ElastiCache is just an Amazon run copy of Memcached (Much like Amazon RDS is just an Amazon run copy of either MySQL or Oracle), and as such any plugin that uses memcache will support ElastiCache out of the box.
I setup a ElastiCache pool and connected W3 total cache to it yesterday with absolutely no problems.
Thread Starter
brvce
(@brvce)
Thanks Nick – can I ask how you ‘connect ‘ them. Does W3 detect it somehow and add it to the drop down box or did you have to tweak something else.
Bruce
When you create an elasticache pool you are given a list of hostnames (one for each node you create), then simply select Memcached for the cache type in W3 Total Cache, and on the settings tab for the particular cache you are using Elasticache for, put the hosts that amazon gives you (with :11211 on each one, the standard Memcache port), comma separated
Thread Starter
brvce
(@brvce)
Thanks a bunch – appreciate it.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but W3TC will not let you choose memcache (it is grayed out) unless you install it on the server.
@nickmoline, can you please explain the process of implementing ElastiCache… again.
you don’t need to have memcache installed, only the memcache pecl module in your php installation. Elasticache is a memcached server, nothing more nothing less. As long as you have the memcache pecl module installed in your php, the memcache option will be available on the W3TC dropdowns.
You can install the pecl module with:
pecl install memcache
OR on an apt based system like debian or ubuntu
apt-get install php5-memcache
Right, what I was thinking. Thanks @nickmoline.
Another question @nickmoline, if you don’t mind.
What do you think of ElastiCache performance/cost wise?
@nick,
You say “I setup a ElastiCache pool and connected W3 total cache to it yesterday with absolutely no problems.”
However here is what AWS FAQs is saying:
Can programs running on servers in my own data center access Amazon ElastiCache?
No. Currently, all clients to an ElastiCache Cluster must be within the Amazon EC2 network, and authorized via security groups.
I found out that the hard way. Digging into AWS, lunching instances, creating nodes, creating various security groups (firewalls), etc.
It turns out you can use ElastiCache only if you host your site at Amazon EC2 network.
Any thoughts?
I was also able to set up ElastiCache for a WP install running on EC2 with the Bitnami WP stack.