Regarding SYNCH/ASYNCH, consider the following in conjunction with my psuedo code, I am being concerned with the notion of an intention lock throughout the cluster. Consider: 1) readFromCache() 2) recv replication of data 3) read from db (because #1 returned null) 4) put into cache To me #2 needs to happen as early as possible in the process. Although perhaps I am being a bit pessimistic. Not sure; would need to think through it in more detail. Was more questioning why *that* decision was made as it seemed to not come from the previous discussions. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3977570#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...