instances.

The following table describes the essential details and basic performance metrics:

Table 6. Region Details
Name Description

geode.cache.regions.<name>.cloning-enabled

Whether Region values are cloned on read (for example, cloning-enabled is true when cache transactions are used to prevent in-place modifications).

geode.cache.regions.<name>.data-policy

Policy used to manage data in the Region (PARTITION, REPLICATE, and others).

geode.cache.regions.<name>.initial-capacity

Initial number of entries that can be held by a Region before it needs to be resized.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.load-factor

Load factor used to determine when to resize the Region when it nears capacity.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.key-constraint

Type constraint for Region keys.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.off-heap

Determines whether this Region stores values in off-heap memory (NOTE: Keys are always kept on the JVM heap).

geode.cache.regions.<name>.pool-name

If this Region is a client Region, this property determines the configured connection Pool. (NOTE: Regions can have and use dedicated Pools for their data access operations.)

geode.cache.regions.<name>.pool-name

Determines the Scope of the Region, which plays a factor in the Region’s consistency-level, as it pertains to acknowledgements for writes.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.value-constraint

Type constraint for Region values.

The following details also apply when the Region is a peer Cache PARTITION Region:

Table 7. Partition Region Details
Name Description

geode.cache.regions.<name>.partition.collocated-with

Indicates whether this Region is collocated with another PARTITION Region, which is necessary when performing equi-joins queries (NOTE: distributed joins are not supported).

geode.cache.regions.<name>.partition.local-max-memory

Total amount of heap memory allowed to be used by this Region on this node.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.partition.redundant-copies

Number of replicas for this PARTITION Region, which is useful in high availability (HA) use cases.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.partition.total-max-memory

Total amount of heap memory allowed to be used by this Region across all nodes in the cluster hosting this Region.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.partition.total-number-of-buckets

Total number of buckets (shards) into which this Region is divided (defaults to 113).

Finally, when statistics are enabled (for example, when you use @EnableStatistics — (see doc for more details), the following metadata is available:

Table 8. Region Statistic Details
Name Description

geode.cache.regions.<name>.statistics.hit-count

Number of hits for a region entry.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.statistics.hit-ratio

Ratio of hits to the number of Region.get(key) calls.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.statistics.last-accessed-time

For an entry, indicates the last time it was accessed with Region.get(key).

geode.cache.regions.<name>.statistics.last-modified-time

For an entry, indicates the time when a Region’s entry value was last modified.

geode.cache.regions.<name>.statistics.miss-count

Returns the number of times that a Region.get was performed and no value was found locally.

21.1.3. GeodeIndexesHealthIndicator

GeodeIndexesHealthIndicator provides details about the configured Region Indexes used by OQL query data access operations.

The following details are covered:

Table 9. Index Details
Name Description

geode.index.<name>.from-clause

Region from which data is selected.

geode.index.<name>.indexed-expression

Region value fields and properties used in the Index expression.

geode.index.<name>.projection-attributes

For Map Indexes, returns either or the specific Map keys that were indexed. For all other Indexes, returns .

geode.index.<name>.region

Region to which the Index is applied.

Additionally, when statistics are enabled (for example, when you use @EnableStatistics — see Configuring Statistics for more details), the following metadata is available:

Table 10. Index Statistic Details
Name Description

geode.index.<name>.statistics.number-of-bucket-indexes

Number of bucket Indexes created in a PARTITION Region.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.number-of-keys

Number of keys in this Index.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.number-of-map-indexed-keys

Number of keys in this Index at the highest level.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.number-of-values

Number of values in this Index.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.number-of-updates

Number of times this Index has been updated.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.read-lock-count

Number of read locks taken on this Index.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.total-update-time

Total amount of time (ns) spent updating this Index.

geode.index.<name>.statistics.total-uses

Total number of times this Index has been accessed by an OQL query.

21.1.4. GeodeDiskStoresHealthIndicator

The GeodeDiskStoresHealthIndicator provides details about the configured DiskStores in the system or application. Remember, DiskStores are used to overflow and persist data to disk, including type metadata tracked by PDX when the values in the Regions have been serialized with PDX and the Regions are persistent.

Most of the tracked health information pertains to configuration:

Table 11. DiskStore Details
Name Description

geode.disk-store.<name>.allow-force-compaction

Indicates whether manual compaction of the DiskStore is allowed.

geode.disk-store.<name>.auto-compact

Indicates whether compaction occurs automatically.

geode.disk-store.<name>.compaction-threshold

Percentage at which the oplog becomes compactible.

geode.disk-store.<name>.disk-directories

Location of the oplog disk files.

geode.disk-store.<name>.disk-directory-sizes

Configured and allowed sizes (MB) for the disk directory that stores the disk files.

geode.disk-store.<name>.disk-usage-critical-percentage

Critical threshold of disk usage proportional to the total disk volume.

geode.disk-store.<name>.disk-usage-warning-percentage

Warning threshold of disk usage proportional to the total disk volume.

geode.disk-store.<name>.max-oplog-size

Maximum size (MB) allowed for a single oplog file.

geode.disk-store.<name>.queue-size

Size of the queue used to batch writes that are flushed to disk.

geode.disk-store.<name>.time-interval

Time to wait (ms) before writes are flushed to disk from the queue if the size limit has not be reached.

geode.disk-store.<name>.uuid

Universally unique identifier for the DiskStore across a distributed system.

geode.disk-store.<name>.write-buffer-size

Size the of write buffer the DiskStore uses to write data to disk.

21.2. ClientCache HealthIndicators

The ClientCache-based HealthIndicators provide additional details specifically for Spring Boot, cache client applications. These HealthIndicators are available only when the Spring Boot application creates a ClientCache instance (that is, the application is a cache client), which is the default.

21.2.1. GeodeContinuousQueriesHealthIndicator

GeodeContinuousQueriesHealthIndicator provides details about registered client Continuous Queries (CQs). CQs let client applications receive automatic notification about events that satisfy some criteria. That criteria can be easily expressed by using the predicate of an OQL query (for example, SELECT * FROM /Customers c WHERE c.age > 21). When data is inserted or updated and the data matches the criteria specified in the OQL query predicate (data of interests), an event is sent to the registered client.

The following details are covered for CQs by name:

Table 12. Continuous Query (CQ) Details
Name Description

geode.continuous-query.<name>.oql-query-string

OQL query constituting the CQ.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.closed

Indicates whether the CQ has been closed.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.closing

Indicates whether the CQ is in the process of closing.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.durable

Indicates whether the CQ events are remembered between client sessions.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.running

Indicates whether the CQ is currently running.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.stopped

Indicates whether the CQ has been stopped.

In addition, the following CQ query and statistical data is covered:

Table 13. Continuous Query (CQ), Query Details
Name Description

geode.continuous-query.<name>.query.number-of-executions

Total number of times the query has been executed.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.query.total-execution-time

Total amount of time (ns) spent executing the query.
Table 14. Continuous Query(CQ), Statistic Details
Name Description

geode.continuous-query.<name>.statistics.number-of-deletes

Number of delete events qualified by this CQ.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.statistics.number-of-events

Total number of events qualified by this CQ.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.statistics.number-of-inserts

Number of insert events qualified by this CQ.

geode.continuous-query.<name>.statistics.number-of-updates

Number of update events qualified by this CQ.

The Apache Geode Continuous Query system is also tracked with the following additional details on the client:

Table 15. Continuous Query (CQ), Additional Statistic Details
Name Description

geode.continuous-query.count

Total count of CQs.

geode.continuous-query.number-of-active

Number of currently active CQs (if available).

geode.continuous-query.number-of-closed

Total number of closed CQs (if available).

geode.continuous-query.number-of-created

Total number of created CQs (if available).

geode.continuous-query.number-of-stopped

Number of currently stopped CQs (if available).

geode.continuous-query.number-on-client

Number of CQs that are currently active or stopped (if available).

21.2.2. GeodePoolsHealthIndicator

GeodePoolsHealthIndicator provides details about all the configured client connection Pools. This HealthIndicator primarily provides configuration metadata for all the configured Pools.

The following details are covered:

Table 16. Pool Details
Name Description

geode.pool.count

Total number of client connection pools.

geode.pool.<name>.destroyed

Indicates whether the pool has been destroyed.

geode.pool.<name>.free-connection-timeout

Configured amount of time to wait for a free connection from the Pool.

geode.pool.<name>.idle-timeout

The amount of time to wait before closing unused, idle connections, not exceeding the configured number of minimum required connections.

geode.pool.<name>.load-conditioning-interval

How frequently the Pool checks to see whether a connection to a given server should be moved to a different server to improve the load balance.

geode.pool.<name>.locators

List of configured Locators.

geode.pool.<name>.max-connections

Maximum number of connections obtainable from the Pool.

geode.pool.<name>.min-connections

Minimum number of connections contained by the Pool.

geode.pool.<name>.multi-user-authentication

Determines whether the Pool can be used by multiple authenticated users.

geode.pool.<name>.online-locators

Returns a list of living Locators.

geode.pool.<name>.pending-event-count

Approximate number of pending subscription events maintained at the server for this durable client Pool at the time it (re)connected to the server.

geode.pool.<name>.ping-interval

How often to ping the servers to verify they are still alive.

geode.pool.<name>.pr-single-hop-enabled

Whether the client acquires a direct connection to the server.

geode.pool.<name>.read-timeout

Number of milliseconds to wait for a response from a server before timing out the operation and trying another server (if any are available).

geode.pool.<name>.retry-attempts

Number of times to retry a request after a timeout or an exception.

geode.pool.<name>.server-group

All servers must belong to the same group, and this value sets the name of that group.

geode.pool.<name>.servers

List of configured servers.

geode.pool.<name>.socket-buffer-size

Socket buffer size for each connection made in this pool.

geode.pool.<name>.statistic-interval

How often to send client statistics to the server.

geode.pool.<name>.subscription-ack-interval

Interval in milliseconds to wait before sending acknowledgements to the cache server for events received from the server subscriptions.

geode.pool.<name>.subscription-enabled

Enabled server-to-client subscriptions.

geode.pool.<name>.subscription-message-tracking-timeout

Time-to-Live (TTL) period (ms) for subscription events the client has received from the server.

geode.pool.<name>.subscription-redundancy

Redundancy level for this Pool’s server-to-client subscriptions, which is used to ensure clients do not miss potentially important events.

geode.pool.<name>.thread-local-connections

Thread local connection policy for this Pool.

21.3. Peer Cache HealthIndicators

The peer Cache-based HealthIndicators provide additional details specifically for Spring Boot peer cache member applications. These HealthIndicators are available only when the Spring Boot application creates a peer Cache instance.

The default cache instance created by Spring Boot for Apache Geode is a ClientCache instance.
To control what type of cache instance is created, such as a “peer”, you can explicitly declare either the @PeerCacheApplication or, alternatively, the @CacheServerApplication annotation on your @SpringBootApplication-annotated class.

21.3.1. GeodeCacheServersHealthIndicator

The GeodeCacheServersHealthIndicator provides details about the configured Apache Geode CacheServer instances. CacheServer instances are required to enable clients to connect to the servers in the cluster.

This HealthIndicator captures basic configuration metadata and the runtime behavior and characteristics of the configured CacheServer instances:

Table 17. CacheServer Details
Name Description

geode.cache.server.count

Total number of configured CacheServer instances on this peer member.

geode.cache.server.<index>.bind-address

IP address of the NIC to which the CacheServer ServerSocket is bound (useful when the system contains multiple NICs).

geode.cache.server.<index>.hostname-for-clients

Name of the host used by clients to connect to the CacheServer (useful with DNS).

geode.cache.server.<index>.load-poll-interval

How often (ms) to query the load probe on the CacheServer.

geode.cache.server.<index>.max-connections

Maximum number of connections allowed to this CacheServer.

geode.cache.server.<index>.max-message-count

Maximum number of messages that can be put in a client queue.

geode.cache.server.<index>.max-threads

Maximum number of threads allowed in this CacheServer to service client requests.

geode.cache.server.<index>.max-time-between-pings

Maximum time between client pings.

geode.cache.server.<index>.message-time-to-live

Time (seconds) in which the client queue expires.

geode.cache.server.<index>.port

Network port to which the CacheServer ServerSocket is bound and on which it listens for client connections.

geode.cache.server.<index>.running

Determines whether this CacheServer is currently running and accepting client connections.

geode.cache.server.<index>.socket-buffer-size

Configured buffer size of the socket connection used by this CacheServer.

geode.cache.server.<index>.tcp-no-delay

Configures the TCP/IP TCP_NO_DELAY setting on outgoing sockets.

In addition to the configuration settings shown in the preceding table, the ServerLoadProbe of the CacheServer tracks additional details about the runtime characteristics of the CacheServer:

Table 18. CacheServer Metrics and Load Details
Name Description

geode.cache.server.<index>.load.connection-load

Load on the server due to client-to-server connections.

geode.cache.server.<index>.load.load-per-connection

Estimate of how much load each new connection adds to this server.

geode.cache.server.<index>.load.subscription-connection-load

Load on the server due to subscription connections.

geode.cache.server.<index>.load.load-per-subscription-connection

Estimate of how much load each new subscriber adds to this server.

geode.cache.server.<index>.metrics.client-count

Number of connected clients.

geode.cache.server.<index>.metrics.max-connection-count

Maximum number of connections made to this CacheServer.

geode.cache.server.<index>.metrics.open-connection-count

Number of open connections to this CacheServer.

geode.cache.server.<index>.metrics.subscription-connection-count

Number of subscription connections to this CacheServer.

21.3.2. GeodeAsyncEventQueuesHealthIndicator

GeodeAsyncEventQueuesHealthIndicator provides details about the configured AsyncEventQueues. AEQs can be attached to Regions to configure asynchronous write-behind behavior.

This HealthIndicator captures configuration metadata and runtime characteristics for all AEQs:

Table 19. AsyncEventQueue Details
Name Description

geode.async-event-queue.count

Total number of configured AEQs.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.batch-conflation-enabled

Indicates whether batch events are conflated when sent.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.batch-size

Size of the batch that gets delivered over this AEQ.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.batch-time-interval

Maximum time interval that can elapse before a batch is sent.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.disk-store-name

Name of the disk store used to overflow and persist events.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.disk-synchronous

Indicates whether disk writes are synchronous or asynchronous.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.dispatcher-threads

Number of threads used to dispatch events.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.forward-expiration-destroy

Indicates whether expiration destroy operations are forwarded to AsyncEventListener.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.max-queue-memory

Maximum memory used before data needs to be overflowed to disk.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.order-policy

Order policy followed while dispatching the events to AsyncEventListeners.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.parallel

Indicates whether this queue is parallel (higher throughput) or serial.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.persistent

Indicates whether this queue stores events to disk.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.primary

Indicates whether this queue is primary or secondary.

geode.async-event-queue.<id>.size

Number of entries in this queue.

21.3.3. GeodeGatewayReceiversHealthIndicator

GeodeGatewayReceiversHealthIndicator provides details about the configured (WAN) GatewayReceivers, which are capable of receiving events from remote clusters when using Apache Geode’s multi-site, WAN topology.

This HealthIndicator captures configuration metadata along with the running state for each GatewayReceiver:

Table 20. GatewayReceiver Details
Name Description

geode.gateway-receiver.count

Total number of configured GatewayReceiver instances.

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.bind-address

IP address of the NIC to which the GatewayReceiver ServerSocket is bound (useful when the system contains multiple NICs).

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.end-port

End value of the port range from which the port of the GatewayReceiver is chosen.

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.host

IP address or hostname that Locators tell clients (that is, GatewaySender instances) on which this GatewayReceiver listens.

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.max-time-between-pings

Maximum amount of time between client pings.

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.port

Port on which this GatewayReceiver listens for clients (that is, GatewaySender instances).

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.running

Indicates whether this GatewayReceiver is running and accepting client connections (from GatewaySender instances).

