The NCache team is excited to announce the release of NCache 5.3 SP6! This milestone update transforms how organizations deploy, license, and automate their distributed caching tiers across cloud and on-premises infrastructures.
The headline of this release is a major licensing evolution: the Professional Edition has been discontinued and replaced by the brand-new, free Community Edition, while all existing Professional Edition customers receive a free upgrade to the Enterprise Edition. Additionally, NCache 5.3 SP6 introduces native Azure/AWS Marketplace Based Licensing featuring flexible pay-as-you-go hourly options, alongside dedicated Azure/AWS Deployment PowerShell Cmdlets to automate cloud infrastructure setup. Under the hood, both the Enterprise and Community editions have been modernized to run natively on .NET 8.
To learn more about all the architectural changes, licensing plans, and stability fixes included in this update, read through the full NCache 5.3 SP6 release notes.
Community Edition – Replaces Professional Edition
The Professional Edition has been officially retired, making way for the new Community Edition. This edition is entirely free to use and you only pay for support, with a flat support cost option available to keep your budget predictable.
- Supported Topology: It natively supports the high-availability Replicated Cache topology to ensure data redundancy across your nodes.
- TLS Support (New): Unlike the legacy Professional Edition, the new Community Edition comes fully equipped with built-in TLS support to protect your data in transit.
- Activation: A fully functional 30-day trial is provided for evaluation, after which a valid license key must be requested from the NCache sales team (issued only if support is purchased).
Azure/AWS Marketplace Based Licensing (New)
NCache now completely integrates into the Azure and AWS Marketplaces, allowing you to purchase and manage your licensing seamlessly through your cloud provider. You retain full control over your architecture by deploying NCache servers yourself inside your private Azure VNET or AWS VPC.
- Flexible Plan (Azure/AWS) (New): Includes pay-as-you-go Hourly Servers that start charging on an hourly usage basis upon activation and stop when deactivated.
- Annual Plan (Azure/AWS) (New): Paid upfront through the marketplace, this plan accommodates Annual Servers (valid for the full plan period), Monthly Servers (valid for 30 days from activation with manual or automatic renewal), and usage-based Hourly Servers.
Azure/AWS Deployment PowerShell Cmdlets (New)
To help teams implement continuous integration and automated environment provisioning, NCache 5.3 SP6 delivers cloud-native PowerShell Cmdlets directly via the PowerShell Gallery.
- Azure PowerShell Cmdlets: Utilizing Azure ARM templates and a preconfigured NCache VM image for Windows Server 2022/2025 and Linux (Ubuntu), these tools offer the following capabilities:
- New-NCAzureEnvironment: Creates a new NCache environment in Azure.
- Add-NCAzureServer: Adds a new server to an existing NCache environment.
- Remove-NCAzureServer: Removes a server from a specified NCache environment.
- Remove-NCAzureEnvironment: Deletes an entire NCache environment from Azure.
- Show-NCAzureServers & Show-NCAzureEnvironments: List active cloud servers and environments.
- Install-NCAzurePSPreReqs: Installs Azure CLI and required prerequisites.
- AWS PowerShell Cmdlets (Coming soon): Releasing very soon as part of the SP6 rollout, these upcoming cmdlets will mirror the exact environment management capabilities for Amazon Web Services.
Core Platform & Deployment Enhancements
- Platform Update: Cache server instances for both Enterprise and Community editions are now entirely built on the .NET 8 runtime, maximizing hardware execution efficiency.
- Client Compatibility: Applications running client frameworks up to .NET 9 are fully supported.
- Max Server Profile Restriction (RAM, vCPUs): On-premises license activation can now be explicitly limited to a maximum server profile of RAM and vCPUs within a given environment.
- Monthly Licensing (On-Premises): On-premises teams can now deploy Monthly Servers valid for 30 days from activation, backed by automated or manual renewal paths.
Get Started with NCache 5.3 SP6
Whether you are migrating to the cloud using marketplace integration, capitalizing on the new free Community Edition, or unlocking the performance gains of .NET 8, NCache 5.3 SP6 has you covered. Schedule a full technical demo with our team today to see these deployment and licensing controls in action!
