Enterprise data grids use the eXtremeIO
transport mechanism and a new serialization format. With the new transport
and serialization format, you can connect both Java™ and .NET clients to the same data grid.
With the enterprise data grid, you can create
multiple types of applications, written in different programming languages,
to access the same objects in the data grid. In prior releases, data
grid applications had to be written in the Java programming language only. With the enterprise
data grid function, you can write .NET applications that can create,
retrieve, update, and delete objects from the same data grid as the Java application.
Figure 1. Enterprise
data grid high-level overview
Object updates across different applications
Figure 2. Enterprise data grid object update flow
The .NET client saves data in its format to the data grid.
The data is stored in a universal format, so that when the Java client requests this data it
can be converted to Java format.
The Java client updates
and re-saves the data.
The .NET client accesses the updated data, during which the data
is converted to .NET format.
Transport mechanism
eXtremeIO (XIO) is a cross-platform
transport protocol. XIO replaces the Java-bound Object Request Broker
(ORB). With the ORB, WebSphere® eXtreme Scale is
bound to Java native client
applications. XIO is a customized transport mechanism that is specifically
targeted for data caching and enables client applications that are
in different programming languages to connect to the data grid.
Serialization format
eXtreme data format
(XDF) is a cross-platform serialization format. XDF replaces Java serialization on maps that
have a copyMode attribute value of COPY_TO_BYTES in
the ObjectGrid descriptor XML file. With XDF, performance is faster
and data is more compact. In addition, the introduction of XDF enables
client applications that are in different programming languages to
connect to the same data grid.