Redis with Alvin Richards

Redis is an in-memory database that persists to disk. Redis is commonly used as an object cache for web applications.

Applications are composed of caches and databases. A cache typically stores the data in memory, and a database typically stores the data on disk. Memory has significantly faster access times, but is more expensive and is volatile, meaning that if the computer that is holding that piece of data in memory goes offline, the data will be lost.

When a user makes a request to load their personal information, the server will try to load that data from a cache. If the cache does not contain the user’s information, the server will go to the database to find that information. 

Alvin Richards is chief product officer with Redis Labs, and he joins the show to discuss how Redis works. We explore different design patterns for making Redis high availability, or using it as a volatile cache, and we talk through the read and write path for Redis data. Full disclosure: Redis Labs is a sponsor of Software Engineering Daily.

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Transcript

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