.Net Distributed Caching Solution Part 1: Installation of Windows Server Appfabric

Here is a mulitpart series on distributed caching solution using Windows Server AppFabric for .NET applications. In this part, we would cover the installation of Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution.

This series covers the following parts:

•  Part 1 - Installation of Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution
•  Part 2 - Configuration Options for Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution
•  Part 3 - Common Commands for Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution
•  Part 4 - Configuring Sitecore with Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution and Cache Eviction using Sitecore Events.
•  Part 5 - Production Configuration for Windows Server AppFabric Distributed Caching Solution

Before we can go into the details of these, lets look at typical installation process. Typical installation would involve the following

• There is a pre-requisite package for installation of Windows Server AppFabric. It requires Web Deploy package that can be downloaded and installed from the following links: Web Deploy for x86 - http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9684516  Web Deploy for x64 - http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9684517

• Requires .NET Framework 4.0 for Server component, but the client component can be installed on .NET Framework 3.5 SP1

•  Hotfix-#980423 - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=185864

• AppFabric Cache Server (includes the client) Download - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=467e5aa5-c25b-4c80-a6d2-9f8fb0f337d2

• Install the software packages with admin privileges.  Here is a screen showing the installation options you need to select while installing the caching services

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• On the Server, you would selct the Caching Services, and Caching Administration. On the Client, you generally install the Cache Client option. For our example since my client and server are the same, I have all the three options selected.

This would install the AppFabric software on your machine. The next step in the process is to create a cache cluster and add hosts to it, which is going to be the next part in the series.