Application Server: The Caching Service should be configured on a dedicated server

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

This topic is intended to address a specific issue identified by a Best Practices Analyzer scan. You should apply the information in this topic only to computers that have had the Application Server Best Practices Analyzer run against them and are experiencing the issue addressed by this topic. For more information about best practices and scans, see Best Practices Analyzer.

Operating System

Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2008 R2

Product/Feature

Application Server role

Severity

Warning

Category

Performance

Issue

Additional Windows Server roles and services are enabled on this server.

The Windows Server roles and services include AppFabric Hosting Services, Active Directory Certificate Services, Active Directory Domain Services, Active Directory Federation Services, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services, Active Directory Rights Management Services, DHCP Server, DNS Server, Fax Server, File Services, Hyper-V, Network Policy and Access Services, Print and Document Services, Remote Desktop Services, Web Server (IIS), Windows Deployment Services, Windows Server Update Services.

Impact

For performance considerations, the AppFabric Caching Service should be configured on a dedicated server in a production environment.

Although there is no restriction against purposing existing servers, such as Web or application servers, as cache hosts on which the Caching Service is installed, the best performance and stability is achieved by using dedicated cache servers.

Resolution

Configure the Caching Service on a dedicated server.

To configure the Caching Service

  1. To install and configure the Caching Service, see Installing and Configuring Windows Server AppFabric (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=200331).

Additional references

AppFabric Caching Physical Architecture Diagram (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=200330)

Configure Windows Server AppFabric (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=200790)

Enable the Caching Service in a Workgroup Scenario (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=200791)