Quickstart: Use Azure Cache for Redis in Java

In this quickstart, you incorporate Azure Cache for Redis into a Java app using the Jedis Redis client. Your cache is a secure, dedicated cache that is accessible from any application within Azure.

Skip to the code on GitHub

Clone the repo Java quickstart on GitHub.

Prerequisites

• Azure subscription - create one for free
• Apache Maven

Create an Azure Cache for Redis

1. To create a cache, sign in to the Azure portal. On the portal menu, select Create a resource.

   

2. On the Get Started pane, enter Azure Cache for Redis in the search bar. In the search results, find Azure Cache for Redis, and then select Create.

   

3. On the New Redis Cache pane, on the Basics tab, configure the following settings for your cache:

   Setting	Action	Description
   Subscription	Select your Azure subscription.	The subscription to use to create the new instance of Azure Cache for Redis.
   Resource group	Select a resource group, or select Create new and enter a new resource group name.	A name for the resource group in which to create your cache and other resources. By putting all your app resources in one resource group, you can easily manage or delete them together.
   DNS name	Enter a unique name.	The cache name must be a string of 1 to 63 characters that contains only numbers, letters, and hyphens. The name must start and end with a number or letter, and it can't contain consecutive hyphens. Your cache instance's host name is \<DNS name>.redis.cache.windows.net.
   Location	Select a location.	An Azure region that is near other services that use your cache.
   Cache SKU	Select a SKU.	The SKU determines the size, performance, and feature parameters that are available for the cache. For more information, see Azure Cache for Redis overview.
   Cache size	Select a cache size.	For more information, see Azure Cache for Redis overview.

4. Select the Networking tab or select Next: Networking.

5. On the Networking tab, select a connectivity method to use for the cache.

6. Select the Advanced tab or select Next: Advanced.

7. On the Advanced pane, verify or select an authentication method based on the following information:

   

   • By default, for a new Basic, Standard, or Premium cache, Microsoft Entra Authentication is enabled and Access Keys Authentication is disabled.
   • For Basic or Standard caches, you can choose the selection for a non-TLS port.
   • For Standard and Premium caches, you can choose to enable availability zones. You can't disable availability zones after the cache is created.
   • For a Premium cache, configure the settings for non-TLS port, clustering, managed identity, and data persistence.

   Important

   For optimal security, we recommend that you use Microsoft Entra ID with managed identities to authorize requests against your cache if possible. Authorization by using Microsoft Entra ID and managed identities provides superior security and ease of use over shared access key authorization. For more information about using managed identities with your cache, see Use Microsoft Entra ID for cache authentication.

8. (Optional) Select the Tags tab or select Next: Tags.

9. (Optional) On the Tags tab, enter a tag name and value if you want to categorize your cache resource.

10. Select the Review + create button.

    On the Review + create tab, Azure automatically validates your configuration.

11. After the green Validation passed message appears, select Create.

A new cache deployment occurs over several minutes. You can monitor the progress of the deployment on the Azure Cache for Redis Overview pane. When Status displays Running, the cache is ready to use.

Retrieve host name, ports, and access keys from the Azure portal

To connect your Azure Cache for Redis server, the cache client needs the host name, ports, and a key for the cache. Some clients might refer to these items by slightly different names. You can get the host name, ports, and keys from the Azure portal.

• To get the access keys, select Authentication from the Resource menu. Then, select the Access keys tab.

  

• To get the host name and ports for your cache, select Overview from the Resource menu. The host name is of the form <DNS name>.redis.cache.windows.net.

  

Set up the working environment

Depending on your operating system, add environment variables for your Host name and Primary access key that you noted previously. Open a command prompt, or a terminal window, and set up the following values:

export REDISCACHEHOSTNAME=<your-host-name>.redis.cache.windows.net
export REDISCACHEKEY=<your-primary-access-key>

set REDISCACHEHOSTNAME=<your-host-name>.redis.cache.windows.net
set REDISCACHEKEY=<your-primary-access-key>

Replace the placeholders with the following values:

• <your-host-name>: The DNS host name, obtained from the Properties section of your Azure Cache for Redis resource in the Azure portal.
• <your-primary-access-key>: The primary access key, obtained from the Access keys section of your Azure Cache for Redis resource in the Azure portal.

