Recently Amazon announced Global Datastore, a new feature of Amazon ElastiCache for Redis that provides fully managed, fast, reliable and secure cross-region replication.
With the introduction of Global Datastore, Amazon delivers a feature to its ElastiCache for Redis services that originated from customer demand for replication of clusters across AWS regions. After creating a Global Datastore, writing data into ElastiCache for a Redis cluster in one region leads to the data being available for reading in two other cross-region replica clusters. This enables low-latency reads and disaster recovery across regions.
Users can setup a Global Datastore by starting with an existing cluster, or by creating a new cluster to be used as a primary. A new cluster can be create using either the AWS Management Console for ElastiCache, or through automation by downloading the latest AWS SDK or CLI. By using the AWS Console, users can create the Global Datastore specifying an existing primary cluster or creating a new one.
Source: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-available-amazon-elasticache-global-datastore-for-redis/
Next, the user completes the details for the secondary cluster hosted in another region, and potentially adds another cluster if necessary. Note that users can add up to two secondary clusters in other regions that will receive updates from the primary.
Julien Simon, artificial intelligence & machine learning evangelist for EMEA, stated in the blog post about the Global Store feature:
Last but not least, clusters that are part of a global datastore can be modified and resized as usual (adding or removing nodes, changing node type, adding or removing shards, adding or removing replica nodes).
OpsGuru, an AWS and Google Cloud partner which provides consulting, implementation and managed services for a wide range of cloud-native workloads, said in a tweet:
Though #Redis has been introduced as a temporary cache, many use cases use Redis as a key-value data store; that's why this new feature of multi-region replication is so vital for a Redis-dependent workflow to be truly resilient across regions.
Other major cloud vendors also provide disaster recovery capabilities with their caching services. Google, for instance, offers a caching service with Memorystore, which on the standard tier supports replication in a region for failover. And Microsoft has Azure Redis Cache, which supports clustering on their premium tier.
The new Global Datastore feature is available with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis 5.0.6 or above, and is supported on M5 and R5 nodes. Furthermore, the Global Datastore feature in ElastiCache for Redis is available in various AWS regions in the US, Asia Pacific, and Europe at no additional cost. Note that Amazon ElastiCache node-based pricing is applicable for all nodes created as a part of Global Datastore and standard AWS data transfer out rates apply. More details on pricing are available on the pricing page of Amazon ElastiCache for Redis.