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What is Hazelcast?

What is Hazelcast?

Hazelcast is an open-source in-memory computing platform that provides a distributed data grid, cache, and streaming engine. Its real-time capabilities allow businesses to handle large-scale data processing with low latency. Hazelcast can be deployed on cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environments, making it flexible for a wide range of use cases. Its architecture supports both event-driven applications and high-performance data operations, ensuring fast and reliable data access.

What is Hazelcast Used For?

Hazelcast is primarily used for in-memory data storage, distributed caching, and real-time analytics. It’s ideal for applications that require fast data access, such as web applications, microservices architectures, and IoT platforms. Additionally, Hazelcast can be integrated with traditional databases to boost their performance by reducing query times through caching. Enterprises use Hazelcast for tasks like distributed transaction processing, session clustering, and stream processing.

How Does Hazelcast Improve Performance?

Hazelcast boosts performance through in-memory data processing, eliminating the need for slow disk-based storage operations. Its distributed architecture enables horizontal scaling, ensuring consistent low-latency performance as your data workload increases. Hazelcast also supports automatic data partitioning, enabling efficient parallel data processing across multiple nodes, which optimizes resource usage and improves system performance.

Is Hazelcast Better than Traditional Caching Solutions?

Hazelcast outperforms traditional caching solutions by providing additional capabilities like distributed data management, high availability, and fault tolerance. While traditional caches often function as standalone systems, Hazelcast integrates seamlessly with existing applications to provide a unified in-memory data platform. Its ability to scale horizontally and support complex data structures, such as maps and queues, makes it a preferred choice for enterprises seeking enhanced caching and data grid solutions.

Hazelcast is popular due to its scalability, speed, and support for multiple deployment environments. Whether deployed on cloud infrastructure, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment, Hazelcast offers consistent performance and resilience. Its easy-to-use API, combined with its ability to handle high-throughput data operations, makes Hazelcast attractive to developers and enterprises looking for robust data management solutions.

Hazelcast vs. Redis: Which Should You Choose?

While both Hazelcast and Redis are used for in-memory data storage, they have different strengths. Redis is widely known for its simplicity and ease of use for basic caching tasks, while Hazelcast excels in complex distributed computing environments. Hazelcast’s native support for distributed data grids, real-time stream processing, and automatic data replication across nodes sets it apart. If you need a more comprehensive in-memory solution, Hazelcast is often the better option.

Can Hazelcast Be Self-Hosted?

Yes, Hazelcast offers self-hosting capabilities, making it an ideal choice for organizations that prefer to manage their infrastructure. This flexibility allows businesses to control how and where their data is stored while benefiting from Hazelcast’s distributed computing features. Whether you’re deploying Hazelcast on-premises, in the cloud, or on Kubernetes, you maintain full control over your environment.

Key facts about Hazelcast

Hazelcast Performance Tuning

To optimize Hazelcast performance, ensure that you properly configure your cluster for your specific workload. Key strategies include optimizing partition size, leveraging data replication for fault tolerance, and tuning network and memory settings. Hazelcast also offers built-in monitoring and management tools, enabling you to monitor cluster health, detect bottlenecks, and fine-tune configurations for maximum performance.

Hazelcast Cost Optimization

To reduce costs with Hazelcast, focus on optimizing resource allocation and deployment strategies. Hazelcast’s elastic scalability allows you to expand or contract your infrastructure based on demand, ensuring efficient resource usage. You can also minimize hardware costs by using Hazelcast’s data compression features and enabling data offloading to less expensive storage when applicable.

Can Hazelcast Run on Kubernetes?

Yes, Hazelcast integrates seamlessly with Kubernetes, providing a flexible and scalable solution for modern cloud-native applications. By running Hazelcast on Kubernetes, you can leverage Kubernetes’ orchestration capabilities for automatic scaling, failover, and high availability. This deployment model ensures that your Hazelcast clusters can handle dynamic workloads efficiently in containerized environments.

Hazelcast Pricing

Hazelcast offers an open-source edition that is free to use, but it also provides an enterprise version with additional features like advanced security, management tools, and 24/7 support. Pricing for Hazelcast’s enterprise edition is typically based on the number of nodes in the cluster and the specific features required. For detailed pricing information, refer to Hazelcast’s official website.

Hazelcast Storage Pricing

Hazelcast uses in-memory data storage, which can be more expensive than traditional disk-based storage due to the cost of RAM. However, Hazelcast provides cost-effective storage solutions by enabling data offloading to external databases and distributed storage systems like Amazon S3. By combining in-memory speed with cloud-based storage, Hazelcast ensures a balance between performance and cost efficiency.

Hazelcast on Kubernetes

Running Hazelcast on Kubernetes allows organizations to deploy and scale a robust, in-memory data grid in cloud-native environments. Hazelcast’s architecture, when deployed with Kubernetes, enables each Java virtual machine (JVM) instance to operate as a pod, creating a distributed and resilient data grid. Kubernetes’ StatefulSets provide stable network identities and persistent volume claims (PVCs), which ensure Hazelcast can manage and replicate data efficiently across pods. Hazelcast’s seamless integration with Kubernetes also supports dynamic scaling, automatic failover, and load balancing, making it ideal for applications requiring high-throughput, low-latency data operations​.

Why simplyblock for Hazelcast?

For Hazelcast users running workloads on Kubernetes, simplyblock offers a storage solution specifically designed to meet the demands of high-speed, distributed data grids. With NVMe-over-Fabrics technology, simplyblock provides ultra-low latency and high throughput storage, allowing Hazelcast to perform at optimal levels even under intensive data loads. The simplyblock architecture supports thin provisioning, reducing storage costs by allocating only the capacity actively needed, which is essential for dynamic, large-scale deployments. Additionally, features like write-ahead logging and point-in-time recovery enhance data integrity, ensuring that Hazelcast’s in-memory data remains resilient against incidents​​​​.

Why Choose simplyblock for Hazelcast?

simplyblock’s seamless integration with Kubernetes, using the simplyblock CSI driver, enables automated storage provisioning and management for Hazelcast instances. This compatibility allows Hazelcast to leverage simplyblock’s tiered storage model, which places frequently accessed data on high-speed NVMe storage while offloading colder data to cost-efficient layers, achieving substantial savings on storage expenses. simplyblock’s multi-attach capability also enhances high availability, allowing multiple Hazelcast pods to access a single storage volume, reducing redundancy and supporting fault tolerance. With simplyblock’s built-in compression, encryption, and snapshot options, Hazelcast deployments on Kubernetes gain a flexible, secure, and efficient storage foundation for enterprise-scale data processing​​​.

How to Optimize Hazelcast Cost and Performance with simplyblock?

simplyblock’s advanced storage features optimize both cost and performance for Hazelcast on Kubernetes. By supporting NVMe-backed storage and tiered architecture, simplyblock reduces latency and provides the high IOPS needed for real-time data processing. The tiered storage approach allows up to 80% savings on storage costs, while NVMe over TCP ensures minimal latency, making it an ideal solution for Hazelcast’s high-speed data grid needs. Thin provisioning further optimizes costs by charging only for utilized storage, reducing overhead for large-scale deployments.

simplyblock also includes additional features such as instant snapshots (full and incremental), copy-on-write clones, thin provisioning, compression, encryption, and many more – in short, there are many ways in which simplyblock can help you optimize your cloud costs. Get started using simplyblock right now, and if you are on AWS, find us on the AWS Marketplace.