Salesforce Platform Cache is a powerful feature provided by Salesforce that allows developers to store and manage reusable data across multiple transactions and sessions. It is essentially a layer of fast, temporary storage that helps improve the performance and scalability of Salesforce applications by reducing the need to repeatedly access the database for the same data. This feature is especially beneficial in environments where Salesforce orgs are heavily customized and have a high volume of transactions.
Use Cases and Examples
- Session and Org Cache: Salesforce Platform Cache is divided into two types: Session and Org cache. Session cache is specific to a user session, while Org cache is shared across all users in the org.
- Improving Visualforce Page Performance: Storing frequently accessed but rarely changed data, such as picklist values or configuration settings, to reduce SOQL query usage and page load times.
- Lightning Component Performance: Caching data used across multiple components or apps to avoid redundant server calls and improve user experience.
- Complex Calculation Results: Storing the results of complex calculations that are expensive to compute and don’t change often, for example, aggregated summaries or scoring results.
- API Call Results: Temporarily storing results from external API calls to external systems to minimize API callouts and stay within governor limits.
Best Practices
- Cache Only What’s Necessary: Cache data that is expensive to compute, frequently accessed, and relatively static. Avoid caching volatile data that changes frequently.
- Monitor Cache Usage: Use the Salesforce monitoring tools to keep an eye on cache usage and ensure that the cache size is appropriately allocated based on the actual usage patterns.
- Cache Invalidation Strategy: Implement a robust cache invalidation strategy to ensure that the cache is refreshed when the underlying data changes, preventing stale data issues.
- Security Considerations: Be mindful of what data is stored in the cache, especially in Org cache, as it is accessible across user sessions. Avoid caching sensitive data unless absolutely necessary and ensure it is securely handled.
- Use Cache Partitioning: Organize your cache into partitions and sub-partitions to manage access and eviction policies more effectively. This helps in isolating and managing different types of data stored in the cache.
Gotchas
- Cache Misses: Relying too much on cache without handling cache misses properly can lead to performance bottlenecks. Ensure there are fallback mechanisms to retrieve data from the primary source if it’s not available in the cache.
- Cache Size and Limits: Salesforce imposes limits on the amount of cache storage available. Exceeding these limits can result in eviction of cached data, which could affect application performance.
- Data Consistency: There is a risk of serving stale data from the cache if the cache is not invalidated or updated promptly when the underlying data changes.
Alternatives to Salesforce Platform Cache
- Custom Caching Mechanisms: For specific use cases, developers might implement custom caching solutions within Salesforce, using custom objects or static variables, though these come with their own limitations and considerations.
- External Caching Services: Leveraging external caching services or databases, such as Redis or Memcached, through external integrations. This can provide more flexibility and control over the caching layer but requires additional infrastructure and integration effort.
- Salesforce Redis Cache: Salesforce offers Redis Cache as a high-performance, distributed cache service integrated within the Salesforce ecosystem, providing an alternative to the built-in Platform Cache for more demanding or specialized caching needs.
When implementing Salesforce Platform Cache, it’s important to carefully plan and design the caching strategy, considering the specific needs and constraints of the Salesforce environment, and to follow best practices to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization.