Distributed Caching With Entity Framework
The Entity Framework is a set of technologies in ADO.NET that support the development of data-oriented software applications. With the Entity Framework, developers can work at a higher level of abstraction when they deal with data and can create and maintain data-oriented applications with less code than in traditional applications.
NCache introduces the caching provider, which acts between Entity Framework and the Data source. The major reason behind the EF Caching provider is to reduce database trips (which slow down application performance) and serve the query result from the cache. The provider acts in between the ADO.NET entity framework and the original data source. Therefore, the caching provider can be plugged without changing/compiling the current code.
Cosmos DB is the new NoSQL database released in Azure Cloud by Microsoft. Unlike relational databases, Cosmos DB is scalable as it is a hosted database service, so it enjoys a lot of popularity among high transaction .NET and .NET Core applications.
However, using Cosmos DB, you need to be wary of performance bottlenecks and cost overhead for accessing the database as Microsoft charges you for each transaction to Cosmos DB. While Cosmos DB is scalable in terms of transaction capacity, it is not as fast because the database service is living in a separate VNet or subscription than the applications. So even if your applications are running in Azure cloud, accessing the database across the VNet is a huge blow to the performance.
An expert developer delves into how NCache provides great scalability to .NET applications and how to work with NCache while keeping code performant.
