Announcing Eclipse Data Grid for Distributed EclipseStore Applications

We have an absolutely monumental announcement to make today that will fundamentally change how you build high-performance, distributed Java applications and microservices with EclipseStore.

In his at JCON EUROPE 2025 in Cologne last week, Markus Kett, CEO at MicroStream, unveiled a groundbreaking new Eclipse open-source project: Eclipse Data Grid. This isn’t just another project; it’s the culmination of years of innovation, building upon the incredible foundation of EclipseStore and taking distributed data processing to unprecedented heights.

MicroStream Open-Sources Its Entire In-Memory Data Platform!

You already know that MicroStream made a monumental contribution to the Java ecosystem by transferring its Java-native persistence to the Eclipse Foundation, giving birth to the transformative EclipseStore project. Today, MicroStream takes an even bolder, more impactful stride.

MicroStream is immediately open-sourcing its entire MicroStream In-Memory Data Platform! This entire codebase will be transferred to the new Eclipse Data Grid project, along with a powerful library called GigaMap, which introduces advanced indexing and fully automated lazy-loading.

Eclipse Data Grid: The Full Stack, Pure Java In-Memory Powerhouse

Imagine a world where your applications and microservices leverage the ultimate speed and simplicity of pure Java for all their data processing needs. That world is now a reality with Eclipse Data Grid.

While EclipseStore provides the unparalleled Java-native persistence, enabling you to store native Java object-graphs without the need for a traditional database system (a true alternative to JPA/Hibernate and RDBMS!), Eclipse Data Grid is designed to be a powerful pure Java in-memory data processing layer.

Think of it as the ultimate accelerator, residing between your applications and any underlying primary database. Its core mission:

• Boost Slow Database Applications: Eliminate ORM bottlenecks!
• Reduce Load from Traditional Databases: Free up your expensive database resources.
• Provide Max In-Memory Data Processing Speed: Achieve microsecond-level look-up, response, and query times.
• Deliver the Simplicity and Power of Pure Java Programming: Work with familiar Java concepts, not complex mappings.

EclipseStore will be a dependency, adding its robust ACID-compliant persistence to Eclipse Data Grid, meaning Eclipse Data Grid will finally contain the entire stack. This makes it an incredibly powerful, comprehensive in-memory data platform for building distributed, ultra-fast in-memory database applications and microservices with pure Java.

What Eclipse Data Grid Brings to the Table

The Eclipse Data Grid Project Proposal outlines an incredible array of features and capabilities that are set to redefine in-memory data processing:

• True Java-Native In-Memory Data Processing: Deeply integrated with the Java language, leveraging core Java features and the native Java object model. No more impedance mismatch!
• Distributed Java Object Graph Model: Unlike traditional key-value stores, Eclipse Data Grid preserves Java’s object-oriented paradigm, replicating complex object graphs across your cluster.
• ACID Compliance in a Distributed Environment: Built on EclipseStore’s strong ACID properties, ensuring data consistency and reliability.
• Unparalleled Performance: Achieve microsecond-level read and write access to distributed data by fully leveraging the JVM’s runtime, memory management, and JIT compiler.
• Seamless Integration with Java Streams API: Efficient data searching, filtering, and manipulation right within your familiar Java Streams API.
• Powerful Lucene Integration: Get ready for advanced full-text search capabilities, making complex data querying a breeze.
• Intelligent Indexing & Automated Lazy-Loading (via GigaMap): Minimize I/O traffic and optimize data access with smart indexing and automatic lazy-loading.
• Replicate Java Object Graphs with Event Streaming: Distribute storage across multiple JVMs in a cluster via event streaming, with eventual consistency as the standard and configurable strong consistency coming soon.
• Kubernetes Integration: A dedicated Helm chart will simplify cluster creation, setup, and provisioning in cloud-native environments.
• Intuitive Management UI: A Java application with a graphical interface for easy cluster provisioning, maintenance, monitoring (with observability tools like Grafana, Prometheus), and troubleshooting.
• Highly Secure Serialization: Protection against deserialization attacks using Eclipse Serializer.
• Flexible Data Modeling: Define your data structures using any Java class (POJOs) for a truly customized and domain-driven approach.
• Support for Any Programming Language: A REST interface will enable access to Eclipse Data Grid from any programming language.
• Exploiting Core Java Features: Designed to leverage Virtual Threads, Java Memory Management, Concurrency Utilities, and other JVM internals for optimal performance.

Transformative Use Cases Across Industries:

Eclipse Data Grid is poised to revolutionize applications across a vast spectrum of use cases:

• High-Performance Caching: Drastically improve application performance and reduce database load.
• Real-Time Analytics: Enable instant data analysis and decision-making.
• Scalable Web Applications: Build highly responsive applications with distributed session and application state.
• Microservices Architectures: Provide a shared, distributed data layer for seamless microservice communication.
• Complex Event Processing: Process high-velocity data streams in real-time for fraud detection, algorithmic trading, and IoT.
• Online Gaming: Power real-time, multiplayer experiences with low-latency data access.
• E-commerce Applications: Handle high-volume transactions and personalize experiences with extreme speed.
• Financial Services & Healthcare: Support critical applications with real-time data access and processing.
• Database Optimization and Cost Reduction: Offload data processing from primary databases, leading to significant cost savings.

Strong Benefits

• Unparalleled Performance & Scalability: Microsecond-level data access and effortless horizontal scaling.
• Simplified Development: Build distributed applications with familiar Java concepts.
• Reduced Complexity & Lower Costs: Eliminate complex data mapping and potentially reduce database infrastructure expenses.
• Increased Reliability: ACID-compliant distributed transactions ensure data consistency.
• Faster Time to Market: Accelerate development with a ready-to-use, high-performance solution.
• Full Java Power: Implement any complex business logic directly in Java.
• Unified Data Layer: Handle diverse data needs (key-value, documents, graph-like) within a single system.

Roadmap:

• May 2025
  We have submitted the Eclipse Data Grid proposal describing the new Eclipse project. The proposal has been published on 21th of May 2025 by the Eclipse Foundation. The Eclipse Data Grid will base on the code-base of latest MicroStream In-Memory Data platform version. The code will be released as open-source under the EPL 2.0 license. Project proposal: https://projects.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-datagrid
• June 2025
  After the project has been accepted by the Eclipse Foundation, we have committed the entire code into the Eclipse Data Grid GitHub repository: https://github.com/microstream-one/eclipse-datagrid
  
  The new indexing concept as well as the new GigaMap will become open-source and be committed to the EclipseStore project, which is a feature and dependency of the new Eclipse Data Grid.

Join the Community!

By extending the power of EclipseStore and leveraging the core strengths of Java and the JVM, it empowers developers to build a new generation of high-performance, distributed, and incredibly fast data-intensive applications.

We invite the entire Eclipse community and the broader Java world to collaborate on shaping Eclipse Data Grid into a cornerstone of modern data processing with Java. This is more than just a project; it’s a movement towards simpler, faster, and more powerful distributed Java applications.

Stay tuned to eclipsestore.io for more updates, and prepare to embark on an exciting journey with Eclipse Data Grid! The future of in-memory data processing is here, and it’s pure Java.

Eclipse Data Grid project proposal:
https://projects.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-datagrid

License:
https://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-2.0/