Distributed caching has become essential for high-performance applications in today’s enterprise landscape. It reduces the need for frequent database trips, ensuring faster data access and improved scalability. Database Management Systems remain a cornerstone of businesses, whether for internal operations or external services. However, in large organizations, database performance often becomes a bottleneck, as databases cannot scale linearly like applications. Fortunately, distributed caching solutions, like NCache, address these challenges effectively. Adding a caching tier to your application can significantly enhance its performance and scalability.
Traditional Database Challenges
To be brief, using traditional databases results in the following issues:
- Inability to scale.
- Costly database trips.
- Overloading mainframes.
- Slow user experience.
- Increased business latency & costs.
Why NCache for Distributed Caching?
NCache lets you address these challenges. Here’s how you can use it to enhance performance and scalability:
Enhance Application Performance
Distributed caching boosts your application performance by storing frequently accessed data in-memory, thereby minimizing database trips and increasing application response time. Moreover, it liberates your backend systems and networks from having to handle redundant requests, mitigating most performance bottlenecks. By caching data across various locations in a network, NCache dramatically reduces network traffic and frees up bandwidth for other network activities.
Overcome Scalability Hurdles
Optimal performance requires a cache that scales easily and cost-effectively without hitting any memory or computational limits. In terms of NCache, memory refers to the physical hardware that NCache, as an in-memory datastore, is confined within. Whereas, computational limits specify the processing required to utilize all the NCache features needed. NCache addresses this limitation by dynamically adding server nodes to the cache cluster, giving you additional resources to work with.
![NCache Scalability](/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/NCache_Scalability-942x387.png")
Figure 1: Scaling NCache to Achieve Scalability.
Distributed Caching Features
Clearly, NCache has a lot to offer. The following are a few NCache features to get you started on integrating your database and cache:
Optimize Cache Initialization and Synchronization using Loader/Refresher
NCache’s Cache Loader helps you to populate the cache with data on startup. Once the configured datasets are deployed, the Loader uses them to populate the cache on start-up. This method, however, is likely to produce stale data. Any change in the data source that occurs after the required data is loaded during cache start-up outdates it. To prevent this invalidation, NCache has another feature called Cache Refresher that uses a defined refresh interval to synchronize with the database.
Figure 2: How the NCache Cache Refresher Works.
Data Synchronization Using Database Dependencies
NCache also provides database dependencies to help you keep your cached data up-to-date. Given the possible issues that might occur due to stale cache data, you would ideally want the data inside your cache to be invalidated and deleted whenever it is changed in the database. Upon change detection, NCache’s database dependencies automatically remove the relevant cache items. This process guarantees that the cache always contains updated data.
Simplify Application Logic Using Read-Through and Write-Through
NCache provides you with transparent read/write operations on the data source via Read-Through and Write-Through/Write-Behind caching, which allows client applications to read or write data to the data source directly via cache if necessary. For example, if there is a cache miss during Get operation, NCache invokes the Read-Through provider to get data from the database itself. Conversely, if your application updates a cache item, it tells NCache to also call the write-through/write-behind provider to update the database (whether the update takes place immediately depends on the provider used). This approach makes your client application logic much simpler.
Conclusion
There is simply no need for you to be constrained by traditional database systems. Platforms like NCache are readily available to make your life easier by enhancing your application performance and scalability. Experience the power of distributed caching by downloading NCache today.
