Creating Hash Indexes

This topic explains how to create a hash index for queries in VMware Tanzu GemFire.

Hash indexes are deprecated.

Tanzu GemFire supports the creation of hash indexes for the purpose of performing equality-based queries.

Hash Index Performance

The performance of put operations and recovery time when using a hash index will be worse than a range index. Queries are expected to be slower due to the implementation of the hash index and the cost of recalculating the key on request. A hash index can improve the memory usage of the index. So, the trade-off of the hash index space savings must be weighed against the performance penalty it imposes. If memory usage is not a concern, a range index is recommended.

Consider the memory usage when an index contains string fields. Copies of the strings are included in the index. With hash indexes, indexed expressions are canonicalized and stored in the index as pointers to the objects residing in the region, thereby using less memory. Tests achieved as high as a 30% reduction in memory footprint, but the savings depend on the keys and data being used.

Performance Considerations

Limitations

The following limitations must be considered when creating hash indexes:

• You can only use hash indexes with equals and not equals queries.
• Hash index maintenance will be slower than the other indexes due to synchronized add methods.
• Hash indexes cannot be maintained asynchronously. If you attempt to create a hash index on a region with asynchronous set as the maintenance mode, an exception will be thrown.
• You cannot use hash indexes for queries with multiple iterators or nested collections.
• Using a hash index will degrade put operation performance and recovery time substantially. If memory is not a concern, use a range index instead of a hash index.

Examples of Creating a Hash Index

Hash indexes are deprecated.

Using the Java API:

QueryService qs = cache.getQueryService();
qs.createHashIndex("myHashIndex", "mktValue", "/exampleRegion");

Using gfsh:

gfsh> create index --name=myHashIndex --expression=mktValue --region=/exampleRegion --type=hash

Using cache.xml:

<region name=exampleRegion>
  <region-attributes ...>
  </region-attributes>
  <index name="myHashIndex" from-clause="/exampleRegion p" expression="p.mktValue" type="hash"/>
  ...
</region>