Memcached Support

5 minutes 5 Questions

Memcached is another in-memory caching engine supported by Amazon ElastiCache. It is a high-performance, distributed object caching system designed to speed up dynamic web applications by lowering the number of times a database or API must be read. Memcached is simple, fast and memory-efficient. Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached provides multi-node deployments across multiple Availability Zones, auto-discovery for Memcached nodes, and support for client sharding for improved application availability and scalability.

Memcached Support in Amazon ElastiCache

Memcached Support in Amazon ElastiCache is a significant aspect of AWS Solution Architect's knowledge base.
Memcached is an open-source, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system. It allows you to either altogether avoid database layer or significantly improve performance by caching data and objects in RAM, reducing the number of times the database must read the disk.
In combination with Amazon ElastiCache, Memcached organizes and accelerates the capacity to manage simple, query-heavy applications.

To answer questions on MemCached Support during an examination:

Understand the core functionality of Memcached
Know how it works in combination with Elasticache
Memorize some common use-cases for Memcached
Have a clear understanding of its benefits and limitations

Exam Tips:
Knowing when to use Memcached or another service like Redis is key. Also, remember that Memcached allows for partitioning of cached data across multiple nodes and supports multiple simultaneous connections. It's not persistent caching, so don’t rely on stored data as it can be lost if a node is restarted.

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Question 1

An application is using Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached with multiple nodes to improve responsiveness. Despite following best practices for node sizing, one node remains underutilized. What should you do to resolve the node underutilization issue?

Increase the number of nodes Implement key partitioning across nodes Add more read replicas Switch to Redis

Correct Answer: Implement key partitioning across nodes

Implementing key partitioning across nodes would distribute the cache read and write requests more evenly, resolving node underutilization. Switching to Redis or adjusting the size or number of Nodes aren't solution to the issue. Read replicas and key eviction settings are not relevant.

Question 2

You need to provide a high availability solution for the ElastiCache for Memcached deployment. How can you achieve this?

Enable Multi-AZ deployment Enable ElastiCache automatic backups Use ElastiCache with multiple nodes in different availability zones Create read replicas

Correct Answer: Use ElastiCache with multiple nodes in different availability zones

Using multiple nodes in different availability zones will provide high availability. ElastiCache for Memcached does not support Multi-AZ deployment, read replicas, and automatic backups like Redis. Node size and connection timeout won't affect high availability.

Question 3

You're a solutions architect at a company that uses Elasticache for Memcached to cache results of database queries. Users reported slow performance in the application. You've found that cache hit ratio is low. How can you improve cache hit ratio?

Decrease the TTL of keys Decrease the size of the cache cluster Increase the size of the cache cluster Enable automatic backups

Correct Answer: Increase the size of the cache cluster

Increasing the size of the cache cluster would allow caching more database query results, thus increasing the cache hit ratio. Decreasing TTL, decreasing cluster size or disabling key eviction won't help. Backups and Multi-AZ are not related to cache hit ratio.

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