A Better Memcached Download

Memcached is a great innovation for the dynamic web. It gives high trafficked website better performance by caching dynamic content in memory for rapid access. Its an awesome piece of software but has some limitations if its to be used for mission critical applications. Gear6 addresses this by taking standard Memcached and adding features to address high availability, scaling, reliability, and manageability concerns. Check out these features with our new Gear6 Web Cache Virtual Appliance download

You can also watch Perry Krug, Gear6 System Engineering explaining how to register, download, and setup of the Gear6 Virtual Machine - the better Memcached download.

If you don’t know what Memcached is: its a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. Developed by Danga Interactive it has become critical piece of infrastructure software that’s enabled the dynamic web. For more info on the dynamic web see and for more on the new web-caching tier see

Memcached is an awesome piece of open source software however it lacks some critical features needed by heavily trafficked sites. By design if an object is not in cache you simply fetch from the database. This scheme works well while a site is small and not severing dynamic content. As a site grows and becomes more dynamic in nature more and more memcached is added to support the traffic and the content. This results in a reliance on the cache being available. Although memcached is a distributed system that can span multiple servers, its behavior can be unpredictable. For example when a server fails it can cause the entire effected Memcached service to fail. In the best case, the memcached service will continue to run but with reduced performance. Even when the failed hardware is replaced it can take hours to for the new hardware to be fully reloaded with cache data so normal operations can resume.

At Gear6 we’ve recognized the need for a distribution of memcached that has high availability features. The Gear6 Web Cache is 100% memcached protocol compliant and is based on a clustered architecture. The health of all Gear6 cache services are continuously monitored, and corrective action is taken when failures occur or appear imminent. Gear6 Web Cache services can be deployed with either of two levels of high availability. For “must-have” content, Gear6 Web Cache is typically employed in its replication-based “continuous data availability” mode. Under normal circumstances, all cache data is automatically stored in multiple locations for availability reasons. When, for example, a hardware module (server) fails, another one already loaded with the same data is instantly brought into service. Caching continues throughout the incident without performance impacts and without affecting users. For less crucial functions, Gear6 Web Cache can also be deployed without replication. In that case, a failure is still automatically detected and a new module is automatically called into service, but it does not contain cache data. This means there will be some performance impacts as cache is populated with data. Operation without replication typically requires fewer Gear6 Web Cache Modules.

Another issue with standard memcached is reporting and management features. Many web implementers expect standard memcached to have powerful tools like those they use for storage or network management. Without these tools there’s know way to easily view, analyze, troubleshoot, or plan their caching tier deployments. Gear6 Web Cache is equipped with a rich, browser-based management interface that provides intuitive access to cache tier data. The interface makes it easy to see aggregate views of an entire caching tier, or to drill down to instance- and module-level detail. Hot key, client and instance reporting are available, and access to the top keys in the tier, or for any instance or client, is provided. This interface enables web site operators and developers to create, view and edit instances, services, version numbers, statistics and settings.

Gear6 Web Cache was developed to address scaling, reliability, and manageability concerns. You can check out the Gear6 Web Cache for yourself by registering for the better Memcached download now.