⭐Azure Cache for Redis at Microsoft Ignite 2023: What's New for Developers⭐

By: Ricky Diep, Shruti Pathak, Kyle Teegarden, and Catherine Wang 

Microsoft Ignite 2023 is here, and we're excited to share the latest updates on Azure Cache for Redis with our developer community. Our team has been working hard to bring you new features that enhance security, reduce costs, and improve performance. In this blog post, we'll take a closer look at what's new and how you can take advantage of these updates. 

New SKUs E5, E200, E400 (Preview / Enterprise Only) 

Azure Cache for Redis Enterprise is excited to announce the release of new E5, E200, and E400 SKUs. These new SKUs lower the barrier of entry for the Enterprise tiers, granting access to all the enterprise-grade features. With these new SKUs, customers can take advantage of active-active geo-replication, vector similarity search for AI applications, and more. This is a great opportunity for businesses to enhance their caching solutions and improve their performance with Azure Cache for Redis Enterprise. Developers can benefit from these new SKUs by having access to more powerful caching solutions at a lower cost of entry, allowing them to build more performant and scalable applications. Additionally, the new features available in the Enterprise tiers can help developers implement advanced functionality in their applications, such as AI-powered search and geo-replication for improved availability. 

Flush Management Operation and update-channels (Preview) 

Azure Cache for Redis now supports the Flush as a management operation These commands allow you to clear your cache quickly and easily. To provide even more control, we've introduced a control-plane operation that can force flush the data in all caches in the same group. This operation can be accessed through the Azure portal or through the CLI/PowerShell. With Azure role-based access control, you can limit access to this operation to specific users, providing a safer and more consistent way to clear caches. 

In addition to the new flush commands, we're also introducing the UpdateChannel feature, now in preview. This feature allows you to specify the update channel for the monthly Redis updates your cache will receive. Caches using the 'Preview' update channel will receive the latest Redis updates at least 4 weeks ahead of caches on the 'Stable' channel. The default value is 'Stable', but you can switch to the 'Preview' channel to get early access to the latest features and improvements. 

OutputCache Abstraction in .NET 8 (GA) 

IOutputCaching with Azure Cache for Redis is now GA. While IOutputCaching initially relied on in-process storage using MemoryCache, we've now integrated it seamlessly with Redis Cache, leveraging its shared cache capabilities. With Redis Cache, your application gains consistency between server nodes, ensuring that cached responses persist even when individual server processes are restarted. This means enhanced stability and better resource management. By embracing web response by caching through IOutputCaching with Azure Cache for Redis, you'll drastically reduce dependency calls and save vital server resources, ultimately delivering a more responsive and efficient application. Dive deeper into this exciting development and learn how it can empower your ASP.NET Core projects with the linked documentation. 

Resources 

• Product Overview 
• Pricing 
• Get Started 
• Azure Cache for Redis Training 
• Azure Cache for Redis E5, E200, E400 Pricing 
• Azure Cache for Redis Active-Active Geo-Replication  
• Azure Cache for Redis Vector Similarity Search 
• Azure Cache for Redis Audit Logging 
• Azure Cache for Redis Flush Operation 
• Azure Cache for Redis UpdateChannel 
• Azure Cache for Redis OutputCaching