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.socket-buffer-size

Configured buffer size for the socket connections used by this GatewayReceiver.

geode.gateway-receiver.<index>.start-port

Start value of the port range from which the port of the GatewayReceiver is chosen.

21.3.4. GeodeGatewaySendersHealthIndicator

The GeodeGatewaySendersHealthIndicator provides details about the configured GatewaySenders. GatewaySender instances are attached to Regions in order to send Region events to remote clusters in Apache Geode’s multi-site, WAN topology.

This HealthIndicator captures essential configuration metadata and runtime characteristics for each GatewaySender:

Table 21. GatewaySender Details
Name Description

geode.gateway-sender.count

Total number of configured GatewaySender instances.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.alert-threshold

Alert threshold (ms) for entries in this GatewaySender instances queue.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.batch-conflation-enabled

Indicates whether batch events are conflated when sent.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.batch-size

Size of the batches sent.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.batch-time-interval

Maximum time interval that can elapse before a batch is sent.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.disk-store-name

Name of the DiskStore used to overflow and persist queued events.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.disk-synchronous

Indicates whether disk writes are synchronous or asynchronous.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.dispatcher-threads

Number of threads used to dispatch events.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.max-parallelism-for-replicated-region

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.max-queue-memory

Maximum amount of memory (MB) usable for this GatewaySender instance’s queue.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.order-policy

Order policy followed while dispatching the events to GatewayReceiver instances.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.parallel

Indicates whether this GatewaySender is parallel (higher throughput) or serial.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.paused

Indicates whether this GatewaySender is paused.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.persistent

Indicates whether this GatewaySender persists queue events to disk.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.remote-distributed-system-id

Identifier for the remote distributed system.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.running

Indicates whether this GatewaySender is currently running.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.socket-buffer-size

Configured buffer size for the socket connections between this GatewaySender and the receiving GatewayReceiver.

geode.gateway-sender.<id>.socket-read-timeout

Amount of time (ms) that a socket read between this sending GatewaySender and the receiving GatewayReceiver blocks.

22. Spring Session

This chapter covers auto-configuration of Spring Session for Apache Geode to manage (HTTP) session state in a reliable (consistent), highly available (replicated), and clustered manner.

Spring Session provides an API and several implementations for managing a user’s session information. It has the ability to replace the javax.servlet.http.HttpSession in an application container-neutral way and provide session IDs in HTTP headers to work with RESTful APIs.

Furthermore, Spring Session provides the ability to keep the HttpSession alive even when working with WebSockets and reactive Spring WebFlux WebSessions.

A complete discussion of Spring Session is beyond the scope of this document. You can learn more by reading the docs and reviewing the samples.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode provides auto-configuration support to configure Apache Geode as the session management provider and store when Spring Session for Apache Geode is on your Spring Boot application’s classpath.

You can learn more about Spring Session for Apache Geode in the docs.
See the corresponding sample guide and code to see Spring Session for Apache Geode in action.

22.1. Configuration

You need do nothing special to use Apache Geode as a Spring Session provider implementation, managing the (HTTP) session state of your Spring Boot application.

To do so, include the appropriate Spring Session dependency on your Spring Boot application’s classpath:

Example 183. Maven dependency declaration
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.session</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-session-data-geode</artifactId>
    <version>2.6.3</version>
  </dependency>

Alternatively, you may declare the provided spring-geode-starter-session dependency in your Spring Boot application Maven POM (shown here) or Gradle build file:

Example 184. Maven dependency declaration
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.geode</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-geode-starter-session</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.14</version>
  </dependency>

After declaring the required Spring Session dependency, you can begin your Spring Boot application as you normally would:

Example 185. Spring Boot Application
@SpringBootApplication
public class MySpringBootApplication {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(MySpringBootApplication.class, args);
  }

  // ...
}

You can then create application-specific Spring Web MVC Controllers to interact with the HttpSession as needed by your application:

Example 186. Spring Boot Application Controller using HttpSession
@Controller
class MyApplicationController {

  @GetRequest("...")
  public String processGet(HttpSession session) {
    // interact with HttpSession
  }
}

The HttpSession is replaced by a Spring managed Session that is stored in Apache Geode.

22.2. Custom Configuration

By default, Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) applies reasonable and sensible defaults when configuring Apache Geode as the provider in Spring Session.

For instance, by default, SBDG sets the session expiration timeout to 30 minutes. It also uses a ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY as the data management policy for the Apache Geode client Region that managing the (HTTP) session state when the Spring Boot application is using a ClientCache, which it does by default.

However, what if the defaults are not sufficient for your application requirements?

In that case, see the next section.

22.2.1. Custom Configuration using Properties

Spring Session for Apache Geode publishes well-known configuration properties for each of the various Spring Session configuration options when you use Apache Geode as the (HTTP) session state management provider.

You can specify any of these properties in Spring Boot application.properties to adjust Spring Session’s configuration when using Apache Geode.

In addition to the properties provided in and by Spring Session for Apache Geode, Spring Boot for Apache Geode also recognizes and respects the spring.session.timeout property and the server.servlet.session.timeout property, as discussed the Spring Boot documentation.

spring.session.data.gemfire.session.expiration.max-inactive-interval-seconds takes precedence over spring.session.timeout, which takes precedence over server.servlet.session.timeout when any combination of these properties have been simultaneously configured in the Spring Environment of your application.

22.2.2. Custom Configuration using a Configurer

Spring Session for Apache Geode also provides the SpringSessionGemFireConfigurer callback interface, which you can declare in your Spring ApplicationContext to programmatically control the configuration of Spring Session when you use Apache Geode.

The SpringSessionGemFireConfigurer, when declared in the Spring ApplicationContext, takes precedence over any of the Spring Session (for Apache Geode) configuration properties and effectively overrides them when both are present.

More information on using the SpringSessionGemFireConfigurer can be found in the docs.

22.3. Disabling Session State Caching

There may be cases where you do not want your Spring Boot application to manage (HTTP) session state by using Apache Geode.

In certain cases, you may be using another Spring Session provider implementation, such as Redis, to cache and manage your Spring Boot application’s (HTTP) session state. In other cases, you do not want to use Spring Session to manage your (HTTP) session state at all. Rather, you prefer to use your Web Server’s (such as Tomcat’s) built-in HttpSession state management capabilities.

Either way, you can specifically call out your Spring Session provider implementation by using the spring.session.store-type property in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 187. Use Redis as the Spring Session Provider Implementation
#application.properties

spring.session.store-type=redis
...

If you prefer not to use Spring Session to manage your Spring Boot application’s (HTTP) session state at all, you can do the following:

Example 188. Use Web Server Session State Management
#application.properties

spring.session.store-type=none
...

Again, see the Spring Boot documentation for more detail.

You can include multiple provider implementations on the classpath of your Spring Boot application. For instance, you might use Redis to cache your application’s (HTTP) session state while using Apache Geode as your application’s transactional persistent store (System of Record).
Spring Boot does not properly recognize spring.session.store-type=[gemfire|geode] even though Spring Boot for Apache Geode is set up to handle either of these property values (that is, either gemfire or geode).

22.4. Using Spring Session with VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs (PCC)

Whether you use Spring Session in a Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application to connect to an standalone, externally managed cluster of Apache Geode servers or to connect to a cluster of servers in a VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs service instance managed by a VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) environment, the setup is the same.

Spring Session for Apache Geode expects there to be a cache Region in the cluster that can store and manage (HTTP) session state when your Spring Boot application is a ClientCache application in the client/server topology.

By default, the cache Region used to store and manage (HTTP) session state is called ClusteredSpringSessions.

We recommend that you configure the cache Region name by using the well-known and documented property in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 189. Using properties
spring.session.data.gemfire.session.region.name=MySessions

Alternatively, you can set the name of the cache Region used to store and manage (HTTP) session state by explicitly declaring the @EnableGemFireHttpSession annotation on your main @SpringBootApplication class:

Example 190. Using `@EnableGemfireHttpSession
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableGemFireHttpSession(regionName = "MySessions")
class MySpringBootSpringSessionApplication {
	// ...
}

Once you decide on the cache Region name used to store and manage (HTTP) sessions, you must create the cache Region in the cluster somehow.

On the client, doing so is simple, since SBDG’s auto-configuration automatically creates the client PROXY Region that is used to send and receive (HTTP) session state between the client and server for you when either Spring Session is on the application classpath (for example, spring-geode-starter-session) or you explicitly declare the @EnableGemFireHttpSession annotation on your main @SpringBootApplication class.

However, on the server side, you currently have a couple of options.

First, you can manually create the cache Region by using Gfsh:

Example 191. Create the Sessions Region using Gfsh
gfsh> create region --name=MySessions --type=PARTITION --entry-idle-time-expiration=1800
        --entry-idle-time-expiration-action=INVALIDATE

You must create the cache Region with the appropriate name and an expiration policy.

In this case, we created an idle expiration policy with a timeout of 1800 seconds (30 minutes), after which the entry (session object) is invalidated.

Session expiration is managed by the Expiration Policy set on the cache Region that is used to store session state. The Servlet container’s (HTTP) session expiration configuration is not used, since Spring Session replaces the Servlet container’s session management capabilities with its own, and Spring Session delegates this behavior to the individual providers, such as Apache Geode.

Alternatively, you could send the definition for the cache Region from your Spring Boot ClientCache application to the cluster by using the SBDG @EnableClusterAware annotation, which is meta-annotated with SDG’s @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation:

Example 192. Using @EnableClusterAware
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterAware
class MySpringBootSpringSessionApacheGeodeApplication {
	// ...
}
See the Javadoc on the @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation and the documentation for more detail.

However, you cannot currently send expiration policy configuration metadata to the cluster. Therefore, you must manually alter the cache Region to set the expiration policy:

Example 193. Using Gfsh to Alter Region
gfsh> alter region --name=MySessions --entry-idle-time-expiration=1800
        --entry-idle-time-expiration-action=INVALIDATE

Now your Spring Boot ClientCache application that uses Spring Session in a client/server topology is configured to store and manage user (HTTP) session state in the cluster. This works for either standalone, externally managed Apache Geode clusters or when you use PCC running in a VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) environment.

23. Pivotal CloudFoundry

As of the VMware, Inc. acquisition of Pivotal Software, Inc., Pivotal CloudFoundry (PCF) is now known as VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) for VMs. Also, Pivotal Cloud Cache (PCC) has been rebranded as VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMS. This documentation will eventually be updated to reflect the rebranding.

In most cases, when you deploy (that is, cf push) your Spring Boot applications to Pivotal CloudFoundry (PCF), you bind your application to one or more instances of the Pivotal Cloud Cache (PCC) service.

In a nutshell, Pivotal Cloud Cache (PCC) is a managed version of VMware Tanzu GemFire that runs in Pivotal CloudFoundry (PCF). When running in or across cloud environments (such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or PWS), PCC with PCF offers several advantages over trying to run and manage your own standalone Apache Geode clusters. It handles many of the infrastructure-related, operational concerns so that you need not do so.

23.1. Running a Spring Boot application as a specific user

By default, Spring Boot applications run as a cluster_operator role-based user in Pivotal CloudFoundry when the application is bound to a Pivotal Cloud Cache service instance.

A cluster_operator has full system privileges (that is, authorization) to do whatever that user wishes to involving the PCC service instance. A cluster_operator has read and write access to all the data, can modify the schema (for example, create and destroy Regions, add and remove Indexes, change eviction or expiration policies, and so on), start and stop servers in the PCC cluster, or even modify permissions.

About cluster_operator as the default user

One of the reasons why Spring Boot applications default to running as a cluster_operator is to allow configuration metadata to be sent from the client to the server. Enabling configuration metadata to be sent from the client to the server is a useful development-time feature and is as simple as annotating your main @SpringBootApplication class with the @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation:

Example 194. Using @EnableClusterConfiguration
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterConfiguration(useHttp = true)
class SpringBootApacheGeodeClientCacheApplication {  }

With @EnableClusterConfiguration, Region and OQL Index configuration metadata that is defined on the client can be sent to servers in the PCC cluster. Apache Geode requires matching Regions by name on both the client and the servers in order for clients to send and receive data to and from the cluster.

For example, when you declare the Region where an application entity is persisted by using the @Region mapping annotation and declare the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation on the main @SpringBootApplication class in conjunction with the @EnableClusterConfiguration annotation, not only does SBDG create the required client Region, but it also sends the configuration metadata for this Region to the servers in the cluster to create the matching, required server Region, where the data for your application entity is managed.

However…​

With great power comes great responsibility. - Uncle Ben

Not all Spring Boot applications using PCC need to change the schema or even modify data. Rather, certain applications may need only read access. Therefore, it is ideal to be able to configure your Spring Boot applications to run with a different user at runtime other than the auto-configured cluster_operator, by default.

A prerequisite for running a Spring Boot application in PCC with a specific user is to create a user with restricted permissions by using Pivotal CloudFoundry AppsManager while provisioning the PCC service instance to which the Spring Boot application is bound.

Configuration metadata for the PCC service instance might appear as follows:

Example 195. Pivotal Cloud Cache configuration metadata
{
  "p-cloudcache":[{
    "credentials": {
      "distributed_system_id": "0",
      "locators": [ "localhost[55221]" ],
      "urls": {
        "gfsh": "https://cloudcache-12345.services.cf.pws.com/gemfire/v1",
        "pulse": "https://cloudcache-12345.services.cf.pws.com/pulse"
      },
      "users": [{
        "password": "*****",
        "roles": [ "cluster_operator" ],
        "username": "cluster_operator_user"
      }, {
        "password": "*****",
        "roles": [ "developer" ],
        "username": "developer_user"
      }, {
        "password": "*****",
        "roles": [ "read-only-user" ],
        "username": "guest"
      }],
      "wan": {
        "sender_credentials": {
          "active": {
            "password": "*****",
            "username": "gateway-sender-user"
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "name": "jblum-pcc",
    "plan": "small",
    "tags": [ "gemfire", "cloudcache", "database", "pivotal" ]
  }]
}

In the PCC service instance configuration metadata shown in the preceding example, we see a guest user with the read-only-user role. If the read-only-user role is properly configured with read-only permissions as the name implies, we could configure our Spring Boot application to run as guest with read-only access:

Example 196. Configuring a Spring Boot application to run as a specific user
# Spring Boot application.properties for PCF when using PCC

spring.data.gemfire.security.username=guest
The spring.data.gemfire.security.username property corresponds directly to the SDG @EnableSecurity annotation’s securityUsername attribute. See the Javadoc for more details.

The spring.data.gemfire.security.username property is the same property used by Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) to configure the runtime user of your Spring Data application when you connect to an externally managed Apache Geode cluster.

In this case, SBDG uses the configured username to look up the authentication credentials of the user to set the username and password used by the Spring Boot ClientCache application when connecting to PCC while running in PCF.

If the username is not valid, an IllegalStateException is thrown.

By using Spring profiles, it would be a simple matter to configure the Spring Boot application to run with a different user depending on environment.

See the Pivotal Cloud Cache documentation on security for configuring users with assigned roles and permissions.

23.1.1. Overriding Authentication Auto-configuration

It should be understood that auto-configuration for client authentication is available only for managed environments, such as Pivotal CloudFoundry. When running in externally managed environments, you must explicitly set a username and password to authenticate, as described in Non-Managed Auth for Clients.

To completely override the auto-configuration of client authentication, you can set both a username and a password:

Example 197. Overriding Security Authentication Auto-configuration with explicit username and password
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.data.gemfire.security.username=MyUser
spring.data.gemfire.security.password=MyPassword

In this case, SBDG’s auto-configuration for authentication is effectively disabled and security credentials are not extracted from the environment.

23.2. Targeting Specific Pivotal Cloud Cache Service Instances

It is possible to provision multiple instances of the Pivotal Cloud Cache service in your Pivotal CloudFoundry environment. You can then bind multiple PCC service instances to your Spring Boot application.

However, Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) only auto-configures one PCC service instance for your Spring Boot application. This does not mean that it is not possible to use multiple PCC service instances with your Spring Boot application, just that SBDG only auto-configures one service instance for you.

You must select which PCC service instance your Spring Boot application automatically auto-configures for you when you have multiple instances and want to target a specific PCC service instance to use.

To do so, declare the following SBDG property in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 198. Spring Boot application.properties targeting a specific PCC service instance by name
# Spring Boot application.properties

spring.boot.data.gemfire.cloud.cloudfoundry.service.cloudcache.name=pccServiceInstanceTwo

The spring.boot.data.gemfire.cloud.cloudfoundry.service.cloudcache.name property tells SBDG which PCC service instance to auto-configure.

If the PCC service instance identified by the property does not exist, SBDG throws an IllegalStateException stating the PCC service instance by name could not be found.

If you did not set the property and your Spring Boot application is bound to multiple PCC service instances, SBDG auto-configures the first PCC service instance it finds by name, alphabetically.

If you did not set the property and no PCC service instance is found, SBDG logs a warning.

23.3. Using Multiple Pivotal Cloud Cache Service Instances

If you want to use multiple PCC service instances with your Spring Boot application, you need to configure multiple connection Pools connected to each PCC service instance used by your Spring Boot application.

The configuration would be similar to the following:

Example 199. Multiple Pivotal Cloud Cache Service Instance Configuration
@Configuration
@EnablePools(pools = {
  @EnablePool(name = "PccOne"),
  @EnablePool(name = "PccTwo"),
  ...,
  @EnablePool(name = "PccN")
})
class PccConfiguration {
  // ...
}

You would then externalize the configuration for the individually declared Pools in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 200. Configuring Locator-based Pool connections
# Spring Boot `application.properties`

spring.data.gemfire.pool.pccone.locators=pccOneHost1[port1], pccOneHost2[port2], ..., pccOneHostN[portN]

spring.data.gemfire.pool.pcctwo.locators=pccTwoHost1[port1], pccTwoHost2[port2], ..., pccTwoHostN[portN]
Though less common, you can also configure the Pool of connections to target specific servers in the cluster by setting the spring.data.gemfire.pool.<named-pool>.severs property.
Keep in mind that properties in Spring Boot application.properties can refer to other properties: property=${otherProperty}. This lets you further externalize properties by using Java System properties or environment variables.

A client Region is then assigned the Pool of connections that are used to send data to and from the specific PCC service instance (cluster):

Example 201. Assigning a Pool to a client Region
@Configuration
class GeodeConfiguration {

  @Bean("Example")
  ClientRegionFactoryBean exampleRegion(GemFireCache gemfireCache,
      @Qualifier("PccTwo") Pool poolForPccTwo) {

    ClientRegionFactoryBean exampleRegion = new ClientRegionFactoryBean();

    exampleRegion.setCache(gemfireCache);
    exampleRegion.setPool(poolForPccTwo);
    exampleRegion.setShortcut(ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY);

    return exampleRegion;
  }
}

You can configure as many Pools and client Regions as your application needs. Again, the Pool determines the Pivotal Cloud Cache service instance and cluster in which the data for the client Region resides.

By default, SBDG configures all Pools declared in a Spring Boot ClientCache application to connect to and use a single PCC service instance. This may be a targeted PCC service instance when you use the spring.boot.data.gemfire.cloud.cloudfoundry.service.cloudcache.name property as discussed earlier.

23.4. Hybrid Pivotal CloudFoundry and Apache Geode Spring Boot Applications

Sometimes, it is desirable to deploy (that is, cf push) and run your Spring Boot applications in Pivotal CloudFoundry but still connect your Spring Boot applications to an externally managed, standalone Apache Geode cluster.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) makes this a non-event and honors its "little to no code or configuration changes necessary" goal. Regardless of your runtime choice, it should just work!

To help guide you through this process, we cover the following topics:

  1. Install and Run PCFDev.

  2. Start an Apache Geode cluster.

  3. Create a User-Provided Service (CUPS).

  4. Push and Bind a Spring Boot application.

  5. Run the Spring Boot application.

23.4.1. Running PCFDev

For this exercise, we use PCF Dev.

PCF Dev, much like PCF, is an elastic application runtime for deploying, running, and managing your Spring Boot applications. However, it does so in the confines of your local development environment — that is, your workstation.

Additionally, PCF Dev provides several services, such as MySQL, Redis, and RabbitMQ. You Spring Boot application can bind to and use these services to accomplish its tasks.

However, PCF Dev lacks the Pivotal Cloud Cache service that is available in PCF. This is actually ideal for this exercise since we are trying to build and run Spring Boot applications in a PCF environment but connect to an externally managed, standalone Apache Geode cluster.

As a prerequisite, you need to follow the steps outlined in the tutorial to get PCF Dev set up and running on your workstation.

To run PCF Dev, execute the following cf CLI command, replacing the path to the TGZ file with the file you acquired from the download:

Example 202. Start PCF Dev
$ cf dev start -f ~/Downloads/Pivotal/CloudFoundry/Dev/pcfdev-v1.2.0-darwin.tgz

You should see output similar to the following:

Example 203. Running PCF Dev
Downloading Network Helper...
Progress: |====================>| 100.0%
Installing cfdevd network helper (requires administrator privileges)...
Password:
Setting up IP aliases for the BOSH Director & CF Router (requires administrator privileges)
Downloading Resources...
Progress: |====================>| 100.0%
Setting State...
WARNING: PCF Dev requires 8192 MB of RAM to run. This machine may not have enough free RAM.
Creating the VM...
Starting VPNKit...
Waiting for the VM...
Deploying the BOSH Director...

Deploying PAS...
  Done (14m34s)
Deploying Apps-Manager...
  Done (1m41s)

 	 ██████╗  ██████╗███████╗██████╗ ███████╗██╗   ██╗
 	 ██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔════╝██╔══██╗██╔════╝██║   ██║
 	 ██████╔╝██║     █████╗  ██║  ██║█████╗  ██║   ██║
 	 ██╔═══╝ ██║     ██╔══╝  ██║  ██║██╔══╝  ╚██╗ ██╔╝
 	 ██║     ╚██████╗██║     ██████╔╝███████╗ ╚████╔╝
 	 ╚═╝      ╚═════╝╚═╝     ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝  ╚═══╝
 	             is now running!

 	To begin using PCF Dev, please run:
 	    cf login -a https://api.dev.cfdev.sh --skip-ssl-validation

 	Admin user => Email: admin / Password: admin
 	Regular user => Email: user / Password: pass

 	To access Apps Manager, navigate here: https://apps.dev.cfdev.sh

 	To deploy a particular service, please run:
 	    cf dev deploy-service <service-name> [Available services: mysql,redis,rabbitmq,scs]

To use the cf CLI tool, you must login to the PCF Dev environment:

Example 204. Login to PCF Dev using cf CLI
$ cf login -a https://api.dev.cfdev.sh --skip-ssl-validation

You can also access the PCF Dev Apps Manager tool from your Web browser at the following URL:

apps.dev.cfdev.sh/

Apps Manager provides a nice UI to manage your org, space, services and apps. It lets you push and update apps, create services, bind apps to the services, and start and stop your deployed applications, among many other things.

23.4.2. Running an Apache Geode Cluster

Now that PCF Dev is set up and running, you need to start an external, standalone Apache Geode cluster to which our Spring Boot application connects and uses to manage its data.

You need to install a distribution of Apache Geode on your computer. Then you must set the $GEODE environment variable. It is also convenient to add $GEODE/bin to your system $PATH.

Afterward, you can launch the Geode Shell (Gfsh) tool:

Example 205. Running Gfsh
$ echo $GEODE
/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.6.0

$ gfsh
    _________________________     __
   / _____/ ______/ ______/ /____/ /
  / /  __/ /___  /_____  / _____  /
 / /__/ / ____/  _____/ / /    / /
/______/_/      /______/_/    /_/    1.6.0

Monitor and Manage Apache Geode
gfsh>

We have provided the Gfsh shell script that you can use to start the Apache Geode cluster:

Example 206. Gfsh shell script to start the Apache Geode cluster
#!/bin/gfsh
# Gfsh shell script to configure and bootstrap an Apache Geode cluster.

start locator --name=LocatorOne --log-level=config --classpath=@project-dir@/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-@[email protected] --J=-Dgemfire.security-manager=org.springframework.geode.security.TestSecurityManager --J=-Dgemfire.http-service-port=8080

start server --name=ServerOne --log-level=config --user=admin --password=admin --classpath=@project-dir@/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-@[email protected]

The start-cluster.gfsh shell script starts one Geode Locator and one Geode server.

A Locator is used by clients to discover and connect to servers in a cluster to manage its data. A Locator is also used by new servers that join a cluster as peer members, which lets the cluster be elastically scaled out (or scaled down, as needed). A Geode server stores the data for the application.

You can start as many Locators or servers as necessary to meet the availability and load demands of your application. The more Locators and servers your cluster has, the more resilient it is to failure. However, you should size your cluster accordingly, based on your application’s needs, since there is overhead relative to the cluster size.

You see output similar to the following when starting the Locator and server:

Example 207. Starting the Apache Geode cluster
gfsh>start locator --name=LocatorOne --log-level=config --classpath=/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-1.1.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar --J=-Dgemfire.security-manager=org.springframework.geode.security.TestSecurityManager --J=-Dgemfire.http-service-port=8080
Starting a Geode Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/LocatorOne...
..
Locator in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/LocatorOne on 10.99.199.24[10334] as LocatorOne is currently online.
Process ID: 14358
Uptime: 1 minute 1 second
Geode Version: 1.6.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_192
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/LocatorOne/LocatorOne.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.enable-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.load-cluster-configuration-from-dir=false -Dgemfire.log-level=config -Dgemfire.security-manager=org.springframework.geode.security.TestSecurityManager -Dgemfire.http-service-port=8080 -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.6.0/lib/geode-core-1.6.0.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-1.1.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.6.0/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

Security Manager is enabled - unable to auto-connect. Please use "connect --locator=10.99.199.24[10334] --user --password" to connect Gfsh to the locator.

Authentication required to connect to the Manager.

gfsh>connect
Connecting to Locator at [host=localhost, port=10334] ..
Connecting to Manager at [host=10.99.199.24, port=1099] ..
user: admin
password: *****
Successfully connected to: [host=10.99.199.24, port=1099]

gfsh>start server --name=ServerOne --log-level=config --user=admin --password=admin --classpath=/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-1.1.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar
Starting a Geode Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/ServerOne...
....
Server in /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/ServerOne on 10.99.199.24[40404] as ServerOne is currently online.
Process ID: 14401
Uptime: 3 seconds
Geode Version: 1.6.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_192
Log File: /Users/jblum/pivdev/lab/ServerOne/ServerOne.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=10.99.199.24[10334] -Dgemfire.security-username=admin -Dgemfire.start-dev-rest-api=false -Dgemfire.security-password=******** -Dgemfire.use-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.log-level=config -XX:OnOutOfMemoryError=kill -KILL %p -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.6.0/lib/geode-core-1.6.0.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/apache-geode-extensions/build/libs/apache-geode-extensions-1.1.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.6.0/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

Once the cluster has been started successfully, you can list the members:

Example 208. List members of the cluster
gfsh>list members
   Name    | Id
---------- | -----------------------------------------------------------------
LocatorOne | 10.99.199.24(LocatorOne:14358:locator)<ec><v0>:1024 [Coordinator]
ServerOne  | 10.99.199.24(ServerOne:14401)<v1>:1025

Currently, we have not defined any Regions in which to store our application’s data:

Example 209. No Application Regions
gfsh>list regions
No Regions Found

This is deliberate, since we are going to let the application drive its schema structure, both on the client (application) as well as on the server-side (cluster). We cover this in more detail later in this chapter.

23.4.3. Creating a User-Provided Service

Now that we have PCF Dev and a small Apache Geode cluster up and running, it is time to create a user-provided service to the external, standalone Apache Geode cluster that we started in step 2.

As mentioned, PCF Dev offers MySQL, Redis and RabbitMQ services (among others). However, to use Apache Geode in the same capacity as you would Pivotal Cloud Cache when running in a production-grade PCF environment, you need to create a user-provided service for the standalone Apache Geode cluster.

To do so, run the following cf CLI command:

Example 210. cf cups command
$ cf cups <service-name> -t "gemfire, cloudcache, database, pivotal" -p '<service-credentials-in-json>'
It is important that you specify the tags (gemfire, cloudcache, database, pivotal) exactly as shown in the preceding cf CLI command.

The argument passed to the -p command-line option is a JSON document (object) containing the credentials for our user-provided service.

The JSON object is as follows:

Example 211. User-Provided Service Crendentials JSON
{
	"locators": [ "<hostname>[<port>]" ],
	"urls": { "gfsh": "https://<hostname>/gemfire/v1" },
	"users": [{ "password": "<password>", "roles": [ "cluster_operator" ], "username": "<username>" }]
}

The complete cf CLI command would be similar to the following:

Example 212. Example cf cups command
cf cups apacheGeodeService -t "gemfire, cloudcache, database, pivotal" \
  -p '{ "locators": [ "10.99.199.24[10334]" ], "urls": { "gfsh": "https://10.99.199.24/gemfire/v1" }, "users": [{ "password": "admin", "roles": [ "cluster_operator" ], "username": "admin" }] }'

We replaced the <hostname> placeholder with the IP address of our standalone Apache Geode Locator. You can find the IP address in the Gfsh start locator command output shown in the preceding example.

Additionally, the <port> placeholder has been replaced with the default Locator port, 10334,

Finally, we set the username and password accordingly.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) provides template files in the /opt/jenkins/data/workspace/spring-boot-data-geode_1.6.x/spring-geode-docs/src/main/resources directory.

Once the service has been created, you can query the details of the service from the cf CLI:

Example 213. Query the CF Dev Services
$ cf services
Getting services in org cfdev-org / space cfdev-space as admin...

name                 service         plan   bound apps      last operation   broker
apacheGeodeService   user-provided          boot-pcc-demo


$ cf service apacheGeodeService
Showing info of service apacheGeodeService in org cfdev-org / space cfdev-space as admin...

name:      apacheGeodeService
service:   user-provided
tags:      gemfire, cloudcache, database, pivotal

bound apps:
name            binding name   status             message
boot-pcc-demo                  create succeeded

You can also view the "apacheGeodeService" from Apps Manager, starting from the Service tab in your org and space:

pcfdev appsmanager org space services

By clicking on the "apacheGeodeService" service entry in the table, you can get all the service details, such as the bound apps:

pcfdev appsmanager org space service boundapps

You can also view and set the configuration:

pcfdev appsmanager org space service configuration

This brief section did not cover all the capabilities of the Apps Manager. We suggest you explore its UI to see all that is possible.

You can learn more about CUPS in the PCF documentation.

23.4.4. Push and Bind a Spring Boot application

Now it is time to push a Spring Boot application to PCF Dev and bind the application to the apacheGeodeService.

Any Spring Boot ClientCache application that uses SBDG works for this purpose. For this example, we use the PCCDemo application, which is available in GitHub.

After cloning the project to your computer, you must run a build to produce the artifact to push to PCF Dev:

Example 214. Build the PCCDemo application
$ mvn clean package

Then you can push the application to PCF Dev with the following cf CLI command:

Example 215. Push the application to PCF Dev
$ cf push boot-pcc-demo -u none --no-start -p target/client-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

Once the application has been successfully deployed to PCF Dev, you can get the application details:

Example 216. Get details for the deployed application
$ cf apps
Getting apps in org cfdev-org / space cfdev-space as admin...
OK

name            requested state   instances   memory   disk   urls
boot-pcc-demo   stopped           0/1         768M     1G     boot-pcc-demo.dev.cfdev.sh


$ cf app boot-pcc-demo
Showing health and status for app boot-pcc-demo in org cfdev-org / space cfdev-space as admin...

name:              boot-pcc-demo
requested state:   stopped
routes:            boot-pcc-demo.dev.cfdev.sh
last uploaded:     Tue 02 Jul 00:34:09 PDT 2019
stack:             cflinuxfs3
buildpacks:        https://github.com/cloudfoundry/java-buildpack.git

type:           web
instances:      0/1
memory usage:   768M
     state   since                  cpu    memory   disk     details
#0   down    2019-07-02T21:48:25Z   0.0%   0 of 0   0 of 0

type:           task
instances:      0/0
memory usage:   256M

There are no running instances of this process.

