Topology Types
Standalone – The data set is held in the application node. Any other application nodes are independent with no communication between them. If a standalone topology is used where there are multiple application nodes running the same application, then there is Weak Consistency between them. They contain consistent values for immutable data or after the time-to-live on an element has completed and the element needs to be reloaded.
Distributed – The data is held in a remote server (or array of servers) with a subset of recently used data held in each application node. This topology offers a rich set of consistency options.
A distributed topology is the recommended approach in a clustered or scaled-out application environment. It provides the highest level of performance, availability, and scalability. The distributed topology is available only with BigMemory Max.
Many production applications are deployed in clusters of multiple instances for availability and scalability. Without a distributed topology, application clusters will experience data drift, meaning that updates made to the data by one application does not appear in the other instances. This also happens to web session data. Using a distributed topology ensures that the data for all the application instances is kept in sync.