So I am sure that you are all aware of AppFabric that is available for Windows Server, which you can find here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27115
This is a great product and add-on for not just windows but SharePoint too. The idea behind the product that we will look at today is really around the caching framework that allows for cross machine caching, one things that SharePoint does not do that well. So to set it up run the installer and ensure you select the following options:
Once you have installed it (not going to cover it here), you will be able to configure it as shown below. The first screen is simply a message screen where you decide if you wish to be a part of the "Customer Experience Improvement Program", entirely up to you, but I always think this is a great opportunity to give back something that may help the products get better.
Next we are able to select the hosting settings that we wish to use, I have set mine with the following, ensure if you do change the account from the default "Network Service" that the domain account is not an Administrator as it does not need that permission.
So this sets the base configuration but before we can continue we need to press the "Configure" button for each provider we have selected.
Upon setting this I got errors, which was related to the fact that I am using a self-contained VM, SQL, SharePoint, DC and now AppFabric. The Windows Authentication section was looking for groups created under the local machine name, not my domain. Changing those groups to domain ones fixed my issue.
Press "Yes" to continue.
My second error after that, which we all know how to fix:
Next we need to configure the persistent store component as shown below:
Select "Yes" to continue.
When it has been successfully configured it should look like this:
Now we need to set the caching framework settings. You have two base options:
For my installation I am going to use "SQL Server AppFabric Caching Service Configuration Store Provider".
Before we can continue we will need to configure the options as before.
Finally you now need to set the caching ports and set whether to allow these as Firewall Exceptions.
Once completed you can now modify the settings if needed by launching "IIS".
Within "IIS" at the root level there will now be a section for monitoring and configuring the AppFabric settings.
The dashboard is available either at the root or at the individual web application level.
So now we have it all configured what do we do next? How do we use it in a base architecture as well as using it in our custom code? This will come in another post.