You can bind the PPCDemo application to the apacheGeodeService using the cf CLI command:

Example 217. Bind application to apacheGeodeService using CLI
cf bind-service boot-pcc-demo apacheGeodeService

Alternatively, you can create a YAML file (manifest.yml in src/main/resources) that contains the deployment descriptor:

Example 218. Example YAML deployment descriptor
\---
applications:
  - name: boot-pcc-demo
    memory: 768M
    instances: 1
    path: ./target/client-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
    services:
      - apacheGeodeService
    buildpacks:
      - https://github.com/cloudfoundry/java-buildpack.git

You can also use Apps Manager to view application details and bind and unbind additional services. Start by navigating to the App tab under your org and space:

pcfdev appsmanager org space apps

From there, you can click on the desired application and navigate to the Overview:

pcfdev appsmanager org space app overview

You can also review the application Settings. Specifically, we are looking at the configuration of the applicatinon once it is bound to the apacheGeodeService, as seen in the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable:

pcfdev appsmanager org space app settings envvars

This JSON document structure is not unlike the configuration used to bind your Spring Boot ClientCache application to the Pivotal Cloud Cache service when deploying the same application to Pivotal CloudFoundry. This is actually key if you want to minimize the amount of boilerplate code and configuration changes when you migrate between different CloudFoundry environments, even Open Source CloudFoundry.

Again, SBDG’s goal is to simply the effort for you to build, run, and manage your application, in whatever context your application lands, even if it changes later. If you follow the steps in this documentation, you can realize that goal.

23.4.5. Running the Spring Boot application

All that is left to do now is run the application.

You can start the PCCDemo application from the cf CLI by using the following command:

Example 219. Start the Spring Boot application
$ cf start boot-pcc-demo

Alternatively, you can also start the application from Apps Manager. This is convenient, since you can then tail and monitor the application log file.

pcfdev appsmanager org space app logs

Once the application has started, you can click the VIEW APP link in the upper right corner of the APP screen.

PCCDemo app screenshot

You can navigate to any of the application Web Service, Controller endpoints. For example, if you know the ISBN of a book, you can access it from your Web browser:

PCCDemo app book by isbn screenshot

You can also access the same data from the Gfsh command-line tool. However, the first thing to observe is that our application informed the cluster that it needed a Region called Books:

Example 220. Books Region
gfsh>list regions
List of regions
---------------
Books


gfsh>describe region --name=/Books
..........................................................
Name            : Books
Data Policy     : partition
Hosting Members : ServerOne

Non-Default Attributes Shared By Hosting Members

 Type  |    Name     | Value
------ | ----------- | ---------
Region | size        | 1
       | data-policy | PARTITION

The PCCDemo app creates fake data on startup, which we can query in Gfsh:

Example 221. Query Books
gfsh>query --query="SELECT book.isbn, book.title FROM /Books book"
Result : true
Limit  : 100
Rows   : 1

    isbn      | title
------------- | ---------------------
1235432BMF342 | The Torment of Others

23.5. Summary

The ability to deploy Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache applications to Pivotal CloudFoundry yet connect your application to an externally managed, standalone Apache Geode cluster is powerful.

Indeed, this is a useful arrangement and stepping stone for many users as they begin their journey towards Cloud-Native platforms such as Pivotal CloudFoundry and using services such as Pivotal Cloud Cache.

Later, when you need to work with real (rather than sample) applications, you can migrate your Spring Boot applications to a fully managed and production-grade Pivotal CloudFoundry environment, and SBDG figures out what to do, leaving you to focus entirely on your application.

24. Docker

The state of modern software application development is moving towards containerization. Containers offer a controlled environment to predictably build (compile, configure and package), run, and manage your applications in a reliable and repeatable manner, regardless of context. In many situations, the intrinsic benefit of using containers is obvious.

Understandably, Docker’s popularity took off like wildfire, given its highly powerful and simplified model for creating, using and managing containers to run packaged applications.

Docker’s ecosystem is also quite impressive, with the advent of Testcontainers and Spring Boot’s now dedicated support to create packaged Spring Boot applications in Docker images that are then later run in a Docker container.

See also “Deploying to Containers” to learn more.

Apache Geode can also run in a controlled, containerized environment. The goal of this chapter is to get you started running Apache Geode in a container and interfacing to a containerized Apache Geode cluster from your Spring Boot, Apache Geode client applications.

This chapter does not cover how to run your Spring Boot, Apache Geode client applications in a container, since that is already covered by Spring Boot (again, see the Spring Boot documentation for Docker images and container deployment, along with Docker’s documentation). Instead, our focus is on how to run an Apache Geode cluster in a container and connect to it from a Spring Boot, Apache Geode client application, regardless of whether the application runs in a container or not.

24.1. Acquiring the Apache Geode Docker Image

To run an Apache Geode cluster inside a Docker container, you must first acquire the Docker image. You can get the Apache Geode Docker image from Docker Hub.

While Apache Geode’s official documentation is less than clear on how to use Apache Geode in Docker, we find a bit of relief in the Wiki. However, for a complete and comprehensive write up, see the instructions in the README from this GitHub Repo.

You must have Docker installed on your computer to complete the following steps.

Effectively, the high-level steps are as follows:

1) Acquire the Apache Geode Docker image from Docker Hub by using the docker pull command (shown with typical output) from the command-line:

Example 222. Download/Install the Apache Geode Docker Image
$ docker pull apachegeode/geode
Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from apachegeode/geode
Digest: sha256:6a6218f22a2895bb706175727c7d76f654f9162acac22b2d950d09a2649f9cf4
Status: Image is up to date for apachegeode/geode:latest
docker.io/apachegeode/geode:latest

Instead of pulling from the nightly tag as suggested, the Spring team highly recommends that you pull from the latest tag, which pulls a stable, production-ready Apache Geode Docker image based on the latest Apache Geode GA version.

2) Verify that the Apache Geode Docker image was downloaded and installed successfully:

$ docker image ls
REPOSITORY                       TAG                          IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
apachegeode/geode                latest                       a2e210950712        2 months ago        224MB
cloudfoundry/run                 base-cnb                     3a7d172559c2        8 weeks ago         71.2MB
open-liberty                     19.0.0.9-webProfile8         dece75feff1a        3 months ago        364MB
tomee                            11-jre-8.0.0-M3-webprofile   0d03e4d395e6        3 months ago        678MB
...

Now you are ready to run Apache Geode in a Docker container.

24.2. Running Apache Geode in a Docker Container

Now that you have acquired the Apache Geode Docker image, you can run Apache Geode in a Docker container. Use the following docker run command to start Apache Geode in a Docker container:

Example 223. Start the Apache Geode Docker Container
$ docker run -it -p 10334:10334 -p 40404:40404 -p 1099:1099 -p 7070:7070 -p 7575:7575 apachegeode/geode
    _________________________     __
   / _____/ ______/ ______/ /____/ /
  / /  __/ /___  /_____  / _____  /
 / /__/ / ____/  _____/ / /    / /
/______/_/      /______/_/    /_/    1.12.0

Monitor and Manage Apache Geode
gfsh>

Since the Apache Geode Docker container was started in interactive mode, you must open a separate command-line shell to verify that the Apache Geode Docker container is in fact running:

Example 224. Verify the Apache Geode Docker Container is Running
$ docker container ls
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                                                                                                                  NAMES
3b30b9ffc5dc        apachegeode/geode   "gfsh"              44 seconds ago      Up 43 seconds       0.0.0.0:1099->1099/tcp, 0.0.0.0:7070->7070/tcp, 0.0.0.0:7575->7575/tcp, 0.0.0.0:10334->10334/tcp, 0.0.0.0:40404->40404/tcp, 8080/tcp   awesome_khorana

You know that the Apache Geode Docker container is running since we ended up at a Gfsh command prompt in the interactive shell.

We also mapped ports between the Docker container and the host system, exposing well-known ports used by Apache Geode server-side cluster processes, such as Locators and CacheServers:

Table 22. Apache Geode Ports
Process Port

HTTP

7070

Locator

10334

Manager

1099

Server

40404

It is unfortunate that the Apache Geode Docker image gives you only a Gfsh command prompt, leaving you with the task of provisioning a cluster. It would have been more useful to provide preconfigured Docker images with different Apache Geode cluster configurations, such as one Locator and one server or two Locators and four servers, and so on. However, we can start the cluster ourselves.

24.3. Start an Apache Geode Cluster in Docker

From inside the Apache Geode Docker container, we can start a Locator and a server:

Example 225. Start Apache Geode Locator & Server
gfsh>start locator --name=LocatorOne --log-level=config --hostname-for-clients=localhost
Starting a Geode Locator in /LocatorOne...
.........
Locator in /LocatorOne on 3b30b9ffc5dc[10334] as LocatorOne is currently online.
Process ID: 167
Uptime: 9 seconds
Geode Version: 1.12.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_212
Log File: /LocatorOne/LocatorOne.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.enable-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.load-cluster-configuration-from-dir=false -Dgemfire.log-level=config -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /geode/lib/geode-core-1.12.0.jar:/geode/lib/geode-dependencies.jar

Successfully connected to: JMX Manager [host=3b30b9ffc5dc, port=1099]

Cluster configuration service is up and running.


gfsh>start server --name=ServerOne --log-level=config --hostname-for-clients=localhost
Starting a Geode Server in /ServerOne...
.......
Server in /ServerOne on 3b30b9ffc5dc[40404] as ServerOne is currently online.
Process ID: 267
Uptime: 7 seconds
Geode Version: 1.12.0
Java Version: 1.8.0_212
Log File: /ServerOne/ServerOne.log
JVM Arguments: -Dgemfire.default.locators=172.17.0.2[10334] -Dgemfire.start-dev-rest-api=false -Dgemfire.use-cluster-configuration=true -Dgemfire.log-level=config -Dgemfire.launcher.registerSignalHandlers=true -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dsun.rmi.dgc.server.gcInterval=9223372036854775806
Class-Path: /geode/lib/geode-core-1.12.0.jar:/geode/lib/geode-dependencies.jar


gfsh>list members
Member Count : 2

   Name    | Id
---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------
LocatorOne | 172.17.0.2(LocatorOne:167:locator)<ec><v0>:41000 [Coordinator]
ServerOne  | 172.17.0.2(ServerOne:267)<v1>:41001


gfsh>describe member --name=LocatorOne
Name        : LocatorOne
Id          : 172.17.0.2(LocatorOne:167:locator)<ec><v0>:41000
Host        : 3b30b9ffc5dc
Regions     :
PID         : 167
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 50M
Max Heap    : 443M
Working Dir : /LocatorOne
Log file    : /LocatorOne/LocatorOne.log
Locators    : 172.17.0.2[10334]


gfsh>describe member --name=ServerOne
Name        : ServerOne
Id          : 172.17.0.2(ServerOne:267)<v1>:41001
Host        : 3b30b9ffc5dc
Regions     :
PID         : 267
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 77M
Max Heap    : 443M
Working Dir : /ServerOne
Log file    : /ServerOne/ServerOne.log
Locators    : 172.17.0.2[10334]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 40404
Running                  : true

Client Connections : 0

We now have an Apache Geode cluster running with one Locator and one server inside a Docker container. We deliberately started the cluster with a minimal configuration. For example, we have no Regions in which to store data:

gfsh>list regions
No Regions Found

However, that is OK. Once more, we want to show the full power of SBDG and let the Spring Boot application drive the configuration of the Apache Geode cluster that runs in the Docker container, as required by the application.

Let’s have a quick look at our Spring Boot application.

24.4. Spring Boot, Apache Geode Client Application Explained

The Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application we use to connect to our Apache Geode cluster that runs in the Docker container appears as follows:

Example 226. Spring Boot, Apache Geode Docker client application
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableClusterAware
@EnableEntityDefinedRegions(basePackageClasses = Customer.class)
@UseMemberName("SpringBootApacheGeodeDockerClientCacheApplication")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeDockerClientCacheApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(SpringBootApacheGeodeDockerClientCacheApplication.class, args);
	}

	@Bean
	@SuppressWarnings("unused")
	ApplicationRunner runner(GemFireCache cache, CustomerRepository customerRepository) {

		return args -> {

			assertClientCacheAndConfigureMappingPdxSerializer(cache);
			assertThat(customerRepository.count()).isEqualTo(0);

			Customer jonDoe = Customer.newCustomer(1L, "Jon Doe");

			log("Saving Customer [%s]...%n", jonDoe);

			jonDoe = customerRepository.save(jonDoe);

			assertThat(jonDoe).isNotNull();
			assertThat(jonDoe.getId()).isEqualTo(1L);
			assertThat(jonDoe.getName()).isEqualTo("Jon Doe");
			assertThat(customerRepository.count()).isEqualTo(1);

			log("Querying for Customer [SELECT * FROM /Customers WHERE name LIKE '%s']...%n", "%Doe");

			Customer queriedJonDoe = customerRepository.findByNameLike("%Doe");

			assertThat(queriedJonDoe).isEqualTo(jonDoe);

			log("Customer was [%s]%n", queriedJonDoe);
		};
	}

	private void assertClientCacheAndConfigureMappingPdxSerializer(GemFireCache cache) {

		assertThat(cache).isNotNull();
		assertThat(cache.getName())
			.isEqualTo(SpringBootApacheGeodeDockerClientCacheApplication.class.getSimpleName());
		assertThat(cache.getPdxSerializer()).isInstanceOf(MappingPdxSerializer.class);

		MappingPdxSerializer serializer = (MappingPdxSerializer) cache.getPdxSerializer();

		serializer.setIncludeTypeFilters(type -> Optional.ofNullable(type)
			.map(Class::getPackage)
			.map(Package::getName)
			.filter(packageName -> packageName.startsWith(this.getClass().getPackage().getName()))
			.isPresent());
	}

	private void log(String message, Object... args) {
		System.err.printf(message, args);
		System.err.flush();
	}
}

Our Customer application domain model object type is defined as:

Example 227. Customer class
@Region("Customers")
class Customer {

	@Id
	private Long id;

	private String name;

}

Also, we define a Spring Data CRUD Repository to persist and access Customers stored in the /Customers Region:

Example 228. CustomerRepository interface
interface CustomerRepository extends CrudRepository<Customer, Long> {

	Customer findByNameLike(String name);

}

Our main class is annotated with @SpringBootApplication, making it be a proper Spring Boot application.

We additionally annotate the main class with SBDG’s @EnableClusterAware annotation to automatically detect the Apache Geode cluster that runs in the Docker container and to push cluster configuration metadata from the application to the cluster as required by the application.

Specifically, the application requires that a Region called “Customers”, as defined by the @Region mapping annotation on the Customer application domain model class, exists on the servers in the cluster, to store Customer data.

We use the SDG @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation to define the matching client PROXY “Customers” Region.

Optionally, we have also annotated our main class with SBDG’s @UseMemberName annotation to give the ClientCache a name, which we assert in the assertClientCacheAndConfigureMappingPdxSerializer(:ClientCache) method.

The primary work performed by this application is done in the Spring Boot ApplicationRunner bean definition. We create a Customer instance (Jon Doe), save it to the “Customers” Region that is managed by the server in the cluster, and then query for Jon Doe using OQL, asserting that the result is equal to what we expect.

We log the output from the application’s operations to see the application in action.

