A Node is a {@link Fqn named} logical grouping of data in the JBoss {@link Cache}. A node should be used to contain data for a single data record, for example information about a particular person or account.
One purpose of grouping cache data into separate nodes is to minimize transaction locking interference, and increase concurrency. So for example, when multiple threads or possibly distributed caches are acccessing different accounts simultaneously.
Another is that when making changes to this node, its data might be kept in a single database row or file on disk. (Persisted via the use of a {@link org.jboss.cache.loader.CacheLoader}.)
A node has references to its children, parent (each node except the root - defined by {@link Fqn#ROOT} - hasa single parent) and data contained within the node (as key/value pairs). The data access methods are similar to the collections {@link Map} interface,but some are read-only or return copies of the underlying the data.
@author
Manik Surtani (manik AT jboss DOT org)
@see Cache
@since 2.0.0