To use an in memory cache in your ASP.NET application, add the following dependencies to your project.json file:

  "Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory": "1.0.0-rc2-final",

add the cache service (from Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory) to ConfigureServices method in Startup class

services.AddMemoryCache();

To add items to the cache in our application, we will use IMemoryCache which can be injected to any class (for example Controller) as shown below.

private IMemoryCache _memoryCache;
public HomeController(IMemoryCache memoryCache)
{
    _memoryCache = memoryCache;
}

Get will return the value if it exists, but otherwise returns null.

    // try to get the cached item; null if not found
    // greeting = _memoryCache.Get(cacheKey) as string;

    // alternately, TryGet returns true if the cache entry was found
    if(!_memoryCache.TryGetValue(cacheKey, out greeting))

Use the Set method to write to the cache. Set accepts the key to use to look up the value, the value to be cached, and a set of MemoryCacheEntryOptions. The MemoryCacheEntryOptions allow you to specify absolute or sliding time-based cache expiration, caching priority, callbacks, and dependencies. One of the sample below-

_memoryCache.Set(cacheKey, greeting,
                new MemoryCacheEntryOptions()
                .SetAbsoluteExpiration(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1)));

To leverage distributed cache, you'll have to reference one of the available implementations :

• Redis
• Sql server

For instance you'll register Redis implemention as follows :

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddDistributedRedisCache(options =>
    {
        options.Configuration = "ServerAdress";
        options.InstanceName = "InstanceName";
    });
}

Require IDistributedCache dependency where you need it:

public class BooksController {
    private IDistributedCache distributedCache;

    public BooksController(IDistributedCache distributedCache) {
        this.distributedCache = distributedCache;
    }

    [HttpGet]
    public async Task<Books[]> GetAllBooks() {
        var serialized = this.distributedCache.GetStringAsync($"allbooks");
        Books[] books = null;
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(serialized)) {
            books = await Books.FetchAllAsync();
            this.distributedCache.SetStringAsync($"allbooks", JsonConvert.SerializeObject(books));
        } else {
            books = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Books[]>(serialized);
        }
        return books;
    }
}