Sql Cache Dependency in a distributed environment

[Abraham Shilon]

Hi,

We are thinking to make some architectural changes in our application, which might affect the the technologies we'll be using as a result of those changes.
The change that I'm referring in this email is like this:
We found out that some parts of our application have common data and common services, so we extracted those into a GlobalServices service, with its own master data db.
Now, this service will probably have its own cache, so that it won't have to retrieve data from the db on each call.
So, when one client makes a call to that service that updates data, other clients might be interested in that change, or not. Now that depends on whether we decide to keep a cache on the clients too.
Meaning that if the clients will have their own local cache, they will have to be notified somehow (and first register for notifications). If not, they will always get the data from the GlobalServices service.

I need your educated advice here guys:
    1) Is it a good idea to keep a local cache on the clients to begin with?
    2) If we do decide to keep a local cache on the clients, would you use SqlCacheDependency to notify the clients, or would you use WCF for notifications (each might have its cons and pros)

Thanks a lot folks,
Avi