The most common type of software you will see is some type of database management software. The majority of businesses depend on such a system, whether it be for internal or external use. While the type of users involved does not matter much, their number certainly does, particularly if the organization’s size necessitates a heavy user load. But how is a company going to achieve this without compromising performance? This question presents a significant hurdle since while application tiers these days usually tend to be linearly scalable; databases do not have this luxury. Luckily, NCache offers a solution, distributed caching.
This term refers to the system that employs a single in-memory data store for fast access by limiting database network trips. However, is it really necessary to fit a caching tier into your application? Allow us to convince you.
Traditional Database Challenges
To be brief traditional databases present the following issues:
- Inability to scale.
- Costly database trips
- Overloading mainframes
- Slow user experience
- Business latency & costs
Why NCache?
While we already discussed several scenarios where NCache can be of use, here is a detailed explanation of how distributed caching and NCache achieves the mentioned advantages:
Take your Application Performance to the Next Level
Fundamentally, distributed caching acts as a great performance boost. When using this type of caching, all frequently accessed data is stored in memory, reducing database round trips, which increases application response times – giving users a highly responsive experience. Additionally, it also frees backend systems and networks from having to cater to these requests. Thus, alleviating the majority of bottlenecks. In terms of networks, by caching data in various locations throughout your network, you can dramatically reduce network traffic and free up more bandwidth for other network-dependent activities.
Overcome Scalability Hurdles
In order to achieve this performance, you require a cache that scales easily and cost-effectively without hitting any memory or computational limits. Memory, as we’ve discussed it, refers to the physical box that NCache, as an in-memory datastore, is confined within. And we are discussing computational limits in terms of the processing required to employ all the NCache features that interest you. You could also call this the maximum processing limit. However, NCache allows you to add a server node to your cache cluster, which essentially acts like a new physical node – giving you additional resources to work with.
Figure 1: Scaling NCache to Achieve Scalability.
Features in Focus:
Clearly, NCache has a lot to offer, but here are a few features we’ve discussed to get you started on integrating your database and cache.
Pre-populate Cache Using Loader & Keep It Synchronized Using Refresher
NCache allows you to use a Cache Loader to get around the first challenge of populating the cache. NCache then calls it after registration to prepopulate the cache on start-up. This method, however, is likely to produce stale data. Any change in the data source that occurs after the user loads the necessary data during cache start-up outdates it. To prevent this invalidation, NCache has another feature called Cache Refresher that uses a defined refresh period to synchronize with the database.
Figure 2: How the NCache Cache Refresher Works.
Keep Data Synchronized Using Database Dependencies
When using data from a database, in ideal circumstances, you would want cache data to invalidate and delete whenever any data changes occur in the database. Fortunately, NCache provides just these ideal circumstances. Upon change detection, the relevant cache item faces automatic removal, meaning that the cache always contains an updated copy of the data in question.
Simplify Application Logic Using Read-Through and Write-Through
NCache provides users with the ability to use 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 via cache directly if they deem it necessary. In the former, in case of a cache miss, NCache calls your Read-Through provider to get data from the database itself. In the latter, whenever your application updates a cached item, it tells NCache to also call write-through/write-behind 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
In conclusion, there is no reason for you to restrict yourself to the limitations of traditional databases systems when platforms like NCache are readily available to make your life easier. Take a step towards your company’s future and download NCache today.
