configuring caching location (page/component)

Hi,

"It is for Livesite".

We have more than one clusters (tomcat) running on one machine and each clusters has its own caching location (which is inside tomcat/webappa/MyApp/cachingFolder). And like this we have more than 2 production servers/machines which are load balanced.

Now, when user hits any page and that request goes to tomcat of cluster-1, which in-turns cached that particular page/component. Let say same user/anyother user hit the same page and this time that request goes to tomcat of cluster-2 (this wont have the cached data) and it again do all the backend process and will take that much of time; means nullifying the whole idea of caching.

Now my question here is: Whether we can use the same cached objects in-between the different clusters (tomcats) or even machines, by using configuring the single location in cache configuration files.

If yes, then what are the pros and cons of it and how to achieve this.

Many thanks,
Farhan

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Frederik

the cache in TeamSite is based on the Open Source product JCS.

You may find more about it by Googling.

JCS seems to have the possibility of setting up remote or lateral caches to share cached data between website instances (tomcat, or other...), as you request. I haven't done this myself, but if you are adventurous, check the documentation, starting here: http://jakarta.apache.org/jcs/UsingJCSBasicWeb.html

Do let us know if you try this, please. :-)

AlexC

You cannot share cache files, the files saves are specific to the instance that is using them and not a generic cache file (it is rather a partial cache of objects that are not in memory (this how disk based LRU caches work) and depending on how the server is used (pages/components rendered), it will always be different on different instances).

Frederik

Alex, I agree with you that 2 instances of LSDS can not use the same files for the IndexedDiskCache portion of the JCS (livesite-cache).

But the remote and lateral auxiliary caches in JCS allow to share cache entries with other instances (see the link in previous post), so unless the values that are in the cache are and must be unique to the LSDS instance, such sharing should be feasible...

Obviously, we'd be deep in non-supported territory, but it may be an optimization of interest for Iwov clients running webfarms.

So is there in the values being cached something unique to the LSDS instance? The cached values are basically rendered content, so I'd imagine they are likely identical over all instances. (?)

AlexC

We have never tried this and I do not know if it will work or not.