Book Review: Getting Started with Hazelcast - Second Edition

I recently purchased an electronic version of the Second Edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast as part of the recent Packt Publishing Skill Up Promotion. The book, written by Mat Johns, has the subtitle, "Get acquainted with the highly scalable data grid, Hazelcast, and learn how to bring its powerful in-memory features into your application." The book consists of eleven chapters and an appendix spanning approximately 120 pages.

Preface

The Preface of Getting Started with Hazelcast (Second Edition) provides brief descriptions of a sentence or two each summarizing the contents of the book's eleven chapters and its appendix. The Preface states that Getting Started with Hazelcast is intended for "Java developers, software architects, or DevOps looking to enable scalable and agile data within their applications." It recommends that readers have access to a JDK (at least JDK 6 but preferably JDK 8), a Java IDE, and Maven.

Chapter 1: What is Hazelcast?

The relatively short initial chapter of the Second Edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast introduces Hazelcast after first explaining the need for it with multiple simple graphics. The chapter describes Hazelcast as more than a cache and as an "in-memory data grid that supports a number of distributed collections, processors, and features."

Chapter 2: Getting off the Ground

The second chapter of Getting Started with Hazelcast explains and illustrates downloading Hazelcast from hazelcast.org/download/. The specific version downloaded and used for purposes of the Second Edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast is Hazelcast 3.5 (hazelcast-3.5.jar).

Chapter 2 demonstrates using ConsoleApp to use the command line to interact with simple Java applications using Hazelcast and to demonstrate Hazelcast's support for automatically supporting multiple clustered nodes. Code listings and associated explanatory text in this chapter introduce HazelcastInstance, working with an instance of distributed Map provided by HazelcastInstance.getMap(String), working with a distributed instance of Set provided by HazelcastInstance.getSet(String), working with a concurrent, distributed List instance provided by HazelcastInstance.getList(String), working with a concurrent, blocking, and distributed queue provided by HazelcastInstance.getQueue(String), and working with a distributed multimap instance (many values associated with a single key) provided by HazelcastInstance.getMultiMap(String).

Getting Started with Hazelcast's second chapter discusses "using predefined indexes" to search Hazelcast maps in a method similar to search capabilities provided by databases. This section provides an example of using SqlPredicate and lists the "limited subset of SQL" supported by SqlPredicate. The section also introduces other implementations of the Predicate interface (PredicateBuilder and PagingPredicate).

Another section of the second chapter covers using the hazelcast.xml file to configure Hazelcast for map eviction and covers the parameters named hazelcast.xml such as max-size, eviction-policy, and eviction-percentage.

Chapter 3: Going Concurrent

Chapter 3 of Getting Started with Hazelcast begins with more description on Hazelcast's IMap and IQueue, how they extend ConcurrentMap and BlockingQueue respectively, and the implications of those extensions. The chapter also introduces Hazelcast's distributed locking, its "cluster-wide unique identifier generator" (IdGenerator) and its JMS-inspired broadcast messaging system.

Chapter 4: Divide and Conquer

Getting Started with Hazelcast's fourth chapter begins with the assertion that Hazelcast's "distributed nature" of its "data persistence" enables applications to "achieve high levels of reliability, scalability, and performance." The chapter discusses partitions across clusters, partitions backing each other up, scaling up the cluster by adding more nodes, acquiring and using a ReplicatedMap to ensure data is available on every node, using partition groups, merge policies (PassThroughMergePolicy, PutIfAbsentMapMergePolicy, HigherHitsMapMergePolicy, and LatestUpdateMapMergePolicy), and Hazelcast 3.5 cluster quorums.

Chapter 5: Listening Out

The fifth chapter of Getting Started with Hazelcast discusses using Hazelcast's distributed events and listeners. The chapter introduces "collection listeners" (EntryListener, ItemListener, MessageListener, QuorumListener) and "cluster listeners" (DistributedObjectListener, MembershipListener, LifecycleListener, and MigrationListener). After the listing and briefy introductions to each of these listeners, the chapter delves more deeply into how they are configured (XML and in Java code) and can be used.

Chapter 6: Spreading the Load

Chapter 6 of Getting Started with Hazelcast discusses how Hazelcast provides the "ability to share the computational power in the form of a distributed executor" and how this is useful for "applications that require a lot of computational and data processing power." The chapter includes examples of applying IExecutorService, PartitionAware, HazelcastInstanceAware, and EntryProcessor.

Chapter 7: Gathering Results

Getting Started with Hazelcast's seventh chapter is its "big data" chapter. This chapter opens with an explanation of why "big data has proven to be a bit of a trendy buzzword of late." Brief history and background of MapReduce is provided. I like the simple explanation and graphic used in this introductory discussion regarding MapReduce.

Chapter 7 moves from general MapReduce theory to discussion of the Hazelcast's MapReduce implementation. It demonstrates via examples use of Reducer, JobCompleteableFuture, and working with Hazelcast aggregations with Java SE 6 and much more concise JDK 8 syntax.

