Amazon ElastiCache

  1. Amazon ElastiCache Serverless is a fully managed, serverless service. It’s not an engine itself but rather a service that provides access to cache engines.
  2. Offers 2 types of caching engines:
    1. Redis
    2. Memcached
  3. Both Redis and Memcached are in-memory data stores.

1. What is in-Memory Data Stores?

  1. In-memory data stores keep the data in RAM (random-access memory) rather than on traditional disk storage.
  2. This results in faster data access because retrieving data from memory is much quicker than accessing it from disk.

2. ElastiCache with Redis

Amazon ElastiCache for Redis is a managed in-memory data store that provides ultra-fast data processing, making it ideal for real-time applications such as healthcare data analysis, gaming, and financial transactions.

  1. Can cache results of SQL queries, reducing latency and improving performance for frequently accessed data.
  2. Supports various data structures like strings, hashes, lists, sets, and sorted sets, making it flexible for complex use cases.
  3. Offers data persistence through RDB snapshots and Append-Only File (AOF) for durability.
  4. Supports multi-AZ deployments, ensuring high availability with automatic failover.
  5. ElastiCache for Redis is HIPAA(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) eligible and PCI DSS Compliant.
  6. Supports features like pub/sub messaging, transactions.
  7. Supports encryption.
  8. Great Choice for session storage, real-time transactional and analytics.

3. ElastiCache with Memcached

  1. Support a simpler key-value store that supports basic data types (like strings).
  2. Memcached is purely an in-memory store, with no built-in options for persistence or replication.
  3. Highly performant for caching read-heavy workloads.
  4. Best for simple caching scenarios where you need high-speed, low-latency retrieval of data without persistence or complex data structures

4. Can Use Memcached to serve static content from Amazon S3?

No, it cannot be used due to the following limitations:

  1. Memcached offers simple data types with limited functionalities.
  2. Memcached does not natively integrate with Amazon S3, and S3 content is served via HTTP/HTTPS.
  3. Memcached has a maximum item size limit of 1 MB, making it unsuitable for large static files.