Question

my projects deals with a client / server structure where the clients provide status information via a soap interface in a periodically way. every request (1 per minuete) contains a complex stucture of stat us data.

status information is used by many views and instead fetching the information each time from database i store the data in a sychronized list.

are there better caching techniques in grails? are sychronized lists a good solution?

Answer 1

This seems more like a generalized question so I’ll provide some generalized thoughts form my own experience.

Are there better caching techniques in grails? are sychronized lists a good solution?

There may be several layers of cache depending on what your dealing with. I don’t believe bare-bones grails itself caches anything with regard to your question however; there are configurable options and plugins that allow you to cache everything from queries, domain classes, service calls, page fragment, images, css and just about everything else. Not to mention your database and other layers may have their own cache options.

Having said that I would avoid using your own caching techniques unless your dealing with a very specific issue where you know you can perform better than a more generic approach like a second level cache (ie EHCache).

If you do roll your own cache you’ll want to be aware of everything else that might be caching the same content as well. Caching a cached object form a cached query is a tough one to debug.

If performance is your concern you should always do some bench marking before you change anything. To truly get the best performance out of anything you’ll need to understand how it works. Grails, hibernate and spring work together on performance and this isn’t anything I can put in few sentences but there are plugins that can help you understand what is going on beyond the scenes like JavaMelody.

Lastly, if you already built something that works and everyone’s happy don’t break it. 🙂