Chapter 8: Typical Deployments

The eighth chapter of Getting Started with Hazelcast discusses determining the proper deployment strategy with Hazelcast for different types of applications. The chapter talks about "separat[ing] our application from the data cluster" and introduces Hazelcast's DataSerializable interface. The chapter concludes with coverage of "various architectural setups" that are described briefly, illustrated with simple graphics, and discussed in terms of trade-offs (advantages and disadvantages of each approach).

Chapter 9: From the Outside Looking In

Chapter 9 of Getting Started with Hazelcast covers two approaches for interacting with Hazelcast for non-Java/non-JVM clients. The chapter introduces the Hazelcast Memcache Client and provides simple demonstrations of using it with Python and PHP. The ninth chapter also introduces Hazelcast's support for REST APIs.

Chapter 10: Going Global

The tenth chapter of Getting Started with Hazelcast looks at using Hazelcast in conjunction with cloud computing environments. The main focus of the chapter is on two alternate "mechanisms of cluster discovery" to IP multicast: manually controlled unicast configuration and discovery via Amazon AWS management APIs. These configurations are shown by example with changes to the hazelcast.xml XML file. The chapter also discusses how to "configure Hazelcast to push entries from our local cluster to a remote cluster by defining a Wide Area Network (WAN) replication policy."

Chapter 11: Playing Well with Others

The final chapter of Getting Started with Hazelcast discusses how "Hazelcast provides ... support to use and extend a few popularly used libraries" and how Hazelcast "provides implementations of standardized interfaces." The chapter demonstrates using Spring with Hazelcast (hazelcast-spring-3.5.jar) for dependency injection, using Hibernate with Hazelcast (hazelcasthibernate3-3.5.jar/hazelcasthibernate4-3.5.jar) for caching of "legacy applications," using Hazelcast as an implementation of the standard JCache API, using Hazelcast's Cluster Management Center (mancenter-3.5.war), and enabling Hazelcast JMX support.

Appendix: Configuration Summary

The appendix provides a single location reference of the various Hazelcast configuration examples presented in the book's chapters.

General Observations

• The author of Second Edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast, Mat Johns, is one of two currently highlighted Hazelcast Heroes. His "Hazelcast Cred" states, "Literally wrote the book on Hazelcast, entitled 'Getting Started with Hazelcast'."
• The title "Getting Started with Hazelcast" is appropriate for this book. It delivers on providing a good starting point for installing, configuring, and beginning to use Hazelcast.
  • A reader of this book will be well equipped in terms of concepts and vernacular to reference Mastering Hazelcast, the highly approachable Hazelcast documentation, and blogs and forums on Hazelcast with the background and context provided by this book.
  • Other than the Hazelcast Manual and Mastering Hazelcast (both of which are provided by Hazelcast), the only book I have found devoted to Hazelcast is Getting Started with Hazelcast.
  • I appreciate that Getting Started with Hazelcast covers using Hazelcast in different architectural setups and provides a narrative the shows how differente Hazelcast features or deployments can be used to address different needs. The book not only shows the semantics or mechanics of using Hazelcast, but it also discusses why one would choose to use Hazelcast in different ways in different situations.
• It's typically a good sign regarding a technical book's reception when there is more than one edition of that book. A quick browse of book reviews of the first edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast shows that this book has been generally well received.
  • The first edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast provides instructions on downloading and uses Hazelcast 2.6 for its examples while the second edition references Hazelcast 3.5.
  • The first edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast was published in August 2013 and this second edition was published in July 2015.
  • The second edition is roughly 20 pages lengthier than the first edition.
  • The second edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast adds three new chapters on trendy topics related to Hazelcast: 7 ("Gathering Results" / Big Data), 10 ("Going Global" / Cloud), and 11 ("Playing Well with Others" / Spring/Hibernate/JCache/JMX).
• Most of the graphics in Getting Started with Hazelcast are simple graphics with black font on white background, though there are a few graphics with color and a few color screen snapshots in the electronic version of the book.
• Code listings are black text on white background with no syntax color highlighting and no line numbers.
  • This was a more noticeable disadvantage when I was moving between the Hazelcast Manual, Mastering Hazelcast, and Getting Started with Hazelcast at the same time and the former two electronic publications have color-coded syntax.
• There were a few minor grammar errors and typos, but for the most part Getting Started with Hazelcast is written in a format that's easy to read and comprehend.
• I was happy to see coverage of JCache (JSR 107) in the second edition of Getting Started with Hazelcastr and to see brief mention of enabling Hazelcast's JMX support for monitoring.
• I would have liked to see a bit more discussion in Getting Started with Hazelcast regarding the differences between Hazelcast Enterprise and Hazelcast.

Conclusion

Overall, I can recommend the second edition of Getting Started with Hazelcast to prospective readers. My only reservation regarding recommendation of this book has nothing to do with any fault of the book, but rather is a result of the excellent Hazelcast documentation that is already available. The Hazelcast Documentation and Mastering Hazelcast are both excellent resources with the former more introductory and the latter more intermediate. It is worth noting that downloading Mastering Hazelcast does require providing one's name and an e-mail address. I personally found that Getting Started with Hazelcast provided a nice overview and background about Hazelcast and why it's important that enabled me to quickly use these additional resources as well.