Understand the Java sample

In this sample, you use Maven to run the quickstart app.

1. Change to the new redistest project directory.

2. Open the pom.xml file. In the file, you see a dependency for Jedis:

   <dependency>
     <groupId>redis.clients</groupId>
     <artifactId>jedis</artifactId>
     <version>4.1.0</version>
     <type>jar</type>
     <scope>compile</scope>
   </dependency>
   

3. Close the pom.xml file.

4. Open App.java and see the code with the following code:

   package example.demo;
   
   import redis.clients.jedis.DefaultJedisClientConfig;
   import redis.clients.jedis.Jedis;
   
   /**
    * Redis test
    *
    */
   public class App 
   {
       public static void main( String[] args )
       {
   
           boolean useSsl = true;
           String cacheHostname = System.getenv("REDISCACHEHOSTNAME");
           String cachekey = System.getenv("REDISCACHEKEY");
   
           // Connect to the Azure Cache for Redis over the TLS/SSL port using the key.
           Jedis jedis = new Jedis(cacheHostname, 6380, DefaultJedisClientConfig.builder()
               .password(cachekey)
               .ssl(useSsl)
               .build());
   
           // Perform cache operations using the cache connection object...
   
           // Simple PING command
           System.out.println( "\nCache Command  : Ping" );
           System.out.println( "Cache Response : " + jedis.ping());
   
           // Simple get and put of integral data types into the cache
           System.out.println( "\nCache Command  : GET Message" );
           System.out.println( "Cache Response : " + jedis.get("Message"));
   
           System.out.println( "\nCache Command  : SET Message" );
           System.out.println( "Cache Response : " + jedis.set("Message", "Hello! The cache is working from Java!"));
   
           // Demonstrate "SET Message" executed as expected...
           System.out.println( "\nCache Command  : GET Message" );
           System.out.println( "Cache Response : " + jedis.get("Message"));
   
           // Get the client list, useful to see if connection list is growing...
           System.out.println( "\nCache Command  : CLIENT LIST" );
           System.out.println( "Cache Response : " + jedis.clientList());
   
           jedis.close();
       }
   }
   

   This code shows you how to connect to an Azure Cache for Redis instance using the cache host name and key environment variables. The code also stores and retrieves a string value in the cache. The PING and CLIENT LIST commands are also executed.

5. Close the App.java.

Build and run the app

1. First, if you haven't already, you must set the environment variables as noted previously.

   • Linux
   • Windows

   export REDISCACHEHOSTNAME=<your-host-name>.redis.cache.windows.net
   export REDISCACHEKEY=<your-primary-access-key>
   

2. Execute the following Maven command to build and run the app:

   • Linux
   • Windows

   mvn compile
   mvn exec:java -D exec.mainClass=example.demo.App
   

In the following output, you can see that the Message key previously had a cached value. The value was updated to a new value using jedis.set. The app also executed the PING and CLIENT LIST commands.

Cache Command  : Ping
Cache Response : PONG

Cache Command  : GET Message
Cache Response : Hello! The cache is working from Java!

Cache Command  : SET Message
Cache Response : OK

Cache Command  : GET Message
Cache Response : Hello! The cache is working from Java!

Cache Command  : CLIENT LIST
Cache Response : id=777430 addr=             :58989 fd=22 name= age=1 idle=0 flags=N db=0 sub=0 psub=0 multi=-1 qbuf=0 qbuf-free=32768 obl=0 oll=0 omem=0 ow=0 owmem=0 events=r cmd=client numops=6

Clean up resources

If you continue to use the quickstart code, you can keep the resources created in this quickstart and reuse them.

Otherwise, if you're finished with the quickstart sample application, you can delete the Azure resources created in this quickstart to avoid charges.

1. Sign in to the Azure portal and select Resource groups.

2. In the Filter by name textbox, type the name of your resource group. The instructions for this article used a resource group named TestResources. On your resource group in the result list, select ... then Delete resource group.

   

3. Type the name of your resource group to confirm deletion and then select Delete.

After a few moments, the resource group and all of its contained resources are deleted.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you learned how to use Azure Cache for Redis from a Java application. Continue to the next quickstart to use Azure Cache for Redis with an ASP.NET web app.

• Development
• Connection resilience
• Azure Cache for Redis with Jakarta EE
• Azure Cache for Redis with Spring