Caching ASP.NET Pages on Azure

Question

Are there any special considerations when Caching ASP.NET Pages on Azure? I understand that page caching is managed in memory by IIS, but does it rely on the same providers as asp.net caching?

I need to cache hundreds of pages each averaging 100KB and I wonder if this will function on Azure as expected because there is a memory limitation considerations on Azure.

Answer 1

I'd recommend Azure Cache services for Output Caching ASP.NET pages. It's simple to configure and can be used by all VM nodes in your deployment.

Azure Cache relies on DistributedCacheOutputCacheProvider . You can also control your Cache Quota size .

Answer 2

Completely agree with @SilverNonja comments however I just wanted to comment about "Memory limitation consideration on Azure". I don't consider your objective is limited due to the limitation in Windows Azure memory because you sure can get a lot in single VM however can u server that many user from one single VM. You really have to run multiple instances of same application and then having the local machine specific cache is the problem.

With Cloud solution where you have more then one instances are running creating a local cache based solutions bring several problems because the requests are being served by different instances at different times. Having a centralize location for shared resources is the best where all the instances can look for the data is the best method and that's why Windows Azure Cache is the best/fast option available for you to use.

Also here is very Simple Sample to use Azure Cache with ASP.NET application: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/net/how-to-guides/cache/

Answer 3

You might wanna try the latest Windows Azure Caching (Preview). It has a better feature set and improved latencies. For more info - http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazuredata/thread/9a2dbd9f-1b9d-4249-a48b-216d9dfdc2bc