Exercise - Connect an app to Azure Cache for Redis by using .NET Core

Completed

In this exercise you learn how to:

• Create a new Redis Cache instance by using Azure CLI commands.
• Create a .NET Core console app to add and retrieve values from the cache by using the StackExchange.Redis package.

Prerequisites

• An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't already have one, you can sign up for a free trial at https://azure.com/free.
• Visual Studio Code on one of the supported platforms.
• The C# extension for Visual Studio Code.
• .NET 8 is the target framework for this exercise.

Create Azure resources

1. Sign in to the portal: https://portal.azure.com and open the Cloud Shell, and select Bash as the shell.

2. Create a resource group for Azure resources. Replace <myLocation> with a region near you.

   az group create --name az204-redis-rg --location <myLocation>
   

3. Create an Azure Cache for Redis instance by using the az redis create command. The instance name needs to be unique and the following script attempts to generate one for you, replace <myLocation> with the region you used in the previous step. This command takes a few minutes to complete.

   redisName=az204redis$RANDOM
   az redis create --location <myLocation> \
       --resource-group az204-redis-rg \
       --name $redisName \
       --sku Basic --vm-size c0
   

4. In the Azure portal, navigate to the new Redis Cache you created.

5. Select Access keys in the Settings/Authentication section of the Navigation Pane and leave the portal open. Copy the Primary connection string (StackExchange.Redis) value to use in the app later.

Create the console application

1. Create a console app by running the following command in the Visual Studio Code terminal.

   dotnet new console -o Rediscache
   

2. Open the app in Visual Studio Code by selecting File > Open Folder and choosing the folder for the app.

3. Add the StackExchange.Redis package to the project.

   dotnet add package StackExchange.Redis
   

4. Delete any existing code in the Program.cs file and add the following using statement at the top.

   using StackExchange.Redis;
   

5. Add the following variable after the using statement, replace <REDIS_CONNECTION_STRING> with the Primary connection string (StackExchange.Redis) from the portal.

   // connection string to your Redis Cache    
   string connectionString = "REDIS_CONNECTION_STRING";
   

6. Append the following code in the Program.cs file:

   using (var cache = ConnectionMultiplexer.Connect(connectionString))
   {
       IDatabase db = cache.GetDatabase();
   
       // Snippet below executes a PING to test the server connection
       var result = await db.ExecuteAsync("ping");
       Console.WriteLine($"PING = {result.Resp2Type} : {result}");
   
       // Call StringSetAsync on the IDatabase object to set the key "test:key" to the value "100"
       bool setValue = await db.StringSetAsync("test:key", "100");
       Console.WriteLine($"SET: {setValue}");
   
       // StringGetAsync retrieves the value for the "test" key
       string getValue = await db.StringGetAsync("test:key");
       Console.WriteLine($"GET: {getValue}");
   }
   

7. In the Visual Studio Code terminal, run the following commands to build and run the app.

   dotnet build
   dotnet run
   

   The output should be similar to the following example:

   PING = SimpleString : PONG
   SET: True
   GET: 100
   

8. Return to the portal and select Activity log in the Azure Cache for Redis blade. You can view the operations in the log.

Clean up resources

When the resources are no longer needed, you can use the az group delete command to remove the resource group.

az group delete -n az204-redis-rg --no-wait