ASP.NET 4 Cache Providers for Azure In-Role Cache
Important
Microsoft recommends all new developments use Azure Redis Cache. For current documentation and guidance on choosing an Azure Cache offering, see Which Azure Cache offering is right for me?
Microsoft Azure installs caching providers for ASP.NET 4 web applications. This enables ASP.NET web applications to use Microsoft Azure Cache for both session state and output caching. Both providers use the same single assembly, Microsoft.Web.DistributedCache.dll.
These providers are designed to be used with ASP.NET applications that run in Azure. Although you can access an Microsoft Azure cache from an on-premises ASP.NET application, the latency of doing so would outweigh the benefits. If you require caching for on-premises ASP.NET applications, you can create an on-premises cache cluster with Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server and uses its session state provider. For more information about Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server, see Windows Server AppFabric Caching Concepts.
Note
Both providers require your projects to compile against the full version of the .NET 4 Framework (rather than the client version).
In This Section
The topics in this section describe how to use the caching providers and document the various configuration settings that you can use.