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Cloud wars: Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service vs. Amazon AWS ElastiCache

A few days ago, Amazon AWS announced the general availability of ElastiCache, a new distributed, in-memory caching service which complements the storage services included in the AWS platform. ElastiCache enables traditional caching capabilities to applications running in the AWS cloud.

Seeing this, you can’t avoid drawing a comparison with the existing cloud caching technologies such as the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service. There are some capabilities of ElastiCache that are clear differentiators with similar technologies including the Windows Azure AppFabric. To mention a few, ElastiCache is fully compliant with Memcached which will facilitate its adoption and interoperability with existing memcached libraries and tools. Secondly, ElastiCache is tightly integrated with other AWS technologies such as Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and SNS for events and notifications.

The following matrix might help reveals a high level comparison between ElastiCache and the Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service.

Capability

AppFabric Caching Service

AWS ElastiCache

Cache size

128MB – 4GB

1.3GB-63GB

API

REST

REST

Libraries

.NET

Java,PHP,.NET,Ruby and Python

On-Premise Cache Interoperability

Windows Server AppFabric Cache

Memcached

Monitoring

Basic: Azure Management Portal

Amazon AWS CloudWatch

Regions

Globally available

US East (Virginia)

Topology

Caches

Cache Clusters and Cache Nodes

Configuration

Very limited

Very flexible through parameter groups

Security

Authentication Token

AIM Token

Quotas, Policy

Number of Transactions, Bandwith and Number of Connections

Over 50 parameters available through the parameters group

Pricing

$45-$325 per month

$0.095-$0.76 per hour

 

In my opinion, currently, the AWS ElastiCache represents a more compelling option if you are looking to enable distributed, in-memory caching capabilities in your cloud applications. As an alternative, remember that you could deploy an on-premise caching technology like memcached as part of a Azure Worker Roles or an AWS EC2 instance.

3 Comments

  • One more comparison: App Fabric Cache requires no maintenance, ElasticCache may require some maintenance.

  • Jaime,

    What are you referring specifically by "maintenance". Both technologies have similar infrastructure to provision, deprovision caches as well as eviction policies etc.

    JR

  • Hi All,
    I am new to Amazon Web Service and exploring the ElestiCache. Its really amazing service. I want to know more and more about this service.

    Could you please highlight more on how ElestiCache supports following features:
    (1)Local Cache: can ElestiCache allows to use the local memory for users to avoid hitting remote servers. Can users do configuration on client machine like number of objects to store and timeout settings to invalidate the cache. Because this can dramatically improve response times for frequently accessed data.
    (2)Cache Updates: How ElestiCache updates the cache? how it handles the concurrent request of users? any locking models or any version number is supports?

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