AWS ElastiCache: Hands-On with Redis Setup

Introduction

In this session, we explored AWS ElastiCache by creating a Redis cache instance. While Memcached is also an option, we focused on Redis for this hands-on practice.

Choosing the Right Setup

ElastiCache provides two deployment methods:

1. Serverless (Auto-Scaling) – No server management, scales automatically, but is expensive.
2. Manual Configuration – More control over the architecture and cost, making it easier to understand how caching works on AWS.

For this hands-on, we designed our own Redis cache using manual configuration.

Configuring ElastiCache for Redis

1. Cluster Mode Selection

• Cluster Mode Disabled – Uses a single shard with one primary node and up to five read replicas.
• Cluster Mode Enabled – Supports multiple shards across multiple servers for scalability.

🔹 For this exercise: We disabled cluster mode and named our instance DemoCluster.

2. Deployment Location

• AWS Cloud (default) – Standard option.
• AWS Outposts – Runs ElastiCache on-premises.

🔹 For this exercise: We selected AWS Cloud.

3. High Availability Options