cacheek

Cacheek is a fictional distributed caching system used to illustrate typical features of modern caches. It stores frequently accessed data in memory to reduce latency and backend load, and targets cloud-native applications and microservices.

The system describes a multi-tier architecture with an in-memory tier and an optional persistent tier. It offers a simple key-value API and client libraries for common languages. It supports eviction policies such as LRU, LFU, and FIFO, and uses consistent hashing to enable horizontal scaling across nodes.

Cacheek can operate as a standalone cluster or as part of a larger data platform. It supports multi-region replication, basic metrics, and health checks, making it suitable for service meshes and serverless workloads where latency matters.

Compared with other caches, Cacheek emphasizes cross-language interoperability and built-in observability, including cache-hit tracing. Potential drawbacks include memory usage, configuration complexity, and network overhead in highly dynamic environments.

In this article, Cacheek serves as a theoretical example used to explore design choices in distributed caching, rather than a description of a real product. See also caching, distributed cache, and in-memory data stores.