Spring: hibernate + ehcache

Question

I'm working with a spring project using hibernate and look to implement second-level cache using ehcache. I see a number of approaches to this:

1. spring-modules-cache which introduces the @Cacheable annotation

2. ehcache-spring-annotations a toolset which aims to be the successor of spring-modules-cache.

3. Hibernate cache is nicely integrated into hibernate itself to perform caching using e.g., the @Cache annotation.

4. Programmatic cache using proxies. Annotation based config quickly becomes either limited or complex (e.g., several levels of annotation nesting)

Personally I don't think spring-modules-cache is thorough enough, hence I would probably prefer consider the more actively developed ehcache-spring-annotations. Hibernate cache though seems to be most complete implementation (e.g., both read and write cache etc).

What would motivate which toolset to use? Please share your caching experience ...

Answer 1

Our project uses option 3. We apply annotation org.hibernate.annotations.Cache to entities that we cache in an Ehcache, configure Ehcache using ehcache.xml, and enable and configure the Hibernate second-level cache in hibernate.cfg.xml:

    <!-- Enable the second-level cache  -->
    <property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class">
        net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.EhCacheProvider
    </property>
    <property name="hibernate.cache.region.factory_class">
        net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.EhCacheRegionFactory
    </property>
    <property name="hibernate.cache.use_query_cache">true</property>
    <property name="hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache">true</property>
    <property name="hibernate.cache.use_structured_entries">true</property>     
    <property name="hibernate.cache.generate_statistics">true</property>

For most entities, we use cache concurrency strategy CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL:

@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.TRANSACTIONAL)

Our Maven project uses Hibernate 3.3.2GA and Ehcache 2.2.0:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
        <artifactId>ehcache-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.2.GA</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-commons-annotations</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.0.ga</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>net.sf.ehcache</groupId>
                <artifactId>ehcache</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-annotations</artifactId>
        <version>3.2.1.ga</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>ejb3-persistence</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.2.Beta1</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 2

Spring 3.1 has a new built-in cache abstraction. Read here.