Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Cache is a fully managed, high-performance in-memory key-value store cloud service designed to accelerate application response times and enhance scalability. It leverages open-source cache engines like Valkey to offer up to sub millisecond data access and  flexible memory configurations. OCI Cache supports both sharded and non-sharded clusters.

We’re announcing the support for Valkey 8.1 in OCI Cache in limited availability  to customers.

Key benefits of using Valkey 8.1 in OCI Cache
Here are some of the new capabilities introduced in Valkey 8.1 that OCI Cache users will have access to:

  1. Enhanced I/O threading – offloads additional operations to I/O threads, improving throughput and reducing latency
  2. Optimized Hash Table implementation – a redesigned hash table, reducing memory usage per key-value pair
  3. Iterator prefetching – memory prefetching techniques during key iteration, making operations like KEYS and replication processes 3.5 times faster
  4. Sorted Set Command Optimizations – better performance of commands like ZRANK and ZADD for gaming applications
  5. Conditional Updates – eliminates complexity of conditions in application code for SET commands

For OCI Cache users, this means with their existing OCI Cache cluster configuration the Valkey 8.1 engine will provide better throughput and use lesser memory. This will help achieve cost efficiency and better value from the existing clusters.

Additional capabilities: JSON and Vector Similarity Search Modules
With the release of Valkey 8.1, OCI Cache as well supports two powerful modules: JSON and Vector Similarity Search.

  • JSON Module: Enables native support for JSON data types, allowing efficient storage and manipulation of hierarchical data within the cache.
  • Valkey-search Module: Provides high-performance vector similarity search capabilities, essential for AI-driven applications requiring real-time recommendations and content-based retrieval.

Summary
By leveraging OCI Cache with Valkey 8.1, users can take advantage of these performance improvements and new features to build enhanced workloads. The combination of memory optimizations, improved threading, and command enhancements ensures that applications can meet growing user demands efficiently. To opt-in and start using this new version, get in touch with Oracle Support or create a Service Request from the OCI Console.

OCI Cache product page
OCI Cache technical documentation