Migrating a Cache Client

The topics in this section highlight the main features in the Windows Server AppFabric (WSAF) Caching APIs and demonstrates their equivalent calls in the ScaleOut StateServer NamedCache APIs.

Core Classes in the ScaleOut API

The Soss.Client.NamedCache class is the primary way to interact with your objects that are stored in a ScaleOut in-memory data grid. Like the AppFabric DataCache class, a NamedCache instance represents a named collection of objects in the distributed data store, and it allows you to work with your objects using familiar .NET collection syntax.

A NamedCache instance is accessed through the Soss.Client.CacheFactory class as follows: 

NamedCache cache = CacheFactory.GetCache("My Cache");
cache["Welcome"] = "Hello World!";

The CacheFactory returns the same NamedCache instance for each unique string identifier that is passed into the GetCache method. In other words, your application is handed a singleton for each named cache. This allows you to set your caching options once at application startup and then continue to use those same options throughout the life of your client application.

[Tip] Tip

It does not matter if you use repeatedly use the CacheFactory to acquire a NamedCache instance or have your application re-use a single reference to a NamedCache class instance—the same instance will be used in either case. The NamedCache is thread safe, so the same instance can be used to access objects concurrently from multiple threads.

Unlike AppFabric Caching, a ScaleOut client application is free to use the CacheFactory.GetCache method to create as many named caches as it needs on the fly at runtime—the ScaleOut APIs do not require each named cache to be specified in a configuration file, nor do named caches need be explicitly created through ScaleOut management tools.

A number of advanced caching features are available to your application, both at the cache level using the NamedCache class and at the individual object level using the CreatePolicy class.

In addition to the migration guidance laid out in the following topics, you can learn more about the API’s features in the Conceptual Overview of the .NET API Reference.