Windows Azure AppFabric Caching enables you to easily provision a cache in the cloud to be used from any applications or services that could benefit from caching. This includes a very common scenario of session state and output caching in ASP.NET. Caching increases performance by temporarily storing information from other backend sources. High performance is achieved by maintaining this cache in-memory across multiple cache servers. For a Windows Azure solution, caching can reduce the costs associated with database transactions in the cloud.

Windows Server AppFabric Caching Concepts:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee790849.aspx

Differences Between Caching On-Premises and in the Cloud:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/gg185678.aspx

Azure Release Notes for the November 2011 Release

 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh148155.aspx

Windows Server AppFabric Caching Physical Architecture Diagram

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee790954.aspx

The AppFabric Caching Service is a Windows service that runs on one or more servers. Each server that runs the Caching Service is referred to as a cache server. For each cache server, only one instance of the Caching Service can be installed.

Cache Cluster:

The cache cluster is a collection of one or more instances of the Caching Service working together in the form of a ring to store and distribute data. Data is stored in memory to minimize response times for data requests. The operations of the cache cluster are managed by a role, named the cluster management role. The primary responsibility of the cluster management role includes:

Preparing the Cache Client Development Environment (Windows Server AppFabric Caching)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee790876.aspx

Windows Server AppFabric Download:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/ee695849