Does the AppFabric Cache provider for ASP.Net Session State allow for a backing store?

Question

AppFabric Cache may lose session state if there is RAM pressure on the cache cluster nodes, or if the cluster is not in high availability mode and a node is lost (e.g. fails or is rebooted).

Typically a backing store would be used in those circumstances to allow the cache entry to be recreated in the event of a cache miss (it is a cache after all). Does the AppFabric Cache ASP.NET session state provider allow for a backing store, e.g. by forming a layer over one of the traditional session state providers? (such as ASP.NET State Service, or the SQL Server based provider).

Notes.

There is no mention of such a thing in the config documentation:

Configuring an ASP.NET Session State Provider (Windows Server AppFabric Caching)

AppFabric is for caching not storing : you can't know for sure when a cache entry is removed. If you want to be sure that your session won't be removed by the server use sql server session state provider instead. — remi bourgarel
@Remi - That's the question. Microsoft's standard session state provider seems to be using the cache as a store not as a cache, which may be a reasonable option if the cache is set to high-availability mode. Just trying to pull together info on whether this interpretation/understanding is correct or not. — redcalx

Cybermaxs Cybermaxs · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-22T09:07:11

As you said, this concept is unknow by AppFabric Session Provider because AppFabric is basically a distributed in-memory cache cluster. You can achieve persitence with Read-Through and Write-Behind but not for sessions.

You best option is to plan correctly you cache usage and actively monitor the cluster.

Does the AppFabric Cache provider for ASP.Net Session State allow for a backing store?

1 Answers