What does the term 'transient' refer to in MuleSoft's context?

In the context of MuleSoft, the term "transient" refers to data that exists solely in the memory of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) during the runtime of an application, rather than being stored on a persistent medium such as a hard disk. This means the data is temporary and will not survive application restarts or failures.

The transient nature of data allows for quicker access and manipulation since it avoids the overhead associated with disk I/O operations. This is particularly useful in scenarios where performance is critical, and where data is needed for immediate processing but does not need to be retained long-term.

In contrast, data that is stored persistently (or on a hard disk) remains available beyond the application's lifecycle. Additionally, data that is replicated across nodes is typically associated with high availability and fault tolerance, which is not a characteristic of transient data. Similarly, data designed for high availability emphasizes reliability and redundancy, characteristics that do not apply to transient data.