Caching

Caching is a powerful technique for making your applications run faster and feel more responsive. Nobody likes waiting for a page to load, and caching helps eliminate unnecessary delays by storing frequently accessed data in a temporary, high-speed storage layer. This means that instead of fetching the same information from a database or a remote service over and over again, your application can quickly retrieve it from the cache.

SliceFlow is designed to help you build high-performance applications, which is why it comes with a sophisticated caching system built-in. It uses a library called FusionCache, which offers a “hybrid” caching approach. Think of it as having two levels of cache: a super-fast in-memory cache for each server, and a larger, shared “distributed” cache that all your servers can use. This combination gives you the best of both worlds: lightning-fast access to common data, and a scalable solution that works even when your application is running on multiple servers.

To keep all the individual server caches in sync, SliceFlow uses a “backplane.” This is like a communication channel that instantly notifies all servers whenever a piece of data is updated, ensuring that users always see the most up-to-date information, no matter which server they’re connected to.

Getting started with caching in SliceFlow is incredibly simple. All you need to do is add one line of code to your Program.cs file:

builder
    ...
    .ConfigureCaching()
    ...

To make it all work, you’ll need to tell SliceFlow how to connect to your Redis server. This is done by adding a connection string to your application’s configuration file, like this:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "Redis": "localhost:6379"
  }
}

Out of the box, SliceFlow’s caching is configured with some sensible defaults that work well for most applications. For example, cached data is automatically removed after 5 minutes to ensure that your users don’t see stale information. It also uses an efficient method to serialize data before it’s stored in the cache.

Of course, you have full control over how caching behaves in your application. If you need to fine-tune the settings, you can easily do so by modifying the /Configuration/Caching.cs file. Here, you can change things like the cache duration, customize the connection to your Redis server (which is used for the distributed cache), and much more. For a deep dive into all the available options, be sure to check out the official FusionCache documentation.

By leveraging SliceFlow’s built-in caching, you can significantly improve your application’s performance and provide a better experience for your users, without having to write a lot of complex caching logic yourself.