Microsoft has released a new version of Velocity, a distributed in-memory application caching platform. The primary goals for Velocity are API simplicity, distributed cache performance, scalability, and availability. The recently released Velociy Community Technology Preview 3 is available for download directly from Microsoft.
Velocity CTP 3 includes numerous improvements:
- Cache Notifications Notifications can be used to invalidate cached objects or to specify event handlers when objects are added to, replaced, or removed from the cache.
- Performance Improvements "Throughput, latency, and memory usage have been further optimized to improve performance for your applications."
- Security Enhancements The Velocity Windows service now runs under the lower-privileged Network Service account. And the installation program has been updated to help to configure the permissions of installation folders and the cluster configuration.
- New Cluster Management Options Options have been added to let SQL Server perform the cluster management role instead of always needing the lead hosts, when SQL Server is used to store the cluster configuration information.
- Updates to the Installation Program "To streamline deployment, the installation program now supports automated installation for the cache host."
- Cluster Configuration Editing Options Decoupled from Storage Options Regardless of where you store your cluster settings, you can change those settings with the PowerShell-based cache administration tool or by directly editing an XML representation of the cluster configuration.
- Revised APIs The "Velocity" APIs have been changed to more closely resemble the naming conventions of other Microsoft namespaces. The namespace of "Velocity" has been changed to Microsoft.Data.Caching from System.Data.Caching. Additionally, all class and delegate names have been renamed to include the prefix DataCache. Along with the name changes, many overloads have also been changed. For more details about the CTP3 API changes, checkout Velocity Online Help Section: CTP3 API Changes (Velocity)
More details are available at the MS Velocity team release notes.