Entity Framework (EF) Caching Configuration File

Note

This feature is only available in NCache Enterprise Edition. This file is located at %NCHOME%/config in Windows or opt\ncache\config in Linux.

Entity Framework Caching Config file, efcaching.ncconf configuration contains cache and caching policy related information used by NCache Entity Framework caching provider. Some changes are required in efcaching.ncconf to run the Entity Framework application with NCache.

You can configure the following through efcaching.ncconf:

  • EF integration modes
  • Database synchronization
  • Cache item expiration
<configuration>
    <app-config app-id="EFCachingDemo" mode="analysis|caching">

        <analysis-policy log-path="" analysis-time="1min" cache-enable-threshold="1" default-expiration-type="Sliding" default-expiration-time="180sec" dbsyncdependency="false"/>

        <cache-policy-configuration database="none|sqlserver|oracle" cache-id="mycache">
        <!--sql-query = "SELECT [Extent1].[CustomerID] AS [CustomerID],= @param_0"-->
        <query>
            <cache-query querytext="SELECT [Extent1].[OrderID] AS [OrderID], &lt; @param_0"/>
          <cache-policy vary-by-cache-param="param_0" expiration-type="Sliding" enabled="True" expiration-time="180sec" dbsyncdependency="False">
        </query>
        </cache-policy-configuration>

    </app-config>
</configuration>
Member Description
app-id This ID is same as defined in app/web configuration file of application.
mode NCache Entity Framework Caching provider works under two modes. It can either be in "Caching" or in "Analysis" mode.
Analysis Mode
Analysis Mode is used for monitoring the number of times each query executes and then it generates a report. Report contains the query text and the call count for each query. No caching is done at this mode.
  • log-path: The default Path at which analysis log files will be generated is %NCHOME%/log-files/EFCachingAnalysisLogs/ (Windows) or opt\ncache\log-files\EFCachingAnalysisLogs\ (Linux).
  • analysis-time: Time for which the analysis will run. Default = 1 min
  • cache-enable-threshold: Caching will automatically be enabled for queries whose call-count exceeds this threshold. By default, its value is 1.
  • default-expiration-type: Default expiration type for analyzed queries. The default type is Sliding.
  • default-expiration-time: Default expiration time for analyzed queries. Default is 180 sec (3 min).
  • dbsyncdependency: Determines whether to enable database-dependency or not. Default value is false.

    Caching Mode
    Wrapping provider will cache the results of all the specified queries. Whenever update is detected (either UPDATE, INSERT or DELETE) in a respective database, the provider invalidates the affected cache entries by evicting all cached queries which were dependent on any of the updated tables.

  • database: Database server where user’s database resides.
  • cache-id: Specified Cache Name where query results are stored for fast access.
    		•
    query Query attribute including user-configurable list of queries that should be cached with their results. A particular query can be configured with its cache policy defined in cache policy tag. Cache query and Cache policy are separated by dedicated tags. User can easily change policies from cache-policy tag without facing any XML parsing error.
    cache-query For cache query, this tag is auto generated by Entity Framework Caching Provider when the application is running in analysis mode. For ease of understanding, commented SQL-query tag is added so that the user can read the query.
  • cache-query-text: This is used for XML parser and the user is not allowed to make any sort of changes in it.
    		•
    Cache-policy When mode is selected as Caching, only those query results will be cached for which caching is enabled. The user can also specify caching policies for all queries.
  • vary-by-cache-param: User can specify which parameter should be included as part of cache key. NCache Entity Framework Caching Provider will replace the actual parameter in config file with its own names which should follow the following parameter format: @param_[parameter-no/index].
    A sample query with parameters:
    "SELECT * FROM dbo.customers WHERE customer_id = @param_0 and dob > @param_1;"
  • enable: Determines whether caching is enabled for this query or not. Default value is true.
  • expiration-type: Type of expiration, it can be 'absolute' or 'sliding'. Default is sliding.
  • expiration-time: Expiration time for this query. Default is 180 sec (3 min).
  • dbsyncdependency: Determines whether to enable database-dependency for this query or not. Default is false.
    		•
    Important

    SQL Dependency will be registered only for those SQL queries that satisfy all the conditions for SQL Notification Registration as described in the Microsoft documentation.

    Warning

    InProc client cache stores items in object form, therefore if object is modified by the application, it should be updated back to the cache so that other remote clustered cache and other client caches have no data integrity issue.

    See Also

    Using NCache as Entity Framework Second Level Cache
    NHibernate
    Entity Framework Core Caching