Windows Azure AppFabric Cache's Miniscule Features

 

Just wanted to warn/inform people who are considering using AppFabric Caching in Azure…

Here’s a list of things it won’t do:

• Regions
• Named Caches
• Allow you to get a list of cache keys currently in use
• High Availability Mode (redundant copies across machines for durability)
• No sliding window expiration
• No events for things like eviction, add/remove, etc.
• so you can’t update a local cache with events from the global cache
• You don’t get notified if something is removed, so you only know when you get “null” back from a Get()
• No Powershell integration (if you’re into that)
• No tag support (tagging is basically used for some extra metadata besides the key without pulling the whole object)

So, basically, ALL you get is a simple, Get/Set distributed cache that doesn’t even support the whole set of features you get from the basic ObjectCache in .NET 4.0

They really shouldn’t be calling it “AppFabric Cache” at all, since it doesn’t really support anything that comes with that API

I must say that I’m really disappointed

We waited a LONG time for this feature and got something that could have been coded in a month.

Bad form, Microsoft.  Bad form!