Distributed cache

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title: "Distributed cache" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["cache-(computing)", "distributed-computing"] description: "Type of computer cache" topic_path: "technology/computing" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_cache" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of computer cache ::

In computing, a distributed cache is an extension of the traditional concept of cache used in a single locale. A distributed cache may span multiple servers so that it can grow in size and in transactional capacity. It is mainly used to store application data residing in database and web session data. The idea of distributed caching | last = Paul | first = S |author2=Z Fei | date = 2001-02-01 | title = Distributed caching with centralized control | journal = Computer Communications | volume = 24 | issue = 2 | pages = 256–268 | doi = 10.1016/S0140-3664(00)00322-4 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.38.1094 has become feasible now because main memory has become very cheap and network cards have become very fast, with 1 Gbit now standard everywhere and 10 Gbit gaining traction. Also, a distributed cache works well on lower cost machines usually employed for web servers as opposed to database servers which require expensive hardware. | last = Khan | first = Iqbal | title = Distributed Caching on the Path To Scalability | journal = MSDN | issue = July 2009 | url = http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd942840.aspx | accessdate = 2012-03-30 An emerging internet architecture known as Information-centric networking (ICN) is one of the best examples of a distributed cache network. The ICN is a network level solution hence the existing distributed network cache management schemes are not well suited for ICN. In the supercomputer environment, distributed cache is typically implemented in the form of burst buffer.

In distributed caching, each cache key is assigned to a specific shard (a.k.a. partition). There are different sharding strategies:

• Modulus sharding
• Range-based sharding
• Consistent hashing evenly distributes cache keys across shards, even if some of the shards crash or become unavailable.

Examples

• Aerospike
• Apache Ignite
• Couchbase
• Ehcache
• GigaSpaces
• Hazelcast
• Infinispan
• Memcached
• Oracle Coherence
• Riak
• Redis
• Tarantool
• Velocity/AppFabric

References

References

1. Bilal, Muhammad. (2017). "A Cache Management Scheme for Efficient Content Eviction and Replication in Cache Networks". IEEE Access.
2. (2022). "Foundations of Scalable Systems". O'Reilly Media.
3. (2018). "Designing Distributed Systems Patterns and Paradigms for Scalable, Reliable Services". O'Reilly Media.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::