In-Role Cache for Azure Cache
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?
In-Role Cache allows you to host caching within your Azure roles. This cache can be used by any roles within the same cloud service deployment.
Important
Starting with Azure SDK 2.6, In-Role Cache is using Microsoft Azure Storage SDK version 4.3. In previous versions of the Azure SDK, In-Role Cache used Azure Storage SDK 1.7. Applications using In-Role Cache with versions of the Azure SDK before 2.6 should migrate to Azure SDK 2.6 before Azure Storage version 2011-08-18 is decommissioned on December 9th, 2015. For more information, see Azure SDK 2.6 Release Notes - In-Role Cache and Microsoft Azure Storage Service Version Removal.
There are two main deployment topologies for In-Role Cache: dedicated and co-located. In the dedicated topology, you define a worker role that is dedicated to caching. This means that all of the worker role's available memory is used for the caching and operating overhead. In a co-located topology, you use a percentage of available memory on application roles for caching. For example, you could assign 20% of the physical memory for caching on each web role instance. In both cases, you only pay for the Compute services required for the running role instances. For more information, see Azure In-Role Cache FAQ.