Tutorial: Deploy a .NET Aspire project with a Redis Cache to Azure

Article
08/29/2024

In this tutorial, you learn to configure a .NET Aspire project with a Redis Cache for deployment to Azure. .NET Aspire provides multiple caching integration configurations that provision different Redis services in Azure. You'll learn how to:

Configure the app to provision an Azure Cache for Redis
Configure the app to provision a containerized Redis Cache

Note

This document focuses specifically on .NET Aspire configurations to provision and deploy Redis Cache resources in Azure. For more information and to learn more about the full .NET Aspire deployment process, see the Azure Container Apps deployment tutorial.

Prerequisites

To work with .NET Aspire, you need the following installed locally:

.NET 8.0
.NET Aspire workload:
- Installed with the Visual Studio installer or the .NET CLI workload.
An OCI compliant container runtime, such as:
- Docker Desktop or Podman.
An Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) or code editor, such as:
- Visual Studio 2022 version 17.10 or higher (Optional)
- Visual Studio Code (Optional)
  - C# Dev Kit: Extension (Optional)

For more information, see .NET Aspire setup and tooling.

Create the sample solution

Follow the Tutorial: Implement caching with .NET Aspire integrations to create the sample project.

Configure the app for Redis cache deployment

.NET Aspire provides two built-in configuration options to streamline Redis Cache deployment on Azure:

Provision a containerized Redis Cache using Azure Container Apps
Provision an Azure Cache for Redis instance

Add the .NET Aspire integration to the app

Add the appropriate .NET Aspire integration to the AspireRedis.AppHost project for your desired hosting service.

Azure Cache for Redis
Redis Container

Add the Aspire.Hosting.Azure.Redis package to the AspireRedis.AppHost project:

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Azure.Redis

Add the Aspire.Hosting.Redis package to the AspireRedis.AppHost project:

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Redis

Configure the AppHost project

Configure the AspireRedis.AppHost project for your desired Redis service.

Azure Cache for Redis
Redis Container

Replace the contents of the Program.cs file in the AspireRedis.AppHost project with the following code:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var cache = builder.AddRedis("cache")
                   .PublishAsAzureRedis();

var apiService = builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireRedis_ApiService>("apiservice")
                        .WithReference(cache);

builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireRedis_Web>("webfrontend")
    .WithExternalHttpEndpoints()
    .WithReference(cache)
    .WithReference(apiService);

builder.Build().Run();

The preceding code adds an Azure Cache for Redis resource to your app and configures a connection called cache. The PublishAsAzureRedis method ensures that tools such as the Azure Developer CLI or Visual Studio create an Azure Cache for Redis resource during the deployment process.

Replace the contents of the Program.cs file in the AspireRedis.AppHost project with the following code:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var cache = builder.AddRedis("cache");

var apiService = builder.AddProject<Projects.RedisSample_ApiService>("apiservice")
                        .WithReference(cache);

builder.AddProject<Projects.RedisSample_Web>("webfrontend")
    .WithExternalHttpEndpoints()
    .WithReference(cache)
    .WithReference(apiService);

builder.Build().Run();

The preceding code adds a Redis Container resource to your app and configures a connection called cache. This configuration also ensures that tools such as the Azure Developer CLI or Visual Studio create a containerized Redis instance during the deployment process.

Deploy the app

Tools such as the Azure Developer CLI (azd) support .NET Aspire Redis integration configurations to streamline deployments. azd consumes these settings and provisions properly configured resources for you.

Note

You can also use the Azure CLI or Bicep to provision and deploy .NET Aspire project resources. These options require more manual steps, but provide more granular control over your deployments. .NET Aspire projects can also connect to an existing Redis instance through manual configurations.

Open a terminal window in the root of your .NET Aspire project.
Run