When MashZone NextGen is deployed in clusters, artifact caching must be distributed to maintain cache integrity. Response caching, however, can be left in local memory for each MashZone NextGen Server or it can be distributed.
In many environments, local caching provides both good performance and acceptable cache integrity for response caching. Local caching is "eventually consistent", but can result in visible differences as cached responses are not guaranteed to be identical for different cluster members. For environments that cannot tolerate any loss of cache integrity, distributed response caching is recommended.
Distributed caching is only available if you purchase and deploy BigMemory Servers.
You use BigMemory Servers to handle distributed caching for MashZone NextGen.
With BigMemory Servers, data for most MashZone NextGen caches can use the total off-heap memory configured for the cluster plus any heap and off-heap memory configured for the MashZone NextGen local host.
The BigMemory Servers manage consistency and memory across the cluster. They also support failover, with mirror servers, for high availability and many other advanced capabilities that may be useful for enterprise production systems.
To configure distributed caching, see Configure BigMemory Servers for MashZone NextGen Caching for set up instructions.