24.5. Running the Spring Boot, Apache Geode client application

When you run the Spring Boot, Apache Geode client application, you should see output similar to the following:

Example 229. Application log output
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_241.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java ...
    org.springframework.geode.docs.example.app.docker.SpringBootApacheGeodeDockerClientCacheApplication

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::        (v2.3.0.RELEASE)

Saving Customer [Customer(name=Jon Doe)]...
Querying for Customer [SELECT * FROM /Customers WHERE name LIKE '%Doe']...
Customer was [Customer(name=Jon Doe)]

Process finished with exit code 0

When we review the configuration of the cluster, we see that the /Customers Region was created when the application ran:

Example 230. /Customers Region Configuration
gfsh>list regions
List of regions
---------------
Customers


gfsh>describe region --name=/Customers
Name            : Customers
Data Policy     : partition
Hosting Members : ServerOne

Non-Default Attributes Shared By Hosting Members

 Type  |    Name     | Value
------ | ----------- | ---------
Region | size        | 1
       | data-policy | PARTITION

Our /Customers Region contains a value (Jon Doe), and we can verify this by running the following OQL Query with Gfsh:

Example 231. Query the /Customers Region
gfsh>query --query="SELECT customer.name FROM /Customers customer"
Result : true
Limit  : 100
Rows   : 1

Result
-------
Jon Doe

Our application ran successfully.

24.6. Conclusion

In this chapter, we saw how to connect a Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application to an Apache Geode cluster that runs in a Docker container.

Later, we provide more information on how to scale up, or rather scale out, our Apache Geode cluster that runs in Docker. Additionally, we provide details on how you can use Apache Geode’s Docker image with Testcontainers when you write integration tests, which formally became part of the Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG) project.

25. Samples

This section contains working examples that show how to use Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) effectively.

Some examples focus on specific use cases (such as (HTTP) session state caching), while other examples show how SBDG works under the hood, to give you a better understanding of what is actually happening and how to debug problems with your Spring Boot Apache Geode applications.

Table 23. Example Spring Boot applications using Apache Geode
Guide Description Source

Getting Started with Spring Boot for Apache Geode

Explains how to get started quickly, easily, and reliably building Apache Geode powered applications with Spring Boot.

Getting Started

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration for Apache Geode

Explains what auto-configuration is provided by SBDG and what the auto-configuration does.

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

Spring Boot Actuator for Apache Geode

Explains how to use Spring Boot Actuator for Apache Geode and how it works.

Spring Boot Actuator

Spring Boot Security for Apache Geode

Explains how to configure auth and TLS with SSL when you use Apache Geode in your Spring Boot applications.

Spring Boot Security

Look-Aside Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring’s Cache Abstraction with Apache Geode as the caching provider for look-aside caching.

Look-Aside Caching

Inline Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring’s Cache Abstraction with Apache Geode as the caching provider for inline caching. This sample builds on the look-aside caching sample.

Inline Caching

Asynchronous Inline Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring’s Cache Abstraction with Apache Geode as the caching provider for asynchronous inline caching. This sample builds on the look-aside and inline caching samples.

Asynchronous Inline Caching

Near Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring’s Cache Abstraction with Apache Geode as the caching provider for near caching. This sample builds on the look-aside caching sample.

Near Caching

Multi-Site Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring’s Cache Abstraction with Apache Geode as the caching provider for multi-site caching. This sample builds on the look-aside caching sample.

Multi-Site Caching

HTTP Session Caching with Spring Session and Apache Geode

Explains how to enable and use Spring Session with Apache Geode to manage HTTP session state.

HTTP Session Caching

26. Appendix

The following appendices provide additional help while developing Spring Boot applications backed by Apache Geode:

  1. Auto-configuration vs. Annotation-based configuration

  2. Configuration Metadata Reference

  3. Disabling Auto-configuration

  4. Switching from Apache Geode to VMware Tanzu GemFire or VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs

  5. Running an Apache Geode cluster with Spring Boot from your IDE

  6. Testing

  7. Examples

  8. References

Auto-configuration vs. Annotation-based configuration

The question most often asked is, “What Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) annotations can I use, or must I use, when developing Apache Geode applications with Spring Boot?”

This section answers this question and more.

See the complementary sample, Spring Boot Auto-configuration for Apache Geode, which shows the auto-configuration provided by Spring Boot for Apache Geode in action.

Background

To help answer this question, you must start by reviewing the complete collection of available Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) annotations. These annotations are provided in the org.springframework.data.gemfire.config.annotation package. Most of the essential annotations begin with @Enable…​, except for the base annotations: @ClientCacheApplication, @PeerCacheApplication and @CacheServerApplication.

By extension, Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) builds on SDG’s annotation-based configuration model to implement auto-configuration and apply Spring Boot’s core concepts, such as “convention over configuration”, letting Apache Geode applications be built with Spring Boot reliably, quickly, and easily.

SDG provides this annotation-based configuration model to, first and foremost, give application developers “choice” when building Spring applications with Apache Geode. SDG makes no assumptions about what application developers are trying to create and fails fast anytime the configuration is ambiguous, giving users immediate feedback.

Second, SDG’s annotations were meant to get application developers up and running quickly and reliably with ease. SDG accomplishes this by applying sensible defaults so that application developers need not know, or even have to learn, all the intricate configuration details and tooling provided by Apache Geode to accomplish simple tasks, such as building a prototype.

So, SDG is all about “choice” and SBDG is all about “convention”. Together these frameworks provide application developers with convenience and ease to move quickly and reliably.

To learn more about the motivation behind SDG’s annotation-based configuration model, see the Reference Documentation.

Conventions

Currently, SBDG provides auto-configuration for the following features:

  • ClientCache

  • Caching with Spring’s Cache Abstraction

  • Continuous Query

  • Function Execution and Implementation

  • Logging

  • PDX

  • GemfireTemplate

  • Spring Data Repositories

  • Security (Client/server auth and SSL)

  • Spring Session

This means the following SDG annotations are not required to use the features above:

  • @ClientCacheApplication

  • @EnableGemfireCaching (or by using Spring Framework’s @EnableCaching annotation)

  • @EnableContinuousQueries

  • @EnableGemfireFunctionExecutions

  • @EnableGemfireFunctions

  • @EnableLogging

  • @EnablePdx

  • @EnableGemfireRepositories

  • @EnableSecurity

  • @EnableSsl

  • @EnableGemFireHttpSession

Since SBDG auto-configures these features for you, the above annotations are not strictly required. Typically, you would only declare one of these annotations when you want to “override” Spring Boot’s conventions, as expressed in auto-configuration, and “customize” the behavior of the feature.

Overriding

In this section, we cover a few examples to make the behavior when overriding more apparent.

Caches

By default, SBDG provides you with a ClientCache instance. SBDG accomplishes this by annotating an auto-configuration class with @ClientCacheApplication internally.

By convention, we assume most application developers' are developing Spring Boot applications by using Apache Geode as “client” applications in Apache Geode’s client/server topology. This is especially true as users migrate their applications to a managed cloud environment.

Still, you can “override” the default settings (convention) and declare your Spring applications to be actual peer Cache members (nodes) of a Apache Geode cluster, instead:

Example 232. Spring Boot, Apache Geode Peer Cache Application
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication
class SpringBootApacheGeodePeerCacheServerApplication {  }

By declaring the @CacheServerApplication annotation, you effectively override the SBDG default. Therefore, SBDG does not provide you with a ClientCache instance by default, because you have informed SBDG of exactly what you want: a peer Cache instance hosting an embedded CacheServer that allows client connections.

However, you then might ask, “Well, how do I customize the ClientCache instance when developing client applications without explicitly declaring the @ClientCacheApplication annotation?”

First, you can “customize” the ClientCache instance by explicitly declaring the @ClientCacheApplication annotation in your Spring Boot application configuration and setting specific attributes as needed. However, you should be aware that, by explicitly declaring this annotation, (or, by default, any of the other auto-configured annotations), you assume all the responsibility that comes with it, since you have effectively overridden the auto-configuration. One example of this is security, which we touch on more later.

The most ideal way to “customize” the configuration of any feature is by way of the well-known and documented properties, specified in Spring Boot application.properties (the “convention”), or by using a Configurer.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

Security

As with the @ClientCacheApplication annotation, the @EnableSecurity annotation is not strictly required, unless you want to override and customize the defaults.

Outside a managed environment, the only security configuration required is specifying a username and password. You do this by using the well-known and documented SDG username and password properties in Spring Boot application.properties:

Example 233. Required Security Properties in a Non-Manage Envionment
spring.data.gemfire.security.username=MyUser
spring.data.gemfire.security.password=Secret

You need not explicitly declare the @EnableSecurity annotation just to specify security configuration (such as username and password).

Inside a managed environment, such as the VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) when using VMware Tanzu GemFire, SBDG is able to introspect the environment and configure security (auth) completely without the need to specify any configuration, usernames and passwords, or otherwise. This is due, in part, because TAS supplies the security details in the VCAP environment when the application is deployed to TAS and bound to services (such as VMware Tanzu GemFire).

So, in short, you need not explicitly declare the @EnableSecurity annotation (or @ClientCacheApplication).

However, if you do explicitly declare the @ClientCacheApplication or @EnableSecurity annotations, you are now responsible for this configuration, and SBDG’s auto-configuration no longer applies.

While explicitly declaring @EnableSecurity makes more sense when “overriding” the SBDG security auto-configuration, explicitly declaring the @ClientCacheApplication annotation most likely makes less sense with regard to its impact on security configuration.

This is entirely due to the internals of Apache Geode, because, in certain cases (such as security), not even Spring is able to completely shield you from the nuances of Apache Geode’s configuration. No framework can.

You must configure both auth and SSL before the cache instance (whether a ClientCache or a peer Cache) is created. This is because security is enabled and configured during the “construction” of the cache. Also,, the cache pulls the configuration from JVM System properties that must be set before the cache is constructed.

Structuring the “exact” order of the auto-configuration classes provided by SBDG when the classes are triggered, is no small feat. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to learn that the security auto-configuration classes in SBDG must be triggered before the ClientCache auto-configuration class, which is why a ClientCache instance cannot “auto” authenticate properly in PCC when the @ClientCacheApplication is explicitly declared without some assistance. In other words you must also explicitly declare the @EnableSecurity annotation in this case, since you overrode the auto-configuration of the cache, and implicitly security, as well.

Again, this is due to the way security (auth) and SSL metadata must be supplied to Apache Geode on startup.

See the Reference Guide for more details.

Extension

Most of the time, many of the other auto-configured annotations for CQ, Functions, PDX, Repositories, and so on need not ever be declared explicitly.

Many of these features are enabled automatically by having SBDG or other libraries (such as Spring Session) on the application classpath or are enabled based on other annotations applied to beans in the Spring ApplicationContext.

We review a few examples in the following sections.

Caching

It is rarely, if ever, necessary to explicitly declare either the Spring Framework’s @EnableCaching or the SDG-specific @EnableGemfireCaching annotation in Spring configuration when you use SBDG. SBDG automatically enables caching and configures the SDG GemfireCacheManager for you.

You need only focus on which application service components are appropriate for caching:

Example 234. Service Caching
@Service
class CustomerService {

    @Autowired
    private CustomerRepository customerRepository;

    @Cacheable("CustomersByName")
    public Customer findBy(String name) {
        return customerRepository.findByName(name);
    }
}

You need to create Apache Geode Regions that back the caches declared in your application service components (CustomersByName in the preceding example) by using Spring’s caching annotations (such as @Cacheable), or alternatively, JSR-107 JCache annotations (such as @CacheResult).

You can do that by defining each Region explicitly or, more conveniently, you can use the following approach:

Example 235. Configuring Caches (Regions)
@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCachingDefinedRegions
class Application {  }

@EnableCachingDefinedRegions is optional, provided for convenience, and complementary to caching when used rather than being necessary.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

Continuous Query

It is rarely, if ever, necessary to explicitly declare the SDG @EnableContinuousQueries annotation. Instead, you should focus on defining your application queries and worry less about the plumbing.

Consider the following example:

Example 236. Defining Queries for CQ
@Component
public class TemperatureMonitor extends AbstractTemperatureEventPublisher {

	@ContinuousQuery(name = "BoilingTemperatureMonitor",
		query = "SELECT * FROM /TemperatureReadings WHERE temperature.measurement >= 212.0")
	public void boilingTemperatureReadings(CqEvent event) {
		publish(event, temperatureReading -> new BoilingTemperatureEvent(this, temperatureReading));
	}

	@ContinuousQuery(name = "FreezingTemperatureMonitor",
		query = "SELECT * FROM /TemperatureReadings WHERE temperature.measurement <= 32.0")
	public void freezingTemperatureReadings(CqEvent event) {
		publish(event, temperatureReading -> new FreezingTemperatureEvent(this, temperatureReading));
	}
}

Apache Geode CQ applies only to clients.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

Functions

You rarely, if ever, need to explicitly declare either the @EnableGemfireFunctionExecutions or @EnableGemfireFunctions annotations. SBDG provides auto-configuration for both Function implementations and executions.

You need to define the implementation:

Example 237. Function Implementation
@Component
class GeodeFunctions {

    @GemfireFunction
    Object exampleFunction(Object arg) {
        // ...
    }
}

Then you need to define the execution:

Example 238. Function Execution
@OnRegion(region = "Example")
interface GeodeFunctionExecutions {

    Object exampleFunction(Object arg);

}

SBDG automatically finds, configures, and registers Function implementations (POJOs) in Apache Geode as proper Functions and creates execution proxies for the interfaces, which can then be injected into application service components to invoke the registered Functions without needing to explicitly declare the enabling annotations. The application Function implementations (POJOs) and executions (interfaces) should exist below the @SpringBootApplication annotated main class.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

PDX

You rarely, if ever, need to explicitly declare the @EnablePdx annotation, since SBDG auto-configures PDX by default. SBDG also automatically configures the SDG MappingPdxSerializer as the default PdxSerializer.

It is easy to customize the PDX configuration by setting the appropriate properties (search for “PDX”) in Spring Boot application.properties.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

Spring Data Repositories

You rarely, if ever, need to explicitly declare the @EnableGemfireRepositories annotation, since SBDG auto-configures Spring Data (SD) Repositories by default.

You need only define your Repositories:

Example 239. Customer’s Repository
interface CustomerRepository extends CrudRepository<Customer, Long> {

    Customer findByName(String name);

}

SBDG finds the Repository interfaces defined in your application, proxies them, and registers them as beans in the Spring ApplicationContext. The Repositories can be injected into other application service components.

It is sometimes convenient to use the @EnableEntityDefinedRegions along with Spring Data Repositories to identify the entities used by your application and define the Regions used by the Spring Data Repository infrastructure to persist the entity’s state. The @EnableEntityDefinedRegions annotation is optional, provided for convenience, and complementary to the @EnableGemfireRepositories annotation.

See the Reference Guide for more detail.

Explicit Configuration

Most of the other annotations provided in SDG are focused on particular application concerns or enable certain Apache Geode features, rather than being a necessity, including:

  • @EnableAutoRegionLookup

  • @EnableBeanFactoryLocator

  • @EnableCacheServer(s)

  • @EnableCachingDefinedRegions

  • @EnableClusterConfiguration

  • @EnableClusterDefinedRegions

  • @EnableCompression

  • @EnableDiskStore(s)

  • @EnableEntityDefinedRegions

  • @EnableEviction

  • @EnableExpiration

  • @EnableGatewayReceiver

  • @EnableGatewaySender(s)

  • @EnableGemFireAsLastResource

  • @EnableHttpService

  • @EnableIndexing

  • @EnableOffHeap

  • @EnableLocator

  • @EnableManager

  • @EnableMemcachedServer

  • @EnablePool(s)

  • @EnableRedisServer

  • @EnableStatistics

  • @UseGemFireProperties

None of these annotations are necessary and none are auto-configured by SBDG. They are at your disposal when and if you need them. This also means that none of these annotations are in conflict with any SBDG auto-configuration.

Summary

In conclusion, you need to understand where SDG ends and SBDG begins. It all begins with the auto-configuration provided by SBDG.

