Cache components features comparison

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is how some of the open source components stand in terms of features.

Featues/Cache            EHCache   JCS   JBoss Cache


Multithreading Support   Yes       Yes   Yes

Memory Limit and Over    Yes       Yes   Yes

flow to Disk

Cache Eviction Policy    Yes       Yes   Yes

Notifies listening to    No        No    No

Database change

Updates the references   No        No    No

Distributed Cache        Yes       Yes   Yes

Shutdown and Restart     Yes       No    Yes

Replication over         No        No    Yes

machines

Asynchronous operations  Yes       No    Yes

Design Considerations

I wouldnt hesitate to wrap whatever the cache component I use in my project. Because, these little components often have the tendency to change drastically. If the component is too small, or sometimes too big, we may need to think, is it neccessary to wrap. For an example, Log4j, I wouldnt wrap, rather decide to live with it. For big component, databases such as Oracle, you may decide to live with it and do not bother to consider the alternative and code accordingly. But not with these cache components. Your project should be able to embrace a new change or new cache component for that matter.