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.NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component

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In this article, you learn how to use the .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component. The Aspire.StackExchange.Redis.DistributedCaching library is used to register an IDistributedCache provider for connecting to Redis server. It enables corresponding health checks, logging and telemetry.

Get started

To get started with the .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component, install the Aspire.StackExchange.Redis.DistributedCaching NuGet package.

dotnet add package Aspire.StackExchange.Redis.DistributedCaching --prerelease

For more information, see dotnet add package or Manage package dependencies in .NET applications.

Example usage

In the Program.cs file of your component-consuming project, call the AddRedisDistributedCache extension to register the required services for distributed caching and add a IDistributedCache for use via the dependency injection container.

builder.AddRedisDistributedCache("cache");

You can then retrieve the IDistributedCache instance using dependency injection. For example, to retrieve the cache from a service:

public class ExampleService(IDistributedCache cache)
{
    // Use cache...
}

App host usage

In your app host project, register the .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component and consume the service using the following methods, such as AddRedis:

// Service registration
var redis = builder.AddRedis("redis");

// Service consumption
builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
       .WithReference(redis)

The WithReference method configures a connection in the ExampleProject project named redis. In the Program.cs file of ExampleProject, the Redis connection can be consumed using:

builder.AddRedisDistributedCache("cache");

Configuration

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component provides multiple options to configure the Redis connection based on the requirements and conventions of your project.

Use a connection string

When using a connection string from the ConnectionStrings configuration section, you can provide the name of the connection string when calling builder.AddRedisDistributedCache:

builder.AddRedisDistributedCache("RedisConnection");

And then the connection string will be retrieved from the ConnectionStrings configuration section:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "RedisConnection": "localhost:6379"
  }
}

For more information on how to format this connection string, see the StackExchange Redis configuration docs.

Use configuration providers

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component supports Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration. It loads the StackExchangeRedisSettings from configuration by using the Aspire:StackExchange:Redis key. Example appsettings.json that configures some of the options:

{
  "Aspire": {
    "StackExchange": {
      "Redis": {
        "ConfigurationOptions": {
          "ConnectTimeout": 3000,
          "ConnectRetry": 2
        },
        "HealthChecks": false,
        "Tracing": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Use inline delegates

You can also pass the Action<StackExchangeRedisSettings> delegate to set up some or all the options inline, for example to configure Tracing:

builder.AddRedisDistributedCache(
    "cache",
    settings => settings.Tracing = false);

You can also set up the ConfigurationOptions using the Action<ConfigurationOptions> configureOptions delegate parameter of the AddRedisDistributedCache method. For example to set the connection timeout:

builder.AddRedisDistributedCache(
    "cache",
    configureOptions: options => options.ConnectTimeout = 3000);

Health checks

By default, .NET Aspire components enable health checks for all services. For more information, see .NET Aspire components overview.

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis distributed caching component handles the following:

  • Adds the StackExchange.Redis health check, tries to open the connection and throws when it fails.
  • Integrates with the /health HTTP endpoint, which specifies all registered health checks must pass for app to be considered ready to accept traffic

Observability and telemetry

.NET Aspire components automatically set up Logging, Tracing, and Metrics configurations, which are sometimes known as the pillars of observability. For more information about component observability and telemetry, see .NET Aspire components overview. Depending on the backing service, some components may only support some of these features. For example, some components support logging and tracing, but not metrics. Telemetry features can also be disabled using the techniques presented in the Configuration section.

Logging

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis Distributed Caching component uses the following Log categories:

  • Aspire.StackExchange.Redis
  • Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.StackExchangeRedis

Tracing

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis Distributed Caching component will emit the following Tracing activities using OpenTelemetry:

  • "OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.StackExchangeRedis"

Metrics

The .NET Aspire StackExchange Redis Distributed Caching component currently doesn't support metrics by default due to limitations with the StackExchange.Redis library.

See also