Concurrency problem

[kain1981]

Hi,

I am using JBoss Cache in a cluster environment.
From the different PCs within the cluster, the following code is called:

1. get some X from the cache
2. update X (for example, X++)
3. put the updated X back to the cache
4. return X to the client

What I see is when this code is called repeatedly and simultenously from
different PCs, the returned X is sometimes the same as the one on
another PC!

The code is being called from a stateless session bean. Playing with
TransactionAttribute I sometimes got org.jboss.cache.lock.UpgradeException,
sometimes the situation described above.

Here is some of the cache settings:

<attribute name="TransactionManagerLookupClass">org.jboss.cache.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</attribute>
<attribute name="IsolationLevel">SERIALIZABLE</attribute>
<attribute name="NodeLockingScheme">PESSIMISTIC</attribute>
<attribute name="CacheMode">REPL_SYNC</attribute>

How should I achieve data integrity using TreeCache?

[manik]

JBC does not acquite cluster-wide locks. These are only done when a tx is committing.

Try this:

boolean doSomething()
{
 int X = -1;
 while (X == -1)
 {
 try
 {
 X = getX();
 }
 catch (RollbackException e)
 {
 X = -1;
 }
 }
 return X;
}

int getX()
{
 // start a new tx here.
 Integer X = (Integer) cache.get(fqn, key);
 X++;
 cache.put(fqn, key, X);
 // commit tx here.
 return X;
}

[kain1981]

Thanks a lot for the explanation!

What if I implement getX() as a stateless session bean method? Can I use container
transaction in here instead of declare them programatically (tx.commit() etc)?
If yes, what transaction attribute should be used?

Another question is - can I tune somehow this method to make automatically
all this stuff with while, try and catch? I think it's not good to write it
every time I need interacting with the cache. Maybe you can advise something.

Thanks!

[manik]

Retrying on tx failure needs to be on a case by case basis. Not all cache operations *should* be retried on tx failure. It depends on your app.

Yes, you can use your app server's transaction attribs. REQUIRES_NEW to create the tx, but you will have to commit it yourself.