11 Specifying a Custom Eviction Policy

The LocalCache class is used for size-limited caches. It is used both for caching on-heap objects (as in a local cache or the front portion of a near cache) and as the backing map for a partitioned cache. Applications can provide custom eviction policies for use with a LocalCache.

Note that Coherence's default eviction policy is very effective for most workloads; the majority of applications will not need to provide a custom policy. Generally, it is best to restrict the use of eviction policies to scenarios where the evicted data is present in a backing system (that is, the back portion of a near cache or a database). Eviction should be treated as a physical operation (freeing memory) and not a logical operation (deleting an entity).

Example 11-1 shows the implementation of a simple custom eviction policy:

Example 11-1 Implementing a Custom Eviction Policy

import com.tangosol.net.cache.CacheEvent;
import com.tangosol.net.cache.LocalCache;
import com.tangosol.net.cache.OldCache;
import com.tangosol.util.AbstractMapListener;
import com.tangosol.util.MapEvent;

import java.util.Iterator;

public class MyEvictionPolicy extends AbstractMapListener implements OldCache.EvictionPolicy
    {
    LocalCache m_cache = null;

    public void entryInserted(MapEvent evt)
        {
        System.out.println("entryInserted:" + isSynthetic(evt) + evt);
        if (m_cache == null)
            {
            m_cache = (LocalCache) evt.getMap();
            }
        }

    public void entryUpdated(MapEvent evt)
        {
        System.out.println("entryUpdated:" + isSynthetic(evt) + evt);
        }

    public void entryDeleted(MapEvent evt)
        {
        System.out.println("entryDeleted:" + isSynthetic(evt) + evt);
        }

    String isSynthetic(MapEvent evt)
        {
        // synthetic events are caused by internal processing - eviction or loading
        return ((CacheEvent) evt).isSynthetic() ? " SYNTHETIC " : " ";
        }

    public void entryTouched(OldCache.Entry entry)
        {
        System.out.println("entryTouched:" + entry.getKey());
        }

    public void requestEviction(int cMaximum)
        {
        int cCurrent = m_cache.getUnits();
        System.out.println("requestEviction: current:" + cCurrent + " to:" + cMaximum);

        //
        // ... eviction policy calculations ...
        //
        for (Iterator iter = m_cache.entrySet().iterator(); iter.hasNext();)
            {
            OldCache.Entry entry = (OldCache.Entry) iter.next();
            if (m_cache.getUnits() > cMaximum)
                {
                m_cache.evict(entry.getKey());
                }
            else
                {
                break;
                }
            }
        }

    public MyEvictionPolicy()
        {
        }

    }

Example 11-2 illustrates a Coherence cache configuration file (coherence-cache-config.xml) with an eviction policy:

Example 11-2 Custom Eviction Policy in a coherence-cache-config.xml File

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE cache-config SYSTEM "cache-config.dtd">

<cache-config>
    <caching-scheme-mapping>
        <cache-mapping>
            <cache-name>test</cache-name>
            <scheme-name>example-near</scheme-name>
        </cache-mapping>
    </caching-scheme-mapping>

    <caching-schemes>
        <distributed-scheme>
            <scheme-name>example-distributed</scheme-name>
            <service-name>DistributedCache</service-name>

            <backing-map-scheme>
                <local-scheme>
                    <scheme-ref>example-backing-map</scheme-ref>
                </local-scheme>
            </backing-map-scheme>

            <autostart>true</autostart>
        </distributed-scheme>

        <near-scheme>
            <scheme-name>example-near</scheme-name>

            <front-scheme>
                <local-scheme>
                    <eviction-policy>
                        <class-scheme>
                            <class-name>MyEvictionPolicy</class-name>
                        </class-scheme>
                    </eviction-policy>
                    <high-units>10</high-units>
                </local-scheme>
            </front-scheme>

            <back-scheme>
                <distributed-scheme>
                    <scheme-ref>example-distributed</scheme-ref>
                </distributed-scheme>
            </back-scheme>

            <invalidation-strategy>all</invalidation-strategy>
            <autostart>true</autostart>
        </near-scheme>

        <local-scheme>
            <scheme-name>example-backing-map</scheme-name>
            <eviction-policy>HYBRID</eviction-policy>
            <high-units>{back-size-limit 0}</high-units>
            <expiry-delay>{back-expiry 1h}</expiry-delay>
            <flush-delay>1m</flush-delay>
            <cachestore-scheme></cachestore-scheme>
        </local-scheme>
    </caching-schemes>
</cache-config>