BigMemory Max consists of a CacheManager, which manages logical data sets represented as Caches. A Cache object contains Elements, which are essentially name-value pairs. You can use Cache objects to hold any kind of data that you want to keep in memory, not just data that you want to cache.

Caches are physically implemented, either in-memory or on disk (or on a Terracotta Server Array if you are using distributed cache with BigMemory Max). The logical representations of these components are actualized mostly through the following classes:

These classes form the core of the Ehcache API used by BigMemory Max. The methods provided by these classes are largely responsible for providing programmatic access to a cache or in-memory data store.