Amazon ElastiCache

Database limitations are often a bottleneck for application performance. By placing Amazon ElastiCache between an application and its database tier, database operations can be accelerated.^[7]

Using ElastiCache for database performance acceleration can significantly reduce the infrastructure needed to support the database. In many cases, the cost savings outweigh the cache costs. Expedia was able to use ElastiCache to reduce provisioned DynamoDB capacity by 90%, reducing total database cost by 6x.^{[8] [9]}

Using the Redis engine, ElastiCache can rapidly process time-series data, quickly selecting newest or oldest records or events within range of a point-in-time.^[10]

Leaderboards are an effective way to show a user quickly where they currently stand within a gamified system. For systems with large numbers of gamers, calculating and publishing player ranks can be challenging. Using Amazon ElastiCache with the Redis engine can enable high-speed at scale for leaderboards.^[11]

Some APIs only allow a limited number of requests per time period. Amazon ElastiCache for Redis engine can use incremental counters and other tools to throttle API access to meet restrictions.^[12]

Programs can use incremental counters to limit allowed quantities, such as the maximum number of students enrolled in a course or ensuring a game has at least 2 but not more than 8 players. Using counters can create a race condition where an operation is allowed because a counter was not updated promptly. Using the ElastiCache for Redis atomic counter functions, where a single operation both checks and increments the counter's value, prevents race conditions.^[13]

ElastiCache for Redis supports publish-subscribe patterns, which enable the creation of chat rooms and message boards where messages are automatically distributed to interested users.^[14]

• Client metrics (measure the volume of client connections and requests): Number of current client connections to the cache, Get and Set commands received by the cache
• Cache performance: Hits, misses, Replication Lag, Latency
• Memory metrics: Memory usage, Evictions, Amount of free memory available on the host, Swap Usage, Memory fragmentation ratio
• Other host-level metrics: CPU utilization, Number of bytes read from the network by the host, Number of bytes written to the network by the host

Many ElastiCache metrics can be collected from AWS via CloudWatch or directly from the cache engine, whether Redis or Memcached, with a monitoring tool integrating with it:^[18]

• Using the AWS Management Console

Using the online management console is the simplest way to monitor ElastiCache with CloudWatch. It allows to set up basic automated alerts and to get a visual picture of recent changes in individual metrics.

• CloudWatch command-line interface

Metrics related to ElastiCache can also be retrieved using command lines. It can be used for spot checks and ad hoc investigations.

• Monitoring tool integrated with CloudWatch

The third way to collect ElastiCache metrics is via a dedicated monitoring tool integrating with Amazon CloudWatch.