NCache Deployment Models
NCache supports multiple deployment models for on-premises, containerized, Kubernetes, and cloud environments. The appropriate deployment model depends on your application architecture, infrastructure, scalability requirements, and preferred management approach.
Regardless of the deployment model, NCache cache servers form a distributed cache cluster, while client applications connect to the cluster to store and retrieve data.
Virtual Machine
In a virtual machine deployment, NCache is installed directly on Windows or Linux virtual machines. These virtual machines can be hosted in an on-premises data center or on a cloud platform.
Each virtual machine typically hosts an NCache server installation and participates as a server node in the cache cluster. Client applications can run on the same network or on separate application servers.
This deployment model provides direct control over the operating system, networking, storage, security, and NCache configuration. It is suitable for environments where infrastructure is managed manually or through existing virtual machine management and automation tools.
A virtual machine deployment is commonly used when:
- NCache must be installed on dedicated servers.
- Direct access to the operating system is required.
- Existing applications already run on physical or virtual machines.
- Cache servers must use fixed network addresses.
- Container orchestration is not available or required.
Docker and Docker Compose
NCache can be deployed as a containerized application using Docker. Each NCache container runs as an isolated cache server instance and can participate in a distributed cache cluster.
A Docker deployment simplifies packaging and provides a consistent NCache runtime environment across development, testing, and production systems. Container configuration, networking, ports, volumes, and environment settings can be defined when the container is created.
Docker Compose can be used to define and run multiple NCache containers together. A Compose file can describe the NCache server containers, client containers, networks, volumes, port mappings, and other deployment settings required by the environment.
Docker Compose is particularly useful for:
- Local development and testing.
- Proof-of-concept environments.
- Multi-container deployments on a single Docker host.
- Reproducible deployment configurations.
- Environments that require containerization without a complete Kubernetes platform.
For production deployments, ensure that container networking, persistent configuration, resource allocation, and access to NCache management and client ports are configured correctly.
Cloud
NCache can also be deployed on cloud virtual machines managed through cloud-native instance scaling services. In this model, NCache runs directly on virtual machine instances.
Cloud scaling services maintain a collection of virtual machines based on a defined configuration. They can create, replace, or remove instances in response to scaling policies, health conditions, or administrative actions.
Because cloud instances can be added or removed dynamically, the NCache deployment must account for changes in server addresses, cluster membership, client connectivity, and cache configuration.
This model is suitable when cloud-hosted virtual machines are preferred over container orchestration.