If a feature or function is not covered by SBDG’s auto-configuration, you are responsible for enabling and configuring the feature appropriately, as needed by your application (for example, @EnableRedisServer).

In other cases, you might also want to explicitly declare a complimentary annotation (such as @EnableEntityDefinedRegions) for convenience, since SBDG provides no convention or opinion.

In all remaining cases, it boils down to understanding how Apache Geode works under the hood. While we go to great lengths to shield you from as many details as possible, it is not feasible or practical to address all matters, such as cache creation and security.

Configuration Metadata Reference

The following reference sections cover documented and well-known properties recognized and processed by Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) and Spring Session for Apache Geode (SSDG).

These properties may be used in Spring Boot application.properties or as JVM System properties, to configure different aspects of or enable individual features of Apache Geode in a Spring application. When combined with the power of Spring Boot, they give you the ability to quickly create an application that uses Apache Geode.

Spring Data Based Properties

The following properties all have a spring.data.gemfire.* prefix. For example, to set the cache copy-on-read property, use spring.data.gemfire.cache.copy-on-read in Spring Boot application.properties.

Table 24. spring.data.gemfire.* properties
Name Description Default From

name

Name of the Apache Geode.

SpringBasedCacheClientApplication

ClientCacheApplication.name

locators

Comma-delimited list of Locator endpoints formatted as: locator1[port1],…​,locatorN[portN].

[]

PeerCacheApplication.locators

use-bean-factory-locator

Enable the SDG BeanFactoryLocator when mixing Spring config with Apache Geode native config (such as cache.xml) and you wish to configure Apache Geode objects declared in cache.xml with Spring.

false

ClientCacheApplication.useBeanFactoryLocator
Table 25. spring.data.gemfire.* GemFireCache properties
Name Description Default From

cache.copy-on-read

Configure whether a copy of an object returned from Region.get(key) is made.

false

ClientCacheApplication.copyOnRead

cache.critical-heap-percentage

Percentage of heap at or above which the cache is considered in danger of becoming inoperable.

ClientCacheApplication.criticalHeapPercentage

cache.critical-off-heap-percentage

Percentage of off-heap at or above which the cache is considered in danger of becoming inoperable.

ClientCacheApplication.criticalOffHeapPercentage

cache.enable-auto-region-lookup

Whether to lookup Regions configured in Apache Geode native configuration and declare them as Spring beans.

false

EnableAutoRegionLookup.enable

cache.eviction-heap-percentage

Percentage of heap at or above which the eviction should begin on Regions configured for HeapLRU eviction.

ClientCacheApplication.evictionHeapPercentage

cache.eviction-off-heap-percentage

Percentage of off-heap at or above which the eviction should begin on Regions configured for HeapLRU eviction.

ClientCacheApplication.evictionOffHeapPercentage

cache.log-level

Configure the log-level of an Apache Geode cache.

config

ClientCacheApplication.logLevel

cache.name

Alias for spring.data.gemfire.name.

SpringBasedCacheClientApplication

ClientCacheApplication.name

cache.compression.bean-name

Name of a Spring bean that implements org.apache.geode.compression.Compressor.

EnableCompression.compressorBeanName

cache.compression.region-names

Comma-delimited list of Region names for which compression is configured.

[]

EnableCompression.RegionNames

cache.off-heap.memory-size

Determines the size of off-heap memory used by Apache Geode in megabytes (m) or gigabytes (g) — for example, 120g

EnableOffHeap.memorySize

cache.off-heap.region-names

Comma-delimited list of Region names for which off-heap is configured.

[]

EnableOffHeap.RegionNames
Table 26. spring.data.gemfire.* ClientCache properties
Name Description Default From

cache.client.durable-client-id

Used only for clients in a client/server installation. If set, this indicates that the client is durable and identifies the client. The ID is used by servers to reestablish any messaging that was interrupted by client downtime.

ClientCacheApplication.durableClientId

cache.client.durable-client-timeout

Used only for clients in a client/server installation. Number of seconds this client can remain disconnected from its server and have the server continue to accumulate durable events for it.

300

ClientCacheApplication.durableClientTimeout

cache.client.keep-alive

Whether the server should keep the durable client’s queues alive for the timeout period.

false

ClientCacheApplication.keepAlive
Table 27. spring.data.gemfire.* peer Cache properties
Name Description Default From

cache.peer.enable-auto-reconnect

Whether a member (a Locator or Server) try to reconnect and reinitialize the cache after it has been forced out of the cluster by a network partition event or has otherwise been shunned by other members.

false

PeerCacheApplication.enableAutoReconnect

cache.peer.lock-lease

The length, in seconds, of distributed lock leases obtained by this cache.

120

PeerCacheApplication.lockLease

cache.peer.lock-timeout

The number of seconds a cache operation waits to obtain a distributed lock lease.

60

PeerCacheApplication.lockTimeout

cache.peer.message-sync-interval

The frequency (in seconds) at which a message is sent by the primary cache-server to all the secondary cache-server nodes to remove the events that have already been dispatched from the queue.

1

PeerCacheApplication.messageSyncInterval

cache.peer.search-timeout

The number of seconds a cache get operation can spend searching for a value.

300

PeerCacheApplication.searchTimeout

cache.peer.use-cluster-configuration

Whether this cache member node pulls its configuration metadata from the cluster-based cluster configuration service.

false

PeerCacheApplication.useClusterConfiguration
Table 28. spring.data.gemfire.* CacheServer properties
Name Description Default From

cache.server.auto-startup

Whether the CacheServer should be started automatically at runtime.

true

CacheServerApplication.autoStartup

cache.server.bind-address

The IP address or hostname on which this cache server listens.

CacheServerApplication.bindAddress

cache.server.hostname-for-clients

The IP address or hostname that server locators tell to clients to indicate the IP address on which the cache server listens.

CacheServerApplication.hostNameForClients

cache.server.load-poll-interval

The frequency in milliseconds at which to poll the load probe on this cache server.

5000

CacheServerApplication.loadPollInterval

cache.server.max-connections

The maximum client connections.

800

CacheServerApplication.maxConnections

cache.server.max-message-count

The maximum number of messages that can be in a client queue.

230000

CacheServerApplication.maxMessageCount

cache.server.max-threads

The maximum number of threads allowed in this cache server to service client requests.

CacheServerApplication.maxThreads

cache.server.max-time-between-pings

The maximum amount of time between client pings.

60000

CacheServerApplication.maxTimeBetweenPings

cache.server.message-time-to-live

The time (in seconds) after which a message in the client queue expires.

180

CacheServerApplication.messageTimeToLive

cache.server.port

The port on which this cache server listens for clients.

40404

CacheServerApplication.port

cache.server.socket-buffer-size

The buffer size of the socket connection to this CacheServer.

32768

CacheServerApplication.socketBufferSize

cache.server.subscription-capacity

The capacity of the client queue.

1

CacheServerApplication.subscriptionCapacity

cache.server.subscription-disk-store-name

The name of the disk store for client subscription queue overflow.

CacheServerApplication.subscriptionDiskStoreName

cache.server.subscription-eviction-policy

The eviction policy that is executed when the capacity of the client subscription queue is reached.

none

CacheServerApplication.subscriptionEvictionPolicy

cache.server.tcp-no-delay

The outgoing socket connection tcp-no-delay setting.

true

CacheServerApplication.tcpNoDelay

CacheServer properties can be further targeted at specific CacheServer instances by using an optional bean name of the CacheServer bean defined in the Spring ApplicationContext. Consider the following example:

spring.data.gemfire.cache.server.[<cacheServerBeanName>].bind-address=...
Table 29. spring.data.gemfire.* Cluster properties
Name Description Default From

cluster.Region.type

Specifies the data management policy used when creating Regions on the servers in the cluster.

RegionShortcut.PARTITION

EnableClusterConfiguration.serverRegionShortcut
Table 30. spring.data.gemfire.* DiskStore properties
Name Description Default From

disk.store.allow-force-compaction

Whether to allow DiskStore.forceCompaction() to be called on Regions that use a disk store.

false

EnableDiskStore.allowForceCompaction

disk.store.auto-compact

Whether to cause the disk files to be automatically compacted.

true

EnableDiskStore.autoCompact

disk.store.compaction-threshold

The threshold at which an oplog becomes compactible.

50

EnableDiskStore.compactionThreshold

disk.store.directory.location

The system directory where the DiskStore (oplog) files are stored.

[]

EnableDiskStore.diskDirectories.location

disk.store.directory.size

The amount of disk space allowed to store disk store (oplog) files.

21474883647

EnableDiskStore.diskDirectories.size

disk.store.disk-usage-critical-percentage

The critical threshold for disk usage as a percentage of the total disk volume.

99.0

EnableDiskStore.diskUsageCriticalPercentage

disk.store.disk-usage-warning-percentage

The warning threshold for disk usage as a percentage of the total disk volume.

90.0

EnableDiskStore.diskUsageWarningPercentage

disk.store.max-oplog-size

The maximum size (in megabytes) a single oplog (operation log) can be.

1024

EnableDiskStore.maxOplogSize

disk.store.queue-size

The maximum number of operations that can be asynchronously queued.

EnableDiskStore.queueSize

disk.store.time-interval

The number of milliseconds that can elapse before data written asynchronously is flushed to disk.

1000

EnableDiskStore.timeInterval

disk.store.write-buffer-size

Configures the write buffer size in bytes.

32768

EnableDiskStore.writeBufferSize

DiskStore properties can be further targeted at specific DiskStore instances by setting the DiskStore.name property.

For example, you can specify directory location of the files for a specific, named DiskStore by using:

spring.data.gemfire.disk.store.Example.directory.location=/path/to/geode/disk-stores/Example/

The directory location and size of the DiskStore files can be further divided into multiple locations and size using array syntax:

spring.data.gemfire.disk.store.Example.directory[0].location=/path/to/geode/disk-stores/Example/one
spring.data.gemfire.disk.store.Example.directory[0].size=4096000
spring.data.gemfire.disk.store.Example.directory[1].location=/path/to/geode/disk-stores/Example/two
spring.data.gemfire.disk.store.Example.directory[1].size=8192000

Both the name and array index are optional, and you can use any combination of name and array index. Without a name, the properties apply to all DiskStore instances. Without array indexes, all named DiskStore files are stored in the specified location and limited to the defined size.

Table 31. spring.data.gemfire.* Entity properties
Name Description Default From

entities.base-packages

Comma-delimited list of package names indicating the start points for the entity scan.

EnableEntityDefinedRegions.basePackages
Table 32. spring.data.gemfire.* Locator properties
Name Description Default From

locator.host

The IP address or hostname of the system NIC to which the embedded Locator is bound to listen for connections.

EnableLocator.host

locator.port

The network port to which the embedded Locator will listen for connections.

10334

EnableLocator.port
Table 33. spring.data.gemfire.* Logging properties
Name Description Default From

logging.level

The log level of an Apache Geode cache. Alias for 'spring.data.gemfire.cache.log-level'.

config

EnableLogging.logLevel

logging.log-disk-space-limit

The amount of disk space allowed to store log files.

EnableLogging.logDiskSpaceLimit

logging.log-file

The pathname of the log file used to log messages.

EnableLogging.logFile

logging.log-file-size

The maximum size of a log file before the log file is rolled.

EnableLogging.logFileSize
Table 34. spring.data.gemfire.* Management properties
Name Description Default From

management.use-http

Whether to use the HTTP protocol to communicate with an Apache Geode Manager.

false

EnableClusterConfiguration.useHttp

management.http.host

The IP address or hostname of the Apache Geode Manager that runs the HTTP service.

EnableClusterConfiguration.host

management.http.port

The port used by the Apache Geode Manager’s HTTP service to listen for connections.

7070

EnableClusterConfiguration.port
Table 35. spring.data.gemfire.* Manager properties
Name Description Default From

manager.access-file

The access control list (ACL) file used by the Manager to restrict access to the JMX MBeans by the clients.

EnableManager.accessFile

manager.bind-address

The IP address or hostname of the system NIC used by the Manager to bind and listen for JMX client connections.

EnableManager.bindAddress

manager.hostname-for-clients

The hostname given to JMX clients to ask the Locator for the location of the Manager.

EnableManager.hostNameForClients

manager.password-file

By default, the JMX Manager lets clients without credentials connect. If this property is set to the name of a file, only clients that connect with credentials that match an entry in this file are allowed.

EnableManager.passwordFile

manager.port

The port used by the Manager to listen for JMX client connections.

1099

EnableManager.port

manager.start

Whether to start the Manager service at runtime.

false

EnableManager.start

manager.update-rate

The rate, in milliseconds, at which this member pushes updates to any JMX Managers.

2000

EnableManager.updateRate
Table 36. spring.data.gemfire.* PDX properties
Name Description Default From

pdx.disk-store-name

The name of the DiskStore used to store PDX type metadata to disk when PDX is persistent.

EnablePdx.diskStoreName

pdx.ignore-unread-fields

Whether PDX ignores fields that were unread during deserialization.

false

EnablePdx.ignoreUnreadFields

pdx.persistent

Whether PDX persists type metadata to disk.

false

EnablePdx.persistent

pdx.read-serialized

Whether a Region entry is returned as a PdxInstance or deserialized back into object form on read.

false

EnablePdx.readSerialized

pdx.serialize-bean-name

The name of a custom Spring bean that implements org.apache.geode.pdx.PdxSerializer.

EnablePdx.serializerBeanName
Table 37. spring.data.gemfire.* Pool properties
Name Description Default From

pool.free-connection-timeout

The timeout used to acquire a free connection from a Pool.

10000

EnablePool.freeConnectionTimeout

pool.idle-timeout

The amount of time a connection can be idle before expiring (and closing) the connection.

5000

EnablePool.idleTimeout

pool.load-conditioning-interval

The interval for how frequently the Pool checks to see if a connection to a given server should be moved to a different server to improve the load balance.

300000

EnablePool.loadConditioningInterval

pool.locators

Comma-delimited list of locator endpoints in the format of locator1[port1],…​,locatorN[portN]

EnablePool.locators

pool.max-connections

The maximum number of client to server connections that a Pool will create.

EnablePool.maxConnections

pool.min-connections

The minimum number of client to server connections that a Pool maintains.

1

EnablePool.minConnections

pool.multi-user-authentication

Whether the created Pool can be used by multiple authenticated users.

false

EnablePool.multiUserAuthentication

pool.ping-interval

How often to ping servers to verify that they are still alive.

10000

EnablePool.pingInterval

pool.pr-single-hop-enabled

Whether to perform single-hop data access operations between the client and servers. When true, the client is aware of the location of partitions on servers that host Regions with DataPolicy.PARTITION.

true

EnablePool.prSingleHopEnabled

pool.read-timeout

The number of milliseconds to wait for a response from a server before timing out the operation and trying another server (if any are available).

10000

EnablePool.readTimeout

pool.ready-for-events

Whether to signal the server that the client is prepared and ready to receive events.

false

ClientCacheApplication.readyForEvents

pool.retry-attempts

The number of times to retry a request after timeout/exception.

EnablePool.retryAttempts

pool.server-group

The group that all servers to which a Pool connects must belong.

EnablePool.serverGroup

pool.servers

Comma-delimited list of CacheServer endpoints in the format of server1[port1],…​,serverN[portN]

EnablePool.servers

pool.socket-buffer-size

The socket buffer size for each connection made in all Pools.

32768

EnablePool.socketBufferSize

pool.statistic-interval

How often to send client statistics to the server.

EnablePool.statisticInterval

pool.subscription-ack-interval

The interval in milliseconds to wait before sending acknowledgements to the CacheServer for events received from the server subscriptions.

100

EnablePool.subscriptionAckInterval

pool.subscription-enabled

Whether the created Pool has server-to-client subscriptions enabled.

false

EnablePool.subscriptionEnabled

pool.subscription-message-tracking-timeout

The messageTrackingTimeout attribute, which is the time-to-live period, in milliseconds, for subscription events the client has received from the server.

