Named Caches for Azure Managed Cache Service

  • Article

Important

Microsoft recommends all new developments use Azure Redis Cache. For current documentation and guidance on choosing an Azure Cache offering, see Which Azure Cache offering is right for me?

Managed Cache Service supports named caches, which provide you the flexibility to configure different cache options for different sets of data. Every cache has a default named cache, and in the Standard and Premium cache offerings, up to nine additional named caches can be configured. Each named cache has its own individual settings, such as high availability, notifications, and custom eviction and expiration policies. This topic provides an overview of named caches.

In this topic

  • Named Caches

  • Create and Delete Named Caches

  • Configure Named Cache Settings

Named Caches

Named caches are configured in the Management Portal on the Configure tab for Cache. Different settings are available for configuration depending on your cache offering.

Note

Managed Cache Service is available in Basic, Standard, and Premium offerings, each differing in terms of pricing and features. For more information, see Cache Offerings for Azure Managed Cache Service.

If you have the Basic cache offering, the following settings are available.

Windows Azure Cache Service Basic Configuration

Because the Basic cache offering supports only the default named cache, no additional named caches can be created.

The Standard and Premium cache offerings support up to nine additional named caches in addition to the default named cache, and also support notifications and high availability.

Named Caches in Windows Azure Cache Service

Create and Delete Named Caches

The Basic and Premium cache offerings support up to nine named caches in addition to the default named cache. To create a new named cache, type the name into the Name box, configure the desired settings, and click Save. To cancel the creation of the new named cache, click Discard. In the following example there are two named caches, default and Namedcache1, and NamedCache2 is in the process of being created.

Windows Azure Cache Service Named Caches

To delete a named cache, click the X to the right of the Eviction column for the named cache. All data in the named cache is lost when a named cache is deleted.

Note

The default named cache cannot be renamed or deleted.

Configure Named Cache Settings

Named cache settings are configured in the Management Portal on the Configure tab for Cache.

Named Caches in Windows Azure Cache Service

Named Cache Settings Overview

The following table provides an overview of the named cache settings.

Feature Description Cache Offering

Name

The identifier used when accessing the items in the named cache.

A default cache is configured, and in the Standard and Premium cache offerings, up to nine additional named caches can be configured if desired.

High Availability

Provides high availability for items in the cache. If items are lost due to a failure, backup copies of the items in the cache are still available.

For more information, see High Availability for Azure Managed Cache Service.

Standard and Premium only

Notifications

Notifications allow your application to receive asynchronous notifications when various cache operations occur in the cache.

For more information, see Notifications for Azure Managed Cache Service.

Standard and Premium only

Eviction Policy

Choices are Enabled, which uses a LRU (last recently used) algorithm to determine which items to evict, or Disabled. The default is Enabled.

For more information, see Expiration and Eviction for Azure Managed Cache Service.

All

Time (min)

The default expiration for items in the cache is 10 minutes, but it is configurable. The expiration time for individual items added to the cache can also be specified using overloads of Add and Put when items are added to the cache. Tim (min) works in conjunction with Expiry Policy to determine when items expire.

For more information, see Expiration and Eviction for Azure Managed Cache Service.

All

Expiry Policy

There are three types of Expiry Policy: Never, Absolute, and Sliding. When Absolute is specified, the expiration interval specified by Time (min) begins when items are added to the cache. When Sliding is specified, the interval is reset each time an item is accessed in the cache. When None is specified, Time (min) must be set to 0, and items will not expire. The default is Absolute.

For more information, see Expiration and Eviction for Azure Managed Cache Service.

All

See Also

Concepts

Cache Offerings for Azure Managed Cache Service
Configure cache clients for Azure Managed Cache Service