Master Spring Boot Caching with JSR‑107 and Ehcache: Step‑by‑Step Guide

Environment: springboot2.3.12.RELEASE + JSR107 + Ehcache + JPA

Since Spring 3.1 the framework provides transparent caching support. From Spring 4.1 the cache abstraction supports JSR‑107 annotations and more customization.

Method 1: Using Spring annotations

Spring provides the following annotations:

@Cacheable – triggers caching

@CacheEvict – triggers cache eviction

@CachePut – updates cache without affecting method execution

@Caching – combines multiple cache operations on a method

@CacheConfig – class‑level shared cache configuration

Add the dependency:

<code>&lt;dependency&gt;
  &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-starter-cache&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;/dependency&gt;
</code>

Service method example:

<code>@Service
public class StorageService {
  @Resource
  private StorageRepository sr;

  @Cacheable(value = {"cache_storage"}, keyGenerator = "storageKey")
  public Storage getStorage(Long id) {
    return sr.findById(id).get();
  }
}
</code>

Custom key generator:

<code>@Component("storageKey")
public class StorageKeyGenerator implements KeyGenerator {
  private static final String KEY_PREFIX = "storage_";

  @Override
  public Object generate(Object target, Method method, Object... params) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    for (Object param : params) {
      sb.append(param);
    }
    return KEY_PREFIX + sb.toString();
  }
}
</code>

Controller example:

<code>@RestController
@RequestMapping("/storages")
public class StorageController {
  @Resource
  private StorageService storageService;

  @GetMapping("/{id}")
  public Object get(@PathVariable("id") Long id) {
    return storageService.getStorage(id);
  }
}
</code>

First request shows SQL output; subsequent request shows no SQL, confirming cache works.

JSR‑107 annotations can also be used with Ehcache.

Method 2: Using JSR‑107 and Ehcache

Correspondence table between Spring and JSR‑107 annotations (image).

Add Maven dependencies:

<code>&lt;dependency&gt;
  &lt;groupId&gt;org.springframework.boot&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;spring-boot-starter-cache&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;/dependency&gt;
&lt;dependency&gt;
  &lt;groupId&gt;mysql&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;mysql-connector-java&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;/dependency&gt;
&lt;dependency&gt;
  &lt;groupId&gt;org.ehcache&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;ehcache&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;/dependency&gt;
&lt;dependency&gt;
  &lt;groupId&gt;javax.cache&lt;/groupId&gt;
  &lt;artifactId&gt;cache-api&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;/dependency&gt;
</code>

Service using JSR‑107 annotations:

<code>@Service
public class StorageService {
  @Resource
  private StorageRepository sr;

  @Transactional
  @CachePut(cacheName = "cache_storage", cacheKeyGenerator = JCacheKeyGenerator.class)
  public Storage save(@CacheValue Storage storage) {
    return sr.saveAndFlush(storage);
  }

  @CacheResult(cacheName = "cache_storage", cacheKeyGenerator = JCacheKeyGenerator.class)
  public Storage getStorage(Long id) {
    return sr.findById(id).get();
  }

  @Transactional
  @CacheRemove(cacheName = "cache_storage", cacheKeyGenerator = JCacheKeyGenerator.class)
  public void removeStorage(Long id) {
    sr.deleteById(id);
  }

  @Transactional
  @CachePut(cacheName = "cache_storage", cacheKeyGenerator = JCacheKeyGenerator.class)
  public Storage updateStorage(@CacheValue Storage storage) {
    return sr.saveAndFlush(storage);
  }
}
</code>

Custom JCacheKeyGenerator (code illustration).

application.yml configuration:

<code>spring:
  cache:
    cacheNames:
      - cache_storage
    ehcache:
      config: classpath:ehcache.xml
</code>

ehcache.xml configuration:

<code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;ehcache xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://ehcache.org/ehcache.xsd"
         updateCheck="false"&gt;
  &lt;diskStore path="java.io.tmpdir/Tmp_EhCache"/&gt;
  &lt;defaultCache eternal="false" maxElementsInMemory="10000"
                overflowToDisk="false" diskPersistent="false"
                timeToIdleSeconds="1800" timeToLiveSeconds="259200"
                memoryStoreEvictionPolicy="LRU"/&gt;
  &lt;cache name="cache_storage" eternal="false" maxElementsInMemory="5000"
         overflowToDisk="false" diskPersistent="false"
         timeToIdleSeconds="1800" timeToLiveSeconds="1800"
         memoryStoreEvictionPolicy="LRU"/&gt;
&lt;/ehcache&gt;
</code>

Testing add, update, delete:

Add a record (console output).

Query the newly added ID shows no SQL, confirming @CachePut works.

Delete the record (image).

Subsequent query generates SQL, indicating cache was evicted.

All steps demonstrate successful caching, cache update, and eviction using Spring annotations and JSR‑107 with Ehcache.