900000

EnablePool.subscriptionMessageTrackingTimeout

pool.subscription-redundancy

The redundancy level for all Pools server-to-client subscriptions.

EnablePool.subsriptionRedundancy

pool.thread-local-connections

The thread local connections policy for all Pools.

false

EnablePool.threadLocalConnections
Table 38. spring.data.gemfire.* Security properties
Name Description Default From

security.username

The name of the user used to authenticate with the servers.

EnableSecurity.securityUsername

security.password

The user password used to authenticate with the servers.

EnableSecurity.securityPassword

security.properties-file

The system pathname to a properties file that contains security credentials.

EnableAuth.propertiesFile

security.client.accessor

X

X

EnableAuth.clientAccessor

security.client.accessor-post-processor

The callback that should be invoked in the post-operation phase, which is when the operation has completed on the server but before the result is sent to the client.

EnableAuth.clientAccessorPostProcessor

security.client.authentication-initializer

Static creation method that returns an AuthInitialize object, which obtains credentials for peers in a cluster.

EnableSecurity.clientAuthentiationInitializer

security.client.authenticator

Static creation method that returns an Authenticator object used by a cluster member (Locator or Server) to verify the credentials of a connecting client.

EnableAuth.clientAuthenticator

security.client.diffie-hellman-algorithm

Used for authentication. For secure transmission of sensitive credentials (such as passwords), you can encrypt the credentials by using the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange algorithm. You can do so by setting the security-client-dhalgo system property on the clients to the name of a valid, symmetric key cipher supported by the JDK.

EnableAuth.clientDiffieHellmanAlgorithm

security.log.file

The pathname to a log file used for security log messages.

EnableAuth.securityLogFile

security.log.level

The log level for security log messages.

EnableAuth.securityLogLevel

security.manager.class-name

The name of a class that implements org.apache.geode.security.SecurityManager.

EnableSecurity.securityManagerClassName

security.peer.authentication-initializer

Static creation method that returns an AuthInitialize object, which obtains credentials for peers in a cluster.

EnableSecurity.peerAuthenticationInitializer

security.peer.authenticator

Static creation method that returns an Authenticator object, which is used by a peer to verify the credentials of a connecting node.

EnableAuth.peerAuthenticator

security.peer.verify-member-timeout

The timeout in milliseconds used by a peer to verify membership of an unknown authenticated peer requesting a secure connection.

EnableAuth.peerVerifyMemberTimeout

security.post-processor.class-name

The name of a class that implements the org.apache.geode.security.PostProcessor interface that can be used to change the returned results of Region get operations.

EnableSecurity.securityPostProcessorClassName

security.shiro.ini-resource-path

The Apache Geode System property that refers to the location of an Apache Shiro INI file that configures the Apache Shiro Security Framework in order to secure Apache Geode.

EnableSecurity.shiroIniResourcePath
Table 39. spring.data.gemfire.* SSL properties
Name Description Default From

security.ssl.certificate.alias.cluster

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by the cluster to secure communications.

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.certificate.alias.default-alias

The default alias to the stored SSL certificate used to secure communications across the entire Apache Geode system.

EnableSsl.defaultCertificateAlias

security.ssl.certificate.alias.gateway

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by the WAN Gateway Senders/Receivers to secure communications.

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.certificate.alias.jmx

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by the Manager’s JMX-based JVM MBeanServer and JMX clients to secure communications.

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.certificate.alias.locator

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by the Locator to secure communications.

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.certificate.alias.server

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by clients and servers to secure communications.

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.certificate.alias.web

The alias to the stored SSL certificate used by the embedded HTTP server to secure communications (HTTPS).

EnableSsl.componentCertificateAliases

security.ssl.ciphers

Comma-separated list of SSL ciphers or any.

EnableSsl.ciphers

security.ssl.components

Comma-delimited list of Apache Geode components (for example, WAN) to be configured for SSL communication.

EnableSsl.components

security.ssl.keystore

The system pathname to the Java KeyStore file storing certificates for SSL.

EnableSsl.keystore

security.ssl.keystore.password

The password used to access the Java KeyStore file.

EnableSsl.keystorePassword

security.ssl.keystore.type

The password used to access the Java KeyStore file (for example, JKS).

EnableSsl.keystoreType

security.ssl.protocols

Comma-separated list of SSL protocols or any.

EnableSsl.protocols

security.ssl.require-authentication

Whether two-way authentication is required.

EnableSsl.requireAuthentication

security.ssl.truststore

The system pathname to the trust store (Java KeyStore file) that stores certificates for SSL.

EnableSsl.truststore

security.ssl.truststore.password

The password used to access the trust store (Java KeyStore file).

EnableSsl.truststorePassword

security.ssl.truststore.type

The password used to access the trust store (Java KeyStore file — for example, JKS).

EnableSsl.truststoreType

security.ssl.web-require-authentication

Whether two-way HTTP authentication is required.

false

EnableSsl.webRequireAuthentication
Table 40. spring.data.gemfire.* Service properties
Name Description Default From

service.http.bind-address

The IP address or hostname of the system NIC used by the embedded HTTP server to bind and listen for HTTP(S) connections.

EnableHttpService.bindAddress

service.http.port

The port used by the embedded HTTP server to listen for HTTP(S) connections.

7070

EnableHttpService.port

service.http.ssl-require-authentication

Whether two-way HTTP authentication is required.

false

EnableHttpService.sslRequireAuthentication

service.http.dev-rest-api-start

Whether to start the Developer REST API web service. A full installation of Apache Geode is required, and you must set the $GEODE environment variable.

false

EnableHttpService.startDeveloperRestApi

service.memcached.port

The port of the embedded Memcached server (service).

11211

EnableMemcachedServer.port

service.memcached.protocol

The protocol used by the embedded Memcached server (service).

ASCII

EnableMemcachedServer.protocol

service.redis.bind-address

The IP address or hostname of the system NIC used by the embedded Redis server to bind and listen for connections.

EnableRedis.bindAddress

service.redis.port

The port used by the embedded Redis server to listen for connections.

6479

EnableRedisServer.port

Spring Session Based Properties

The following properties all have a spring.session.data.gemfire.* prefix. For example, to set the session Region name, set spring.session.data.gemfire.session.region.name in Spring Boot application.properties.

Table 41. spring.session.data.gemfire.* properties
Name Description Default From

cache.client.pool.name

Name of the pool used to send data access operations between the client and servers.

gemfirePool

EnableGemFireHttpSession.poolName

cache.client.Region.shortcut

The DataPolicy used by the client Region to manage (HTTP) session state.

ClientRegionShortcut.PROXY

EnableGemFireHttpSession.clientRegionShortcut

cache.server.Region.shortcut

The DataPolicy used by the server Region to manage (HTTP) session state.

RegionShortcut.PARTITION

EnableGemFireHttpSession.serverRegionShortcut

session.attributes.indexable

The names of session attributes for which an Index is created.

[]

EnableGemFireHttpSession.indexableSessionAttributes

session.expiration.max-inactive-interval-seconds

Configures the number of seconds in which a session can remain inactive before it expires.

1800

EnableGemFireHttpSession.maxInactiveIntervalSeconds

session.Region.name

The name of the (client/server) Region used to manage (HTTP) session state.

ClusteredSpringSessions

EnableGemFireHttpSession.RegionName

session.serializer.bean-name

The name of a Spring bean that implements org.springframework.session.data.gemfire.serialization.SessionSerializer.

EnableGemFireHttpSession.sessionSerializerBeanName

Apache Geode Properties

While we do not recommend using Apache Geode properties directly in your Spring applications, SBDG does not prevent you from doing so. See the complete reference to the Apache Geode specific properties.

Apache Geode is very strict about the properties that may be specified in a gemfire.properties file. You cannot mix Spring properties with gemfire.* properties in an Apache Geode gemfire.properties file.

Disabling Auto-configuration

If you would like to disable the auto-configuration of any feature provided by Spring Boot for Apache Geode, you can specify the auto-configuration class in the exclude attribute of the @SpringBootApplication annotation:

Example 240. Disable Auto-configuration of PDX
@SpringBootApplication(exclude = PdxSerializationAutoConfiguration.class)
public class MySpringBootApplication {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(MySpringBootApplication.class, args);
  }
}

You can disable more than one auto-configuration class at a time by specifying each class in the exclude attribute using array syntax:

Example 241. Disable Auto-configuration of PDX & SSL
@SpringBootApplication(exclude = { PdxSerializationAutoConfiguration.class, SslAutoConfiguration.class })
public class MySpringBootApplication {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(MySpringBootApplication.class, args);
  }
}

Complete Set of Auto-configuration Classes

The current set of auto-configuration classes in Spring Boot for Apache Geode includes:

  • CacheNameAutoConfiguration

  • CachingProviderAutoConfiguration

  • ClientCacheAutoConfiguration

  • ClientSecurityAutoConfiguration

  • ContinuousQueryAutoConfiguration

  • FunctionExecutionAutoConfiguration

  • GemFirePropertiesAutoConfiguration

  • LoggingAutoConfiguration

  • PdxSerializationAutoConfiguration

  • PeerSecurityAutoConfiguration

  • RegionTemplateAutoConfiguration

  • RepositoriesAutoConfiguration

  • SpringSessionAutoConfiguration

  • SpringSessionPropertiesAutoConfiguration

  • SslAutoConfiguration

Switching from Apache Geode to VMware Tanzu GemFire or VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs

Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) stopped providing support for VMware Tanzu GemFire after SBDG 1.3. SBDG 1.3 was the last version to support both Apache Geode and VMware Tanzu GemFire. If you need support for VMware Tanzu GemFire in Spring Boot, then you will need to downgrade to SBDG 1.3.

This section is now deprecated. Spring Boot for Apache Geode (SBDG) no longer provides the spring-gemfire-starter or related starter modules. As of SBDG 1.4, SBDG is based on Apache Geode 1.13. Standalone GemFire bits based on Apache Geode are no longer being released by VMware, Inc. after GemFire 9.10. GemFire 9.10 was based on Apache Geode 1.12, and SBDG can no longer properly support standalone GemFire bits (version ⇐ 9.10).
What was Pivotal GemFire has now been rebranded as VMware Tanzu GemFire and what was Pivotal Cloud Cache (PCC) running on Pivotal CloudFoundry (PCF) has been rebranded as VMware Tanzu GemFire for VMs and VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS) (TAS), respectively.

Running an Apache Geode cluster with Spring Boot from your IDE

As described in Building ClientCache Applications, you can configure and run a small Apache Geode cluster from inside your IDE using Spring Boot. This is extremely helpful during development because it enables you to manually run, test, and debug your applications quickly and easily.

Spring Boot for Apache Geode includes such a class:

Example 242. Spring Boot application class used to configure and bootstrap an Apache Geode server
@SpringBootApplication
@CacheServerApplication(name = "SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication")
@SuppressWarnings("unused")
public class SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		new SpringApplicationBuilder(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication.class)
			.web(WebApplicationType.NONE)
			.build()
			.run(args);
	}

	@Configuration
	@UseLocators
	@Profile("clustered")
	static class ClusteredConfiguration { }

	@Configuration
	@EnableLocator
	@EnableManager(start = true)
	@Profile("!clustered")
	static class LonerConfiguration { }

}

This class is a proper Spring Boot application that you can use to configure and bootstrap multiple Apache Geode servers and join them together to form a small cluster. You only need to modify the runtime configuration of this class to startup multiple servers.

Initially, you will need to start a single (primary) server with an embedded Locator and Manager.

The Locator enables members in the cluster to locate one another and lets new members join the cluster as a peer. The Locator also lets clients connect to the servers in the cluster. When the cache client’s connection pool is configured to use Locators, the pool of connections can intelligently route data requests directly to the server hosting the data (a.k.a. single-hop access), especially when the data is partitioned/sharded across multiple servers in the cluster. Locator-based connection pools include support for load balancing connections and handling automatic fail-over in the event of failed connections, among other things.

The Manager lets you connect to this server using Gfsh (Apache Geode’s command-line shell tool).

To start your primary server, create a run configuration in your IDE for the SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication class using the following, recommended JRE command-line options:

Example 243. Server 1 run profile configuration
-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active=

Run the class. You should see output similar to the following:

Example 244. Server 1 output on startup
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java -server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active= "-javaagent:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 17 CE.app/Contents/lib/idea_rt.jar=62866:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 17 CE.app/Contents/bin" -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -classpath /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/charsets.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/deploy.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/cldrdata.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/dnsns.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/jaccess.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/jfxrt.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/localedata.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/nashorn.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/sunec.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/sunjce_provider.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/sunpkcs11.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/ext/zipfs.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/javaws.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/jce.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/jfr.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/jfxswt.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/jsse.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/management-agent.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/plugin.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/resources.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/rt.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/ant-javafx.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/dt.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/javafx-mx.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/jconsole.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/packager.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/sa-jdi.jar:/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build/classes/main:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build/resources/main:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-autoconfigure/build/classes/main:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-autoconfigure/build/resources/main:/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode/build/classes/main:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-starter/2.0.3.RELEASE/ffaa050dbd36b0441645598f1a7ddaf67fd5e678/spring-boot-starter-2.0.3.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot-autoconfigure/2.0.3.RELEASE/11bc4cc96b08fabad2b3186755818fa0b32d83f/spring-boot-autoconfigure-2.0.3.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.boot/spring-boot/2.0.3.RELEASE/b874870d915adbc3dd932e19077d3d45c8e54aa0/spring-boot-2.0.3.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/javax.annotation/javax.annotation-api/1.3.2/934c04d3cfef185a8008e7bf34331b79730a9d43/javax.annotation-api-1.3.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.data/spring-data-geode/2.0.8.RELEASE/9e0a3cd2805306d355c77537aea07c281fc581b/spring-data-geode-2.0.8.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-context-support/5.0.7.RELEASE/e8ee4902d9d8bfbb21bc5e8f30cfbb4324adb4f3/spring-context-support-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-context/5.0.7.RELEASE/243a23f8968de8754d8199d669780d683ab177bd/spring-context-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-tx/5.0.7.RELEASE/4ca59b21c61162adb146ad1b40c30b60d8dc42b8/spring-tx-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-web/5.0.7.RELEASE/2e04c6c2922fbfa06b5948be14a5782db168b6ec/spring-web-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.data/spring-data-commons/2.0.8.RELEASE/5c19af63b5acb0eab39066684e813d5ecd9d03b7/spring-data-commons-2.0.8.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-aop/5.0.7.RELEASE/fdd0b6aa3c9c7a188c3bfbf6dfd8d40e843be9ef/spring-aop-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-beans/5.0.7.RELEASE/c1196cb3e56da83e3c3a02ef323699f4b05feedc/spring-beans-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-expression/5.0.7.RELEASE/ca01fb473f53dd0ee3c85663b26d5dc325602057/spring-expression-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-core/5.0.7.RELEASE/54b731178d81e66eca9623df772ff32718208137/spring-core-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.yaml/snakeyaml/1.19/2d998d3d674b172a588e54ab619854d073f555b5/snakeyaml-1.19.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework/spring-jcl/5.0.7.RELEASE/699016ddf454c2c167d9f84ae5777eccadf54728/spring-jcl-5.0.7.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-lucene/1.2.1/3d22a050bd4eb64bd8c82a74677f45c070f102d5/geode-lucene-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-core/1.2.1/fe853317e33dd2a1c291f29cee3c4be549f75a69/geode-core-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-cq/1.2.1/69873d6b956ba13b55c894a13e72106fb552e840/geode-cq-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-wan/1.2.1/df0dd8516e1af17790185255ff21a54b56d94344/geode-wan-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/antlr/antlr/2.7.7/83cd2cd674a217ade95a4bb83a8a14f351f48bd0/antlr-2.7.7.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.shiro/shiro-spring/1.3.2/281a6b565f6cf3aebd31ddb004632008d7106f2d/shiro-spring-1.3.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.aspectj/aspectjweaver/1.8.13/ad94df2a28d658a40dc27bbaff6a1ce5fbf04e9b/aspectjweaver-1.8.13.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/com.fasterxml.jackson.core/jackson-databind/2.9.6/cfa4f316351a91bfd95cb0644c6a2c95f52db1fc/jackson-databind-2.9.6.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/com.fasterxml.jackson.core/jackson-annotations/2.9.0/7c10d545325e3a6e72e06381afe469fd40eb701/jackson-annotations-2.9.0.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.shiro/shiro-web/1.3.2/725be023e1c65a0fd70c01b8c0c13a2936c23315/shiro-web-1.3.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.shiro/shiro-core/1.3.2/b5dede9d890f335998a8ebf479809fe365b927fc/shiro-core-1.3.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.slf4j/slf4j-api/1.7.25/da76ca59f6a57ee3102f8f9bd9cee742973efa8a/slf4j-api-1.7.25.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/com.github.stephenc.findbugs/findbugs-annotations/1.3.9-1/a6b11447635d80757d64b355bed3c00786d86801/findbugs-annotations-1.3.9-1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.jgroups/jgroups/3.6.10.Final/fc0ff5a8a9de27ab62939956f705c2909bf86bc2/jgroups-3.6.10.Final.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/commons-io/commons-io/2.5/2852e6e05fbb95076fc091f6d1780f1f8fe35e0f/commons-io-2.5.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/commons-lang/commons-lang/2.6/ce1edb914c94ebc388f086c6827e8bdeec71ac2/commons-lang-2.6.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/it.unimi.dsi/fastutil/7.1.0/9835253257524c1be7ab50c057aa2d418fb72082/fastutil-7.1.0.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/javax.resource/javax.resource-api/1.7/ae40e0864eb1e92c48bf82a2a3399cbbf523fb79/javax.resource-api-1.7.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/net.java.dev.jna/jna/4.5.1/65bd0cacc9c79a21c6ed8e9f588577cd3c2f85b9/jna-4.5.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/net.sf.jopt-simple/jopt-simple/5.0.3/cdd846cfc4e0f7eefafc02c0f5dce32b9303aa2a/jopt-simple-5.0.3.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.logging.log4j/log4j-core/2.10.0/c90b597163cd28ab6d9687edd53db601b6ea75a1/log4j-core-2.10.0.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.logging.log4j/log4j-api/2.10.0/fec5797a55b786184a537abd39c3fa1449d752d6/log4j-api-2.10.0.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/commons-beanutils/commons-beanutils/1.9.3/c845703de334ddc6b4b3cd26835458cb1cba1f3d/commons-beanutils-1.9.3.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/io.github.lukehutch/fast-classpath-scanner/2.0.11/ae34a7a5e6de8ad1f86e12f6f7ae1869fcfe9987/fast-classpath-scanner-2.0.11.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-common/1.2.1/9db253081d33f424f6e3ce0cde4b306e23e3420b/geode-common-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.geode/geode-json/1.2.1/bdb4c262e4ce6bb3b22e0f511cfb133a65fa0c04/geode-json-1.2.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.lucene/lucene-analyzers-common/6.4.1/c6f0f593503080204e9d33189cdc59320f55db37/lucene-analyzers-common-6.4.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.lucene/lucene-queryparser/6.4.1/1fc5795a072770a2c47dce11a3c85a80f3437af6/lucene-queryparser-6.4.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.lucene/lucene-queries/6.4.1/6de41d984c16185a244b52c4d069b00f5b2b120f/lucene-queries-6.4.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.apache.lucene/lucene-core/6.4.1/2a18924b9e0ed86b318902cb475a0b9ca4d7be5b/lucene-core-6.4.1.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/com.fasterxml.jackson.core/jackson-core/2.9.6/4e393793c37c77e042ccc7be5a914ae39251b365/jackson-core-2.9.6.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/javax.transaction/javax.transaction-api/1.2/d81aff979d603edd90dcd8db2abc1f4ce6479e3e/javax.transaction-api-1.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/commons-logging/commons-logging/1.2/4bfc12adfe4842bf07b657f0369c4cb522955686/commons-logging-1.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/commons-collections/commons-collections/3.2.2/8ad72fe39fa8c91eaaf12aadb21e0c3661fe26d5/commons-collections-3.2.2.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/org.springframework.shell/spring-shell/1.2.0.RELEASE/d94047721f292bd5334b5654e8600cef4b845049/spring-shell-1.2.0.RELEASE.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/com.google.guava/guava/17.0/9c6ef172e8de35fd8d4d8783e4821e57cdef7445/guava-17.0.jar:/Users/jblum/.gradle/caches/modules-2/files-2.1/jline/jline/2.12/ce9062c6a125e0f9ad766032573c041ae8ecc986/jline-2.12.jar org.springframework.geode.docs.example.app.server.SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
SLF4J: Failed to load class "org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder".
SLF4J: Defaulting to no-operation (NOP) logger implementation
SLF4J: See https://www.slf4j.org/codes.html#StaticLoggerBinder for further details.

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::        (v2.0.3.RELEASE)

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:28.183 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Starting SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication on jblum-mbpro-2.local with PID 41795 (/Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build/classes/main started by jblum in /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build)

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:28.186 PDT <main> tid=0x1] No active profile set, falling back to default profiles: default

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:28.278 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Refreshing org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext@6fa51cd4: startup date [Sun Jun 24 21:42:28 PDT 2018]; root of context hierarchy

[warn 2018/06/24 21:42:28.962 PDT <main> tid=0x1] @Bean method PdxConfiguration.pdxDiskStoreAwareBeanFactoryPostProcessor is non-static and returns an object assignable to Spring's BeanFactoryPostProcessor interface. This will result in a failure to process annotations such as @Autowired, @Resource and @PostConstruct within the method's declaring @Configuration class. Add the 'static' modifier to this method to avoid these container lifecycle issues; see @Bean javadoc for complete details.

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.036 PDT <main> tid=0x1]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with this
  work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.

  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the
  License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
  WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.  See the
  License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
  under the License.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build-Date: 2017-09-16 07:20:46 -0700
Build-Id: abaker 0
Build-Java-Version: 1.8.0_121
Build-Platform: Mac OS X 10.12.3 x86_64
Product-Name: Apache Geode
Product-Version: 1.2.1
Source-Date: 2017-09-08 11:57:38 -0700
Source-Repository: release/1.2.1
Source-Revision: 0b881b515eb1dcea974f0f5c1b40da03d42af9cf
Native version: native code unavailable
Running on: /10.0.0.121, 8 cpu(s), x86_64 Mac OS X 10.10.5
Communications version: 65
Process ID: 41795
User: jblum
Current dir: /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Home dir: /Users/jblum
Command Line Parameters:
  -ea
  -Dspring.profiles.active=
  -javaagent:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 17 CE.app/Contents/lib/idea_rt.jar=62866:/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 17 CE.app/Contents/bin
  -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
Class Path:
  /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_152.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/lib/charsets.jar
  ...
Library Path:
  /Users/jblum/Library/Java/Extensions
  /Library/Java/Extensions
  /Network/Library/Java/Extensions
  /System/Library/Java/Extensions
  /usr/lib/java
  .
System Properties:
    PID = 41795
  ...
[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.045 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Startup Configuration:
 ### GemFire Properties defined with api ###
disable-auto-reconnect=true
jmx-manager=true
jmx-manager-port=1099
jmx-manager-start=true
jmx-manager-update-rate=2000
log-level=config
mcast-port=0
name=SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
start-locator=localhost[10334]
use-cluster-configuration=false
### GemFire Properties using default values ###
ack-severe-alert-threshold=0
...

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.090 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Starting peer location for Distribution Locator on localhost/127.0.0.1

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.093 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Starting Distribution Locator on localhost/127.0.0.1

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.094 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Locator was created at Sun Jun 24 21:42:30 PDT 2018

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.094 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Listening on port 10334 bound on address localhost/127.0.0.1

...

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.685 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Initializing region _monitoringRegion_10.0.0.121<v0>1024

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:30.688 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Initialization of region _monitoringRegion_10.0.0.121<v0>1024 completed

...

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:31.570 PDT <main> tid=0x1] CacheServer Configuration:   port=40404 max-connections=800 max-threads=0 notify-by-subscription=true socket-buffer-size=32768 maximum-time-between-pings=60000 maximum-message-count=230000 message-time-to-live=180 eviction-policy=none capacity=1 overflow directory=. groups=[] loadProbe=ConnectionCountProbe loadPollInterval=5000 tcpNoDelay=true

[info 2018/06/24 21:42:31.588 PDT <main> tid=0x1] Started SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication in 3.77 seconds (JVM running for 5.429)

You can now connect to this server by using Gfsh:

Example 245. Connect with Gfsh
$ echo $GEMFIRE
/Users/jblum/pivdev/apache-geode-1.2.1
jblum-mbpro-2:lab jblum$
jblum-mbpro-2:lab jblum$ gfsh
    _________________________     __
   / _____/ ______/ ______/ /____/ /
  / /  __/ /___  /_____  / _____  /
 / /__/ / ____/  _____/ / /    / /
/______/_/      /______/_/    /_/    1.2.1

Monitor and Manage Apache Geode

gfsh>connect
Connecting to Locator at [host=localhost, port=10334] ..
Connecting to Manager at [host=10.0.0.121, port=1099] ..
Successfully connected to: [host=10.0.0.121, port=1099]


gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:41795)<ec><v0>:1024


gfsh>describe member --name=SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Name        : SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication
Id          : 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:41795)<ec><v0>:1024
Host        : 10.0.0.121
Regions     :
PID         : 41795
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 184M
Max Heap    : 3641M
Working Dir : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Log file    : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Locators    : localhost[10334]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 40404
Running                  : true
Client Connections       : 0

Now you can run additional servers to scale-out your cluster.

To do so, you must vary the name of the members you add to your cluster as peers. Apache Geode requires members in a cluster to be named and for the names of each member in the cluster to be unique.

Additionally, since we are running multiple instances of our SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication class, which also embeds a CacheServer component enabling cache clients to connect. Therefore, you must vary the ports used by the embedded services.

Fortunately, you do not need to run another embedded Locator or Manager (you need only one of each in this case). Therefore, you can switch profiles from non-clustered to using the Spring "clustered" profile, which includes different configuration (the ClusterConfiguration class) to connect another server as a peer member in the cluster, which currently has only one member, as shown in Gfsh with the list members command (shown earlier).

To add another server, set the member name and CacheServer port to different values with the following run configuration:

Example 246. Run profile configuration for server 2
-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active=clustered -Dspring.data.gemfire.name=ServerTwo -Dspring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port=41414

Notice that we explicitly activated the "clustered" Spring profile, which enables the configuration provided in the nested ClusteredConfiguration class while disabling the configuration provided in the LonerConfiguration class.

The ClusteredConfiguration class is also annotated with @UseLocators, which sets the Apache Geode locators property to "localhost[10334]". By default, it assumes that the Locator runs on localhost, listening on the default Locator port of 10334. You can adjust your locators connection endpoint if your Locators run elsewhere in your network by using the locators attribute of the @UseLocators annotation.

In production environments, it is common to run multiple Locators in separate processes. Running multiple Locators provides redundancy in case a Locator fails. If all Locators in your cluster fail, then your cluster will continue to run, but no other members will be able to join the cluster, which is important when scaling out the cluster. Clients also will not be able to connect. Restart the Locators if this happens.

Also, we set the spring.data.gemfire.name property to ServerTwo, adjusting the name of our member when it joins the cluster as a peer.

Finally, we set the spring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port property to 41414 to vary the CacheServer port used by ServerTwo. The default CacheServer port is 40404. If we had not set this property before starting ServerTwo, we would have encounter a java.net.BindException.

Both spring.data.gemfire.name and spring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port are well-known properties used by SDG to dynamically configure Apache Geode with a Spring Boot application.properties file or by using Java System properties. You can find these properties in the annotation Javadoc in SDG’s annotation-based configuration model. For example, see the Javadoc for the spring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port property. Most SDG annotations include corresponding properties that can be defined in Spring Boot application.properties, which is explained in detail in the documentation.

After starting our second server, ServerTwo, we should see output similar to the following at the command-line and in Gfsh when we again list members and describe member:

Example 247. Gfsh output after starting server 2
gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:41795)<ec><v0>:1024
ServerTwo                                   | 10.0.0.121(ServerTwo:41933)<v1>:1025


gfsh>describe member --name=ServerTwo
Name        : ServerTwo
Id          : 10.0.0.121(ServerTwo:41933)<v1>:1025
Host        : 10.0.0.121
Regions     :
PID         : 41933
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 165M
Max Heap    : 3641M
Working Dir : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Log file    : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Locators    : localhost[10334]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 41414
Running                  : true
Client Connections       : 0

When we list the members of the cluster, we see ServerTwo, and when we describe ServerTwo, we see that its CacheServer port is appropriately set to 41414.

We can add one more server, ServerThree, by using the following run configuration:

Example 248. Add server three to our cluster
-server -ea -Dspring.profiles.active=clustered -Dspring.data.gemfire.name=ServerThree -Dspring.data.gemfire.cache.server.port=42424

We again see similar output at the command-line and in Gfsh:

Example 249. Gfsh output after starting server 3
gfsh>list members
                   Name                     | Id
------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication | 10.0.0.121(SpringBootApacheGeodeCacheServerApplication:41795)<ec><v0>:1024
ServerTwo                                   | 10.0.0.121(ServerTwo:41933)<v1>:1025
ServerThree                                 | 10.0.0.121(ServerThree:41965)<v2>:1026


gfsh>describe member --name=ServerThree
Name        : ServerThree
Id          : 10.0.0.121(ServerThree:41965)<v2>:1026
Host        : 10.0.0.121
Regions     :
PID         : 41965
Groups      :
Used Heap   : 180M
Max Heap    : 3641M
Working Dir : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Log file    : /Users/jblum/pivdev/spring-boot-data-geode/spring-geode-docs/build
Locators    : localhost[10334]

Cache Server Information
Server Bind              :
Server Port              : 42424
Running                  : true
Client Connections       : 0

Congratulations. You have just started a small Apache Geode cluster with 3 members by using Spring Boot from inside your IDE.

Now you can build and run a Spring Boot, Apache Geode ClientCache application that connects to this cluster. To do so, include and use Spring Boot for Apache Geode.

Testing

Spring Test for Apache Geode (STDG) is a relatively new project to help you write both unit and integration tests when you use Apache Geode in a Spring context. In fact, the entire test suite in Spring Boot for Apache Geode is based on this project.

All Spring projects that integrate with Apache Geode will use this new test framework for all their testing needs, making this new test framework for Apache Geode a proven and reliable solution for all your Apache Geode application testing needs when using Spring as well.

In future versions, this reference guide will include an entire chapter on testing along with samples. In the meantime, look to the STDG README.

Examples

The definitive source of truth on how to best use Spring Boot for Apache Geode is to refer to the samples.

See also the Temperature Service, Spring Boot application that implements a temperature sensor and monitoring, Internet of Things (IOT) example. The example uses SBDG to showcase Apache Geode CQ, function implementations and executions, and positions Apache Geode as a caching provider in Spring’s Cache Abstraction. It is a working, sophisticated, and complete example, and we highly recommend it as a good starting point for real-world use cases.

See the Boot example from the contact application reference implementation (RI) for Spring Data for Apache Geode (SDG) as yet another example.

References

  1. Spring Framework Reference Guide | Javadoc

  2. Spring Boot Reference Guide | Javadoc

  3. Spring Data Commons Reference Guide | Javadoc

  4. Spring Data for Apache Geode Reference Guide | Javadoc

  5. Spring Session for Apache Geode Reference Guide | Javadoc

  6. Spring Test for Apache Geode README

  7. Apache Geode User Guide | Javadoc