Author: Ruslan Appazov

Serialized LOB (Large Object) pattern is explained in the Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture book by Martin Fowler. The original paper describes an implementation of the pattern with an example of XML-based serialization. Although nowadays, JSON format is ubiquitous. So, adding a fresh flavor of “JSONization” to the pattern seems fully justifiable.

There was mentioned that a binary serialization might win in size and performance, though the main problem with BLOBs (Binary Large Objects) remains the versioning. The changes in classes’ structure may lead to data incompatibility, so it can be problematic to de-serialize your objects from the database. Also, it is hardly achievable to query data inside BLOB. On the other hand, CLOB (Character Large Object) type is human readable, which at least allows for investigating issues. In addition, modern RDBM systems provide instruments to manipulate JSON, like querying and modifying data inside JSON.

Whereas Kubernetes is the target environment of application execution, you will not find here how to declare required services or deployment most optimally. Some basic Kubernetes configurations are just enough for demonstration purposes. Though, you can use the configurations as a starting point and improve them with the help of Kubernetes Documentation.

The theme of Spring's Caching is not fully covered either. So, if you are interested in Cache Abstractions, please refer to the corresponding part of Spring Framework documentation.