Caching in the Distributed Environment

Abhijit Gadkari

Based on the article published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal : Issue 17

Available on-line at http://www.msarchitecturejournal.com/pdf/Journal17.pdf
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http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/arcjournal/default.aspx
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 Agenda
Background info and basics

Different types of cache like temporal , spatial , primed and demand cache

Some Examples

Caching in the ORM world!

Transactional cache and Shared cache

Managing the interaction

Size of a cache and its impact on application performance

Five minute introduction of “Velocity” – Microsoft ‘s Distributed Caching

platform

Open Forum !
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Basics
Storage Size On Board Cost per byte
Latency
RAM
Persistence

Hard Disk

Cloud

Data is stored in memory – i.e. L1, L2, L3 etc. known as cache. This
concept is extensively used in the von Neumann Architecture.

Memory Access time is measured in access time. Given an address ,

the memory presents the data at some other time

Memory Access Time = Latency + Transfer Size / Transfer Rate [2]

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Types of Data
Data

Activity Resource
Reference
Data Data
Data

Understanding the different types of data and their semantics helps to understand the
different caching needs that comes with usage of that data type. [1]
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Why ? – For Performance and Availability
Data Type [1] Caching Strategy [1]
Reference Data Practically immutable, non-volatile and long lasting in nature -
ideal candidate for caching. Can be shared across processes /
application. For example, zip code, state list, department list,
etc.
Activity Data Activity data is generated by the currently executing activity as
part of a business transaction. Only good for the life on the
transaction. Short lived in nature. For example, shopping cart
on e-commerce web site.
Resource Data Highly dependent on domain logic and volatile in nature. Cache
only when required. [a.k.a. don’t cache unless and until
absolutely required]. Commonly associated keywords –
concurrency , locking, ACID, dirty read, corrupt cache, business
logic, etc. For example, quantity information in an inventory
application.
Unknown DO NOT CACHE [ME]
“Keep a data item in electronic memory if its access frequency is five minutes or
higher, otherwise keep it in magnetic memory”[2]
Wikipedia defines cache as “a temporary area where frequently accessed data can
be stored for rapid access”[3]
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Principle of Locality
Based on work done in 1959 on Atlas System’s
Virtual Memory [4]

Temporal Cache
Good for frequently accessed , relatively
nonvolatile data. For example, drop-down list on
a web page

Spatial Cache
Data adjacent to recently referenced data will be
requested in near future. For example, GridView
paging
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Temporal Cache

public sealed class Cache : IEnumerable

using System.Web.Caching
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Spatial Cache

In .NET, cache can be synchronized using SqlCacheDependency

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Primed and Demand Cache [5,6]

Primed and Demand cache is based on the future use of the data.
Predating future is not easy and should be based on sound
engineering principals

The primed cache pattern is applicable when the cache or the part
of the cache can be predicted in advance. For example, a web
browser cache

The demand cache pattern is useful when cache can not be

predicted in advance. For example, a cached copy of user
credentials

The primed cache is populated at the beginning of the application,

whereas the demand cache is populated during the execution of
the application
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Primed Cache

In .NET ICachedReport interface can be used to store the

pre-populated reports. The primed cache results in an almost
constant size cache structure
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Demand Cache

1 user can have many roles

1 role can have many permissions

Managing demand cache

Minimize memory leak
Maximize hit-ratio
Effective eviction policy

In dynamic environment
Adaptive Caching Strategies
can be very effective

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 Caching in the ORM World!
Customer
I
M
cust_id type credit_allowed
P
3456 gold 1 E
D
7890 bronze 0 A
N
C
E
M
I Gold Silver Bronze
RDBMS S
M
A
T
RDBMS – persistent storage C In memory object graph
H

Ms Entity Framework /LINQ

JDO, TopLink, Hibernate, NHibernate

The ORM manager populates the data stored in persistent storage

like database in the form of an object graph. An object graph is a
good caching candidate
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Layered Cache Architecture
The layering principle is based
on the explicit
Separation of responsibilities

Cache layering is prevalent in

many ORM solutions.
For Example, Velocity,
Hibernate

The first layer represents

the transactional cache and the
Second layer is the shared
cache designed as a process
or clustered cache

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Transactional Cache

Objects formed in a valid state and participating in

a transaction can be stored in the transactional cache

Strictly bounded by the ACID rules

Transactional cache size is small size and short lived

Thrashing , cache corruption and caching conflicts should

be strictly avoided

 Many caching frameworks offer out of the box

prepackaged transactional cache solution
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Shared Cache

Can be implemented as a process cache or clustered

cache. The clustered cache introduces resource replication
overhead

Shared cache is a read-only cache

Distributed caching solutions typically implements a

shared cache solution

Can be implemented as an identity map. For example,

caching read-only, static reports using ICachedReport

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Chasing the Right Size Cache

Remember the 80-20 rule a.k.a. Pareto principle and the bell shaped
graph

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Microsoft project code named Velocity [1]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/fi-fi/library/cc645013(en-us).aspx

Distributed in-memory application cache platform

 Can store any serializable CLR object
Allows clustering and provides ASP.NET session provider object so that ASP.NET session
objects can be stored in the distributed cache without having to write to database
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 Conventional Stack Stack with Distributed Cache

Application Application Application Application

Web Server[s] / App Server[s] Web Server[s] / App Server[s]

Database Distributed Cache

Application Application
Database

One Logical View

Velocity
Physical
Named Cache implementation

Regions
Regions
Named Cache
Regions 21
Features [1]

Machine -> Cache Host -> Named Cache -> Regions -> Cache Items -> objects

Cache Operations
Get [select]– Returns object or entire Cache item
Add [insert]- Creates new entry else exception if entry exists
Put[update] - Replaces existing entry or creates a new one
Remove [delete]- Removes existing entry

Expiration and Eviction Policy is based on time-to-live [TTL] logic

Concurrency model supports optimistic version based updates and pessimistic

locking

“Velocity” can be deployed as a service or embedded within the application.

For example, host application can be ASP.NET / .NET application

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Example [1]
// Create instance of cachefactory (reads appconfig)
CacheFactory fac = new CacheFactory();

// Get a named cache from the factory

Cache catalog = fac.GetCache("catalogcache");

// Simple Get/Put
catalog.Put("toy-101", new Toy("thomas", .,.));

// From the same or a different client

Toy toyObj = (Toy)catalog.Get("toy-101");

// Region based Get/Put

catalog.CreateRegion("toyRegion");

// Both toy and toyparts are put in the same region

catalog.Put("toyRegion", "toy-101", new Toy( .,.));
Catalog.Put("toyRegion", "toypart-100", new ToyParts(…));

Toy toyObj = (Toy)catalog.Get("toyRegion", "toy-101");

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Resources
Based on the paper “Caching in the Distributed Environment”
published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal : Issue 17

1. Microsft Project Code Named “Velocity” by N. Sampathkumar, M

Krishnaprasad and A. Nori
2.Transaction Processing : Concepts and Techniques by Jim Gray and
Andreas Reuter [ISBN: 1558601902]
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache
4. “The Locality Principle” by Peter J. Denning ,
Communications of the ACM”, July 2005, Vol 48, No 7
5. “Caching Patterns and Implementation”, by Octavian Paul Rotaru,
Leonardo Journal of Sciences LJS: 5:8 , January-June 2006
6. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in
Object-Oriented Applications, by Clifton Nock, Addision Wesley

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 Open Forum !

Abhijit Gadkari
Abhijit.Gadkari@gmail.com
Blog : http://soaas.blogspot.com/
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