Is the Memcache Service deprecated? (2nd generation runtime migration question)

[Ken Bailey]

I've been working on an app using the Java 8 Standard runtime, but have recently looked at migrating to the new Java 11 runtime. I peeked at the differences between the two (https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/java11/java-differences) to get an understanding of what such a migration would entail, but I'm confused by some of the suggested migration paths, in particular regarding Memcache. 

The recommended path on that page is to create a Memorystore instance and connect App Engine to it. Is this solution meant to replace the concept of the Memcache Service entirely, or is it meant as more of a workaround until the Memcache Service is ported or otherwise made available in the 2nd generation runtimes? I haven't been able to discern a clear answer about this. Some of the documentation/answers I've seen suggest that the Memcache Service will be ported, for example:

"The Memcache service is currently not available for the App Engine flexible environment. An alpha version of the memcache service will be available shortly.(from https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/flexible/java/migrating - I know it's talking about flex, but it does suggest that work is being done to port the Memcache Service in some capacity)

But, the Java 11 doc linked above makes no mention of this. Additionally, this page (https://cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/standard/runtimes) suggests that the 1st gen runtimes aren't planning on being deprecated any time soon, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me to continuing developing a new app against the 1st gen runtimes if they are about to enter what is essentially maintenance mode. But, the Memorystore migration path seems to defeat the point of App Engine's free tier - I'd be going from the free cache to having to pay ~$36/month, regardless of the app's usage (I obtained that figure from the pricing calculator using Memorystore's smallest cache size of 1 GB).

Could I get some guidance, one way or the other?

[Nicola Spreafico]

Hi,

Cloud Memorystore Memcache is a product that is actually in alpha status right now. There is no public documentation available for this as far as I can see.

https://console.cloud.google.com/memorystore/memcache/instances

During february of this year they shared a Google Form for the ones who might be interested on alpha program (sorry but I'm not able to find the url).

I understand that [Cloud Memorystore Memcache] is the "managed" service that is (will be) available as stand-alone service instead of being integrated only on App Engine.

The same roadmap that tasks (Cloud Task), cron (Cloud Scheduler), datastore (Cloud Datastore) services have followed before this one, which historically were available only as built-in services of App Engine standard.

[Yasser Karout]

For flexible environments, a memcache service will be available at some point as mentioned in the doc you linked.

For standard environments, using Cloud Memorystore (via VPC Connect) is the only supported cache path for 2nd Generation runtimes as mentioned here by the App Engine Team [1].

[1] https://issuetracker.google.com/113127309

[Ken Bailey]

Ah, I see; that comment on the issue tracker was exactly the type of information I was looking for. Seems pretty explicit. Thanks for you help!

[Amit Sinha]

Hello Ken, I glad that it helps you. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.