SharePoint 2013: Distributed Cache Services

What is Distributed Cache Services(DCS)?

- It is a Platform Service, it runs at the Farm Level.
  -- You can decide to run it on all servers in the farm or you can use it to run on a 1 or a couple of servers.
  -- Suggest to have dedicate servers for DCS.

- It provides in-memory cache for the entire farm.

- It is based on Window Server App Fabric Distributed Caching.

- It uses to cache Authentication Token(to avoid multiple authentication processes) and MySite Social Feeds.

- DCS enable by default and allocate memory based on total memory on your server.
  -- You should at least dedicate 50% of RAM or more just to the DCS service for overhead.


What is it NOT:
- It do not uses Window Azure Cache services and thus it cache on local server (no cloud).

- It uses Window Server App Fabric version that comes together with the installer: You are not recommended download any version from Microsoft and upgrade it independently.

 - You are not recommended go to the "Configure AppFabric" wizard and configure the setting directly:


Instead, use PowerShell, NO GUI to configure at Central Admin:




Recommendation Architecture:

- When installing SharePoint, DCS is automatically installed and start\enabled. Thus if you have 4 SharePoint servers(2xWFE and 2xApp) then you will have all the 4 running on DCS.

-  DSC use up alot of RAM thus it is NOT recommended for you to share DCS with other service application on a single server if have to. Microsoft recommendation is to have dedicated server for DCS, see below table:



Deployment size
Small farm
Medium farm
Large farm
Total number of users
< 10,000
< 100,000
< 500,000
Recommended cache size for the Distributed Cache service
1 GB
2.5 GB
12 GB
Total memory allocation for the Distributed Cache service (double the recommended cache size above)
2 GB
5 GB
24 GB
Recommended architectural configuration
Dedicated server or co-located on a front-end server
Dedicated server
Dedicated server
Minimum cache hosts per farm
1
1
1


- Copy from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-sg/library/jj219572.aspx




Conclusion: DCS does help alot in term of performance because of the caching services. We all know caching always sucker for memories, so when we do capacity planning, always be prepared for DCS.

Comments

MRiese said…
We've installed the prereqs and installed SharePoint 2013, but the AppFabric and the Distributed Cache are not started/enabled after the install.... Is this a problem with permissions on the service accounts being used for the install (i.e., sp_install, sp_farm, etc.?) Thanks!
Kerl’s blog said…
This comment has been removed by the author.

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