How Caching Improves App Latency

Caching tools help reduce latency by storing frequently accessed data in memory, allowing faster reads and writes compared to fetching data from slower storage layers like databases or external APIs. By minimizing redundant computations and reducing network trips, caching improves response times and overall app performance.

Understanding Latency in Applications

Latency refers to the time taken for a request to travel from a client to a server, get processed, and return a response. It is affected by:

• Network latency: Time taken to send and receive data over the network.

• Processing latency: Time taken to execute a request in the application logic.

• Database latency: Time taken to retrieve or write data to a persistent database.

Common Use Cases for Caching

1. API Response Caching: Storing API responses (e.g., weather data, stock prices) in a cache prevents frequent database or external API calls, reducing load and improving response time.

2. Session Storage: Caching user session data (e.g., authentication tokens) allows faster retrieval compared to querying a database every time a user makes a request.

3. Database Query Caching: Frequently accessed database queries (e.g., product catalogs) can be cached to avoid repeated database queries.

4. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Static assets like images, videos, and stylesheets are cached on edge servers to reduce the latency of loading web pages.

5. Message Queue Processing: Caching in message queues helps temporarily store data to optimize processing speeds in event-driven architectures.

Popular Caching Tools

1. Redis

• Type: In-memory key-value store

• Use Cases: Session storage, leaderboards, caching database queries

• Benefits: High-speed read/write, supports data persistence, and offers features like pub/sub messaging

2. Memcached

• Type: Distributed memory caching system

• Use Cases: Accelerating web apps, database caching

• Benefits: Lightweight, high-speed caching, good for simple key-value data storage

3. Varnish Cache

• Type: HTTP accelerator

• Use Cases: Website and API caching

• Benefits: Improves performance of web servers by storing and serving precomputed responses

4. Amazon ElastiCache

• Type: Managed caching service (supports Redis and Memcached)

• Use Cases: Scalable caching for AWS-based applications

• Benefits: Fully managed, integrates well with AWS services

5. Apache Ignite

• Type: In-memory computing platform

• Use Cases: Distributed caching for large-scale applications

• Benefits: Supports SQL-like queries and integrates with databases

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