[infinispan-dev] Baselining on Java 7

[Bela Ban]

On 5/24/13 6:07 PM, cotton-ben wrote:
> /> Besides NIO2 stuff, is there anything from 7 we want badly? /
>
> Yes.  In its version 7 release, Java introduces a Socket Direct Protocol
> capability.  For the first time ever, a Java API can accommodate a direct
> bridge to ultra-low-latency physical network providers like Infiniband
> (including access to native Infiniband VERBs).


Actually, this should work *without* changes to JGroups or Infinispan 
TODAY, if you use JDK 7. According to [1], all you'd have to do is to 
use a TCP based configuration, enable SDP sockets instead of TCP sockets 
through a system property and provide a config file listing the target 
addresses for which SDP sockets shoul be created.

I see that Socket and ServerSocket are already supported, so NIO2 is not 
even needed (from an API viewpoint).


> I know this is probably a very limited use case for you guys for right now,
> but, Java 7's SDP capability is a game changer.   Bela and I have exchanged
> musings about this potential to some-time being exposed through the
> Infinispan/JGroups API stack(
> https://community.jboss.org/message/810754#810754 ).  It is something you
> guys will definitely want to show case some day (btw, what is a more natural
> name marriage than "Infinispan on Infiniband" ?) and with Java 7 SDP
> capability you can start building that bridge now.

Unless I'm wrong above, it would be interesting to get some numbers on 
running Infinispan/JGroups over Infiniband using SDP sockets. Are you 
planning on doing this ?

I'm currently looking at reshuffling and re-prioritizing the JGroups 
roadmap, but I don't think JDK 7 will be used in a 4.0 release, possibly 
only in a 5.0 release... I'll blog about this shortly.

[1] http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/sdp/sockets/enable.html

-- 
Bela Ban, JGroups lead (http://www.jgroups.org)