Problem Scenarios

These scenarios describe processes and implementations that should be avoided when using the AppDomain class.

Using Application Callbacks

Scenario: A .NET thread loads the GemFire DLL in application domain AD1. This thread may have access to the other domains in the application if code access security allows it. This thread can then call AppDomain.CreateInstance to create a callback object ( ICacheListener, ICacheLoader, or ICacheWriter) in another domain called AD2. If the callback object is marshaled by reference, the callback is executed in the domain where it is created (AD2). The thread that loads the GemFire DLL in domain AD1 runs the callback methods in the second domain, AD2. An exception is thrown when the callback method is invoked because the code that invokes the callback is not allowed to cross the AppDomain boundary.

Resolution: When an application creates and unloads application domains it should ensure that the application domain where the GemFire .NET DLL is loaded is the same domain where the application callback and IGeodeSerializable objects are created.

Loading an Application DLL in Multiple AppDomains

Scenario: The application loads the GemFire DLL in one application domain, then reloads the GemFire DLL in another application domain (with or without unloading the previous AppDomain ). The callbacks, as well as other interface implementations, like IPdxSerializable and IGeodeSerializable, throw exceptions because the C++ code does not know about the AppDomain and is loaded only once in the initial AppDomain.

Resolution: The application should always use the first AppDomain to load the GemFire DLL, or it should not load the GemFire DLL multiple times.

Inside IIS

Scenario: When you deploy more than one web application inside an Internet Information Service (IIS), the IIS creates an appdomain subprocess for each web application in the single process, but the C++ client cache instance remains a singleton in the process. Because of this, you can run into conflicts between cache creation and closure by the different appdomains. For example, if one appdomain calls cache.close, it closes the cache for the entire process. Any further cache access operations by the other appdomains return cache closed exceptions.

Resolution: Cache create/close provides reference counting of Cache create and close. Each process can use the counter to make sure it creates the Cache once and closes it once. To enable this, set the GemFire system property, appdomain-enabled to true .