VMware vFabric GemFire
Elastic In-Memory Data Management

Overview:

VMware vFabric™ GemFire® provides fast, secure, reliable and scalable access to data in support of modern enterprise and cloud applications. A core component of the VMware vFabric Cloud Application Platform, GemFire enables the delivery of high performance applications that are data rich and continuously available regardless of the number of end-users being served. As modern applications have become increasingly Weboriented, data-intensive and inherently more dynamic in nature, the need for modern approaches to data management has evolved. While first-generation Web applications could tolerate time-consuming round-trips to store and retrieve data from a database, newer applications require a different approach, one that is both ideally suited to this new generation of applications but also one that contemplates deployment on top of virtual infrastructure.

GemFire provides the data management capabilities of a database with the performance that only in-memory can provide. It is ideally suited for the needs of modern applications that require real-time access to data and the ability to solve some of the most complex data challenges in the world.

• Lightning fast, highly available and scalable data access for modern applications—run your applications 4–40 times faster
• Parallel data execution for extremely high throughput
• Engineered for low latency
• Data replication across nodes and clusters for high availability
• Reliable event notifications—as data changes, applications automatically updated
• Continuous querying updates results with predictably low latency
• "Shared nothing" disk persistence ensures disk failure on one node does not result in data loss
• Data sharing between Java, C++ and C# based applications
• WAN scaling while preserving performance, reliability and data consistency

VMware vFabric Cloud Application Platform

Key Features:

Bypass high database transaction costs derived from spent CPU cycles, network traffic, database access latency and more by managing data in-memory with GemFire.

Developer Productivity

• Re-engineered APIs simplify development; quickstart programming examples included
• Declaratively configure GemFire data infrastructure from Spring with minimal effort connecting secure, reliable and scalable data to enterprise applications
• Built-in exception handling traverses GemFire to Spring for consistency and can be applied transparently
• Integration with the popular Spring Framework transaction management capabilities makes writing and supporting transactional enterprise applications fast, secure, reliable and scalable
• Hibernate Cache Module provides fast, scalable, distributed L2 caching for applications leverging Hibernate Objectrelational Mapping

Database-like Persistence

• "Shared Nothing" parallel disk persistence combines high performance at scale with cluster-wide high availability and sophisticated failure handling
• Synchronous read-through, write-through, or Asynchronous write-behind to backend data sources
• Continuous query support – automatically update applications with data from memory, no roundtrips to a database

Cloud Scale and Operational Efficiency

• Dynamic data partitioning across the system evens out load to enable high scale
• Co-located transactions, 2-3 times higher performance for thin clients
• Wide Area Networking (WAN) support scales across remote sites
• Several management options are available, including a command-line utility, a Java Management Extensions (JMX) Agent, and GFMon, a graphical user interface monitoring tool
• HTTP Session Management Module offloads and manages HTTP session state for tc Server or Tomcat servers. Pre-configured and automatically launching with tc Server, GemFire HTTP Session Management provides high performance and scalability for web applications with high user loads or very large sessions.

Deployment Options

• GemFire runs on a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in 32-bit and 64-bit mode on Windows, Linux and Solaris.
• Client nodes running C++, C# .Net and Java are supported.
• GemFire supports peer-to-peer, client/server, and multi-site (WAN) architectures.

How To Buy:

VMware vFabric GemFire is a distributed data management platform. GemFire is designed for many diverse data management situations, but is especially useful for high-volume, latency-sensitive, mission-critical, transactional systems.

GemFire is deployed in production serving a variety of use cases including distributed object caching, session state replication and management in Java environments, a distributed data and event management layer for Event Driven Architectures, continuous analytics, and more.

VMware vFabric GemFire is deployed in support of three topologies: peer-to-peer cache network, client-server, and wide-area cache network. There are four key GemFire offerings to consider:

• Application Cache Node – supports basic peer-to-peer caching
• Data Management Node – supports client-server caching network with rich data management features
• Global WAN Upgrade – supports wide area caching network, is an option to Data Management Node
• Unlimited Client Upgrade – provides unlimited clients to each Data Management Node

Pricing is perpetual and per physical CPU, up to 6 cores. Note GemFire Application Cache Node is also availabe on virtual systems, per VM up to 2 vCPUs via vFabric Standard and vFabric Advanced

Application Cache Node
The Application Cache Node enables any Java, C++, or C# application to access, interact with, and register interest in data managed by a Data Management Node. Application Cache Nodes can also be embedded within a Java application server’s process to provide HTTP session replication or Hibernate L2 object caching with eviction expiry and overflow to disk.

Data Management Node
Data Management Node is required for client-server caching and require Application Cache Nodes to be purchased as clients. Data Management Nodes offers full server functionality and supports large numbers of clients and scalability. In addition to Java clients, Data Management Nodes also support C++ and C# clients (currently not available for peer-to-peer caching networks).

Global WAN Upgrade
Global WAN Upgrade is needed to connect Data Management Nodes together when you have multiple geographical regions. Global WAN Upgrade must be applied to all Data Management Nodes in a data grid.

Unlimited Client Upgrade
Unlimited Client Upgrade is a cost effective way to meet the needs of high client topologies. Purchasing the Unlimited Client Upgrade for a each Data Management Node provides unlimited client connectivity to that Data Management Node (as opposed to purchasing Application Cache Nodes one by one).

Support:

VMware Production Support & Subscription

Technical Support, 24 Hour Sev 1 Support -- 7 days a week.

Focused, 24-Hour Support For Production Environments

• Global, 24x7 support for Severity 1 issues
• Fast response times for critical issues
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Production Support is designed with your production environments in mind. Our global support centers are staffed around the clock to provide you access to our industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

VMware Basic Support & Subscription Service

Technical Support, 12 Hours/Day, per published Business Hours, Mon. thru Fri.

Weekday Support for Test, Dev and Non-Critical Deployments

• Global, 12x5 access to support
• Unlimited number of support requests
• Remote Support
• Online access to documentation and technical resources, knowledge base, discussion forums
• Product updates and upgrades

Overview

VMware Basic Support is designed for non-critical applications and platforms that require support during normal business hours. Our global support centers have been strategically placed to provide you with fast and efficient access to the support center in your region. Each center is staffed with engineers that can provide industry-leading expertise in virtualization and years of experience supporting virtual infrastructure products in real-world customer environments. We are committed to delivering enterprise-class, worldwide support with a single objective in mind: your success.

Feature	Production Support	Basic Support
Hours of Operation	24 Hrs/Day 7 Days/Wk 365 Days/Yr 1	12 Hrs/Day Mon–Fri 1
Length of Service	1 or 3 Years	1 or 3 Years
Product Updates	Yes	Yes
Product Upgrades	Yes	Yes
Products Supported	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)	All Products (excluding VMware Fusion and Player)
Method of Access	Telephone/ Web	Telephone/ Web
Response Method	Telephone/ Email	Telephone/ Email
Remote Support	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Web site	Yes	Yes
Access to VMware Discussion Forums and Knowledge Base	Yes	Yes
Max Number of Support Admins per Contract	6	4
Number of Support Requests	Unlimited	Unlimited
Target Response Times Critical (Severity 1 Major (Severity 2) Minor (Severity 3) Cosmetic (Severity 4)	30 minutes or less: 24x7 4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours	4 business hours 8 business hours 12 business hours 12 business hours
Business Hours North America and Latin America Alaska, Hawaii South America (NASA) Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA Asia, Pacific Rim, Japan (APJ) Australia/New Zealand	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)	Monday - Friday 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (local time zone) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT) 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (EST/EDT) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (GMT/GMT+1) 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Singapore Time) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Sydney AET)

1Hours of operation for Gemstone are Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (PST/PDT) globally.
1Hours of operation for VMware Go Pro and vCenter Protect products are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (CST/CDT), except holidays.
1Hours of operation for VMware IT Business Management and IT Financial Management are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (EST/EDT/GMT) except holidays.
1Hours of operation for Socialcast are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (PST/PDT).

Documentation:

Download the VMware vFabric GemFire Datasheet (PDF).