Ncache shared by multiple processors in the same server

Question

I am working on a requirement to cache some database values, that can be reused. But I want the cache to be accessible to all the processor in the same server.

Overview:

So basically, there will be multiple processors that get work from an API and process the record to the database. Some of these database values will be cached.

The processors will be multiple windows services and I want them to share the same cache. How can this be achieved using Ncache. I am pretty new to using this. So any links or directions are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The biggest value to NCache is that is can be used as an OutProc distributed in-memory cache, where the cache resides within the NCache process itself; this differs from an InProc cache where access would be limited to a single process.

You need to configure an OutProc cache running on either a separate dedicated caching server (or cluster) or on the same server as your services.

Refer to http://www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs/ncache/admin-guide/local-cache.html for more information on OutProc and InProc caches.

Once you install the NCache server, you can create your caching configuration by modifying the config.ncconf file that by default lives at C:\Program Files\NCache\config.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<configuration>
    <cache-config cache-name="MyOutProcCacheName">
    <cache-settings inproc="False">
      <logging enable-logs="True" trace-errors="True" trace-debug="False" log-path=""/>
      <performance-counters enable-counters="True" snmp-port="0"/>
      <cache-notifications item-remove="False" item-add="False" item-update="False"/>
      <cleanup interval="15sec"/>
      <storage type="heap" cache-size="2024mb"/>
      <eviction-policy default-priority="normal" eviction-ratio="5%"/>
      <cache-topology topology="local-cache"/>
      <client-death-detection enable="False" grace-interval="60sec"/>
    </cache-settings>
  </cache-config>
 </configuration>

The above configuration will create an OutProc cache on the local server (see cache-topology). This can be configured as a various mirrored, partitioned, or replicated caches in a clustered environment if needed (refer to http://www.alachisoft.com/resources/docs/ncache/admin-guide/cache-topologies.html).

You can then start the NCache service, and connect to the service from within your application, and initialize connection to the named cache instance in the configuration above.

Cache outProcCache = NCache.InitializeCache("MyOutProcCacheName");

You can also configure the connection to the NCache server/service entirely within the code instead of a client.ncconf file by sending configuration parameters to the InitializeCache method above.

CacheInitParams connectionParams = new CacheInitParams();
connectionParams.ServerList = new CacheServerInfo[]{ new CacheServerInfo("ncacheIp", ncachePort) };

Cache outProcCache = NCache.InitializeCache("MyOutProcCacheName", connectionParams);