Optimizing Spring Boot Applications with Redis Caching

In my previous blog, I explained what is Caching and different methods of caching used In Springboot Applications. So as promised here is an in-depth blog about Redis Caching.

What is Redis?

Redis (Remote Dictionary Server) is an open-source, in-memory key-value data store that supports a variety of data structures like strings, lists, sets, hashes, and more. It’s highly performant due to its in-memory architecture, which makes it an excellent choice for caching and session management in modern applications.

Pros of Using Redis for Caching.

Redis offers several benefits when used as a caching solution:

In-memory storage: It stores data in RAM, enabling lightning-fast read and write operations.
Data persistence: Redis allows data persistence through snapshots or appending to logs.
Advanced data structures: Beyond key-value pairs, Redis supports lists, sets, sorted sets, and more, making it a versatile tool.
High availability: Redis can be configured in a distributed, highly available setup with clustering and replication.
TTL support: You can set Time-to-Live (TTL) on cached data, ensuring stale data is evicted automatically.

Let’s Set Up Redis in Spring Boot

Let’s go step-by-step on how to set up and configure Redis caching in a Spring Boot application.

1. Add Dependencies

To get started, add the following dependencies in your pom.xml (for Maven) or build.gradle (for Gradle) file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-redis</artifactId>
</dependency>

2. Install Redis

You can install Redis on your machine, or if you’re working in a cloud environment, you can use managed services like AWS ElastiCache or Redis Enterprise Cloud.

For local development, you can install Redis using the following command:

sudo apt-get install redis-server

Start Redis using:

redis-server

You can confirm that Redis is running by typing:

redis-cli ping
It should return PONG if Redis is running correctly.

3. Configure Redis in Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to configure Redis. All you need to do is provide Redis connection details in the application.properties or application.yml file.

# application.properties
spring.redis.host=localhost
spring.redis.port=6379
spring.cache.type=redis

spring:
  redis:
    host: localhost
    port: 6379
  cache:
    type: redis

If your Redis instance requires authentication, add the password field:

spring.redis.password=yourpassword

4. Enable Caching in Spring Boot

Next, you need to enable caching in your Spring Boot application. This can be done by adding the @EnableCaching annotation in your main application class.

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableCaching
public class RedisCacheApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(RedisCacheApplication.class, args);
    }
}

5. Implement Caching

To apply caching to a method, simply use the @Cacheable annotation. Let’s say you have a service class that fetches user data:

@Service
public class UserService {

    @Cacheable(value = "userCache", key = "#userId")
    public User getUserById(Long userId) {
        // Simulate a database call
        return userRepository.findById(userId).orElseThrow(() -> new UserNotFoundException());
    }
}

@Cacheable: Caches the method's return value using the given cache name (userCache in this case).
key: Specifies the key under which the value will be stored. By default, all method arguments are considered part of the key.

When the getUserById method is called, it will first check the cache. The data is cached and returned if it is present; if not, it retrieves the data from the database and saves it in the cache.

6. Cache Eviction and Updating

You should update or invalidate the cache whenever the underlying data changes. Spring provides the @CachePut and @CacheEvict annotations for this purpose.

@CachePut: Updates the values in the cache with a new value.
@CacheEvict: eliminates a record from the cache.

Here’s an example:

@Service
public class UserService {

    @CacheEvict(value = "userCache", key = "#userId")
    public void deleteUserById(Long userId) {
        userRepository.deleteById(userId);
    }

    @CachePut(value = "userCache", key = "#user.id")
    public User updateUser(User user) {
        return userRepository.save(user);
    }
}

In deleteUserById, the cache entry for the given userId is removed.
In updateUser, the cache entry is updated with the new user data.

7. Customizing Cache Expiration

Redis lets you specify the time-to-live (TTL) for entries that are cached. You can set the TTL in your cache manager using Spring Boot.

@Configuration
public class RedisCacheConfig {

    @Bean
    public RedisCacheConfiguration cacheConfiguration() {
        return RedisCacheConfiguration.defaultCacheConfig()
                .entryTtl(Duration.ofMinutes(10)) // Set TTL to 10 minutes
                .disableCachingNullValues();
    }
}

Cache values will be automatically deleted after ten minutes thanks to this configuration.

8. Monitoring Redis

In addition to integrating Redis with external tools like Redis-cli or Prometheus, Redis has its own suite of monitoring tools, such as redis-cli. Monitoring makes it easier to monitor response times, memory usage, and cache hit/miss ratios.

Conclusion

The performance and scalability of your Spring Boot application can be greatly enhanced by integrating Redis caching. It gives end users faster response times and lessens the strain on your backend services.