How-To Guides
You know the task. A guide gives you the exact steps to complete it, the command output to expect at every checkpoint, and the production details that matter. No background theory, no tangential setup. Guides for starting a cluster, managing it with the REST API, diagnosing slow queries with EXPLAIN, configuring distribution zones, and securing client connections. Tested on a 3-node cluster.
Task-Focused15-30 min eachCheckpointed
Recommended Starting Point
Start a Cluster with Docker Compose
The fastest path to a running 3-node development cluster. One command, two minutes.
Foundational15 minignite3gridgain9
Start hereAll Guides
Each guide solves a specific problem: start a cluster, manage it with the REST API, diagnose a slow query, configure distribution zones, or secure client connections. Published guides link directly to their content.
Platform
Category
Complexity
Guide
Choose a Partition Count for Your Workload
The default is 1,024. More partitions means finer rebalance granularity and more metadata overhead. Fewer means coarser rebalance and potential hot partitions. Walk through the decision for cluster sizes from 3 to 30 nodes and cache sizes from 1GB to 1TB.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Debug a Hot Partition
One node is pegged, the others are idle. Diagnose key skew, whether natural (timestamp keys, autoincrement keys) or accidental (a bug in the affinity mapper). Apply the fix: salt the key, change the affinity function, or redesign the schema.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Encrypt Cluster Traffic with Istio mTLS on Kubernetes
Enforce mutual TLS across inter-node, thin-client, and external traffic with an Istio service mesh. No keystores, no SSL configuration on the cluster itself.
Complex|45 min
Guide
Encrypt Inter-Node Cluster Traffic with Linkerd on Kubernetes
Encrypt discovery and communication traffic between cache nodes with Linkerd automatic mTLS. One annotation per pod, no keystores, no cluster configuration changes.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Monitor GridGain Clusters with New Relic
Export GridGain 8 metrics and logs to New Relic using the OpenTelemetry Java agent, then visualize them with a prebuilt dashboard.
Foundational|15 min
Guide
Configure SSL/TLS/HTTPS Security
Set up SSL/TLS to secure GridGain node-to-node, thin-client (ODBC/JDBC), and HTTPS REST traffic with a self-signed certificate authority.
Complex|45 min
Guide
Integrate Control Center with Okta
Configure GridGain Control Center to authenticate users through an Okta OpenID Connect authorization server, using a free Okta developer account.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Integrate Control Center with LDAP
Authenticate and authorize GridGain Control Center users against an LDAP directory, using an OpenLDAP server, group-based roles, and an application.yaml configuration.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Integrate Control Center with PingOne
Configure PingOne SSO with GridGain 8 Control Center to enforce role-based access control and validate cluster action permissions through OIDC.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Authenticate to Control Center with Kerberos
Set up GridGain 8 Control Center to authenticate users with Kerberos through Keycloak, using OAuth2, a KDC, and browser SPNEGO.
Complex|45 min
Guide
Monitor GridGain 8 with Prometheus and Grafana
Export GridGain 8 metrics to Prometheus with the OpenCensus exporter, then connect Prometheus to Grafana and import a prebuilt dashboard.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Export Data to Apache Iceberg on AWS
Batch-export GridGain 8 data to an Apache Iceberg table in AWS Glue and Amazon S3 with COPY FROM ... INTO, query it in Athena, then import it back.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Configure NUMA-aware Memory Allocation
Enable NUMA-aware memory allocation in GridGain 8 so data regions optimize memory access patterns on multiprocessor Linux hardware for higher performance.
Moderate|25 min
Guide
Deploy Code with UriDeploymentSpi
Deploy and redeploy Java compute tasks, services, and POJOs to a running GridGain 8 cluster without restarting nodes, using UriDeploymentSpi.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Run the GridGain Kafka Connector on Amazon MSK
Run Kafka on Amazon MSK with the GridGain Kafka Connector on EC2 to source and sink data between MSK and a GridGain cluster in AWS.
Complex|45 min
Guide
Build Retrieval-Augmented Generation with GridGain and LangChain
Use GridGain 8 distributed vector search as the unified backend for a LangChain RAG application, with a working laptop-recommendation demo.
Moderate|45 min
Guide
Build a Low-Code RAG Application with GridGain and Langflow
Build a visual RAG application on Langflow, using GridGain 8 vector search with HNSW as the vector store and chat memory, no code required.
Moderate|30 min
Guide
Build a Machine Learning Feature Store with GridGain and Feast
Use GridGain 8 as a low-latency Feast online store for real-time machine learning feature serving, illustrated with a CGM glucose-prediction demo.
Moderate|45 min
Guide
Cache Machine Learning Predictions with GridGain and BigQuery
Serve BigQuery ML predictions with sub-millisecond latency by caching them in GridGain 8, using a Google Analytics product recommendation demo as the reference.
Moderate|45 min
Looking for structured learning?
Tutorials teach skills step by step through a real cluster and the Music Store dataset. If you want to learn how the platform works rather than solve a specific task, start with the tutorials or follow a Foundations learning path.