Caching in Windows Azure

Ido FlatowSenior Architect

Microsoft MVPSELA Group

Caching in AzureMore than Just Azure Caching

@idoFLATOWhttp://bit.ly/flatow-blog

This presentation:http://sdrv.ms/

17s8osK

www.devconnections.com

CACHING IN WINDOWS AZURE

2

THE WORLD BEFOREDISTRIBUTED CACHE

Ido FlatowSenior Architect

Microsoft MVPSELA Group

Caching in AzureMore than just Azure Caching

@idoFLATOWhttp://bit.ly/flatow-blog

This presentation:http://sdrv.ms/

15QPjke



5

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO SEE

Different caching solutions Different deployment strategies For each solution

General features, pros/cons

Windows Azure deployment steps

C# API and benchmarks



6

CACHING 101

Why do we cache? Scale-out our applications

Decrease load on database

Store data close to the application

Speed up data access



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CACHING 101

What is expected of a cache? Key/value CRUD

Store any entity type (no special attributes)

LRU / absolute / sliding evictions

Concurrent access

Cache per application (multitenant)

Secured transport



9

CACHING 101

What would also be great? Bulk operations

Enumeration and queries

Clustering and replication for high-availability

Change notifications

Transactions

Data persistence

Management API



10

CACHING SOLUTIONS

Memcached

Coherence

Couchbase

Redis

SharedCache

AppFabric

NCache

StateServer

In-memory key-value store for on-premises and Windows Azure

In-memory key-value store

Key-value store, Data structure server

NoSQL document database



11

WINDOWS AZURE COMPONENTS

Windows Azure PaaS components Storage, database, caching

Cloud Services Web role, worker role

Virtual Machines OS images, virtual hard disks

Virtual Networks Subnets, VPN



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WINDOWS AZURE CACHE SERVICECache-as-a-Service



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WINDOWS AZURE CACHE SERVICE Store any Data-Contract serializable objects Item eviction (LRU, absolute, and sliding) Item locking Local cache for re-fetching Group items to regions

Bulk get/delete

Simple tag-based queries

Offering-dependent features: Standard - Separate cache per application

Premium - Notifications for region and item changes

Includes providers for ASP.NET session state and output cache

Featu

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Pro

s/Cons

Topolo

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WINDOWS AZURE CACHE SERVICE

Pros Cache-as-a-Service, no installation required

Available from everywhere

Supports high-availability (premium offering)

Secured (transport + authentication)

Cons Billed by cache size

Not available in all US data centers

Still in preview (for now)

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Pro

s/Cons

Topolo

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Ste

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Cache Service

Virtual Machine

WebSite

CloudService

On-premises

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Pro

s/Cons

Topolo

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Ste

ps



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Create the cache service in the portal Cache size

Region

Add the Windows Azure Caching NuGet package to your application

Configure host name and security key

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Pro

s/Cons

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17

WINDOWS AZURE CACHE SERVICEBenchmark



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WINDOWS AZURE IN-ROLE CACHEDistributed cache agent for cloud services



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WINDOWS AZURE IN-ROLE CACHE

Same features as cache service Separate caches per-application

Expiration and eviction

Local cache

Notifications

Regions and tagging

Cache provider for ASP.NET

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Pro

s/Cons

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Pros Runs on dedicated roles or existing roles (co-located)

Deployment is very straightforward

Same API as the on-premises AppFabric caching

Supports replication for high-availability

Provides diagnostics information

Cons No security measurements (necessary?)

Accessible only within the cloud service

No management tools

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Pro

s/Cons

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OtherRoles

Co-locatedRoles

DedicatedWorker Role

Cloud ServiceC

luste

ring

& R

ep

lica

tion

Featu

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Pro

s/Cons

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Dedicated cache role Add a Cache Worker Role project to the cloud

project

Configure number of instances and size

Co-located cache Open the Caching tab in the role’s properties, and

select the Enable Caching option

Specify cache size (percentage of memory)

In the application Add the Windows Azure Caching NuGet package

Configure the role name running the cache

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Pro

s/Cons

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WINDOWS AZURE IN-ROLE CACHEBenchmark



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MEMCACHEDOpen source, in-memory key-value cache



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MEMCACHED

Simple CRUD API Data is stored in binary form Item eviction (LRU and absolute) Features extended by client libraries

Clustering

Sliding eviction

Replaceable serializers

Data compression

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Pro

s/Cons

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MEMCACHED

Pros Well-known solution, used by many sites

Has many client libraries (C++, Java, PHP, .NET, Ruby …)

Supports clustering (managed by the client library)

Cons Item size limited to 1 MB

Retrieve only by ID, no query support

Windows port a bit old (1.4.4 from 2009)

Replication not supported in most client libraries

No security – public endpoints are problematic(Security supported with SASL on Linux VMs)

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s/Cons

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MEMCACHED

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OtherRoles

Memcached Worker Roles

Cloud Service

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s/Cons

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MEMCACHED

Cache service Create a new worker role

Add an internal endpoint in the role’s properties for port 11211

Configure number of instances and size

Worker role Add the WazMemcachedServer NuGet package

Add a bit of code (2 lines) to run the cache service

In the application Add the EnyimMemcached NuGet package

Add some code to create the client configuration

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s/Cons

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MEMCACHED

var configuration = new MemcachedClientConfiguration();

foreach (var instance in RoleEnvironment.Roles["MemcachedServer"].Instances)

{

IPEndPoint endpoint = instance.InstanceEndpoints["MemcachedEP"].IPEndpoint;

configuration.Servers.Add(endpoint);

}

var client = new MemcachedClient(configuration);

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Pro

s/Cons

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MEMCACHEDBenchmark



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REDISOpen source, advanced key-value store



32

REDIS

Stores entities, lists, and sets Item eviction (LRU, absolute, and sliding) Item locking Atomic transactions for groups of

commands Built-in Pub/Sub messaging Cache can be persisted periodically or

consistently

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Pro

s/Cons

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33

REDIS

Pros Supports various data types

Windows version is up-to-date

Data is replicated to slave servers for high-availability

Secured with authentication

Cons Single threaded, requests are served sequentially

Transport is not encrypted

Does not support clustering

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s/Cons

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Cloud Service

REDIS

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Redis Slave

Re

plic

atio

n

Redis Master

Virtual Machine

Cloud Service

Vir

tu

al

Ne

tw

or

k

OtherRoles

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Pro

s/Cons

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35

REDIS

Run the deployment tool from ossonazure.interoperabilitybridge.com

Wait 20 minutes while it executes Give up and press Ctrl+C Open Visual Studio and do it manually

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Pro

s/Cons

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REDIS

Create a cloud project with two worker roles: RedisMaster and RedisSlave

Configure roles Add an internal endpoint for port 6379

Set instance sizes

Set number of slave instances

In both worker roles Add the redis-server.exe and redis.conf files

Add code to run the redis-server.exe using Process.Start()

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s/Cons

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REDIS

In the slave worker role Write code to edit the redis.config and set

the master’s IP address

In the application Add the ServiceStack.Redis NuGet

package

Use either the RoleEnvironment or a static IP address to configure the master’s address

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s/Cons

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38

REDISBenchmark



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COUCHBASEOpen source document database



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COUCHBASE

Entities stored as either binary or JSON Item eviction (absolute and sliding) No LRU, it’s a database Bulk get Cache (bucket) per application Indexing and querying with views Views can use reduce functions

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s/Cons

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COUCHBASE

Pros Replication and clustering

Buckets can be Couchbase or Memcached based

Couchbase buckets are persisted (enables warmup)

Secured (transport + authentication)

Web administration

Provides usage statistics

Cons Requires a virtual machine and a virtual network

Query requires serializing content to JSON

Not totally free

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COUCHBASE

Replication & Clustering

Virtual Machine

Cloud Service

Vir

tu

al

Ne

tw

or

k CouchbaseVMs

On-premises

VPN

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s/Cons

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COUCHBASE

Create a virtual network Create VMs in the virtual network In each VM

Install Couchase

Configure incoming firewall rules(11211, 11210, 4369, 8091, 21100-21199)

Configure Couchbase cluster

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s/Cons

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COUCHBASE

In the application Add the CouchbaseNetClient NuGet

package

Configure the VMs addresses and port

If application is running in a cloud service

Add a <NetworkConfiguration> element in the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg

Configure the role to use the same virtual network as the Couchbase VMs

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COUCHBASE

<NetworkConfiguration>

<VirtualNetworkSite name="CachingNetwork" />

<AddressAssignments>

<InstanceAddress roleName="AzureCacheClientDemo">

<Subnets>

<Subnet name="Compute" />

</Subnets>

</InstanceAddress>

</NetworkConfiguration>

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s/Cons

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46

COUCHBASEBenchmark



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BENCHMARK COMPARISON

BTW, the lower the better!



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OTHER CACHING OPTIONS

Install on-premises caching solutions on Virtual Machines

Use either Windows or Linux VMs

Easily accessible by clients running in the same virtual network

External access may require additional configuration

Use other cache-as-a-service solutions Prefer services that use Windows Azure – better

throughput

Redis and Memcached are currently available as a service in Windows Azure (http://garantiadata.com)



49

THE GOTCHAS

Security Private vs. Public vs. Virtual network

Clustering Public endpoint load balancing

Debugging Deployed cache vs. Windows Azure Emulator

VM restarts Cache resets due to guest/host upgrades

Price Choose the proper instance size



50

RESOURCES

Windows Azure Cache

bit.ly/appfabric-on-azurebit.ly/azure-caching-memcached

Memcached

memcached.orgbit.ly/memcached-on-azure

Redis

redis.iobit.ly/redis-on-azurebit.ly/redis-on-azure-linux

Couchbase

www.couchbase.combit.ly/couchbase-on-azure

[email protected] @idoflatow http://bit.ly/flatow-blog

This presentation: sdrv.ms/17s8osK

Caching in Windows Azure

Technology

Transcript of Caching in Windows Azure