Manage Cache Settings page

The Manage Cache Settings page is accessible via a link on the Configuring Farm Settings page.

Manage Cache Setting

In the 2.x releases, Aurea Social had the ability to use Memcached to store public stream items on distributed cache servers. That feature was subsequently discontinued.

As of the 4.0 release, Aurea Social is now supporting the use of the Microsoft AppFabric caching technology. This is intended to support the suggest ahead feature as well as improve overall performance of the default activity stream.

Cache Services Enabled

The SuggestAhead Caching checkbox effectively activates or deactivates the Suggest Ahead feature (which shows you posts and questions that may be similar to the one you are still typing).

Check Content Caching to cache the content in users My NewsFeed filters in the Activity Stream web part.

Before you can enable the cache in Central Admin, you’ll need to set up one or more cache servers and install the client on the farm servers.

Setting up the AppFabric Cache Server(s)

Download AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server, which is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27115

We recommend that Appfabric Cache be installed on a server of its own with a minimum of 4 GB of RAM.

Steps for installing Appfabric Caching Service on the Appfabric Cache Server:

1. Open an administrator command prompt
2. Run install: WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe /gac /i CachingService
3. From Services set Startup Type for "AppFabric Caching Service" to Automatic
4. Start "AppFabric Caching Service" if not already. Startup may take a few minutes
5. Open Caching Administration Windows Powershell.
6. Start CacheClusters: Start-CacheCluster
7. Create NewsGator Cache: New-Cache -CacheName NewsGator (You can name the cache whatever you want - just record it, because you need it later)

Installing the AppFabric Cache Clients

The Appfabric Cache Client must be installed on all farm servers that would access the cache. Steps for installing on these SharePoint Servers:

1. Open an administrator command prompt.
2. Run install: WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe /gac /i CacheClient

If you do not see the following DLLs in the GAC after install, add them manually to the GAC, after which a reboot of the server is the easiest way to get Windows to recognize them:

• Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Client.dll
• Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Caching.Core.dll
• Microsoft.WindowsFabric.Common.dll
• Microsoft.WindowsFabric.Data.Common.dll

These DLLs can be retrieved from the AppFabric Program Files folder.

Aurea Social Settings for AppFabric Caching

Now enter information that matches your cache configuration. If you used a different Cache Name be sure to use it here. Also enable the cache with either or both of the checkboxes at the top.

Enter information that matches your cache configuration

The next time the NewsGator Suggest Ahead Builder Job runs, the cache is filled. You can get immediate results by manually running the job. You can also update the job frequency to every 15 minutes if you desire but we do not recommend running it more frequently than that.

In recent releases, additional controls have been added to allow you to fine-tine or troubleshoot cache performance. Each of these settings is fairly well explained in the UI. If you are attempting to setup and configure cache and these settings do not make sense, you should contact Aurea Support.

Additional controls

The following sections were also added in recent releases and allow control of the client and the cache contents.

These sections allow control of the client and the cache contents

Finally, these settings were added to control security and transport communication properties.

These setting are to control security and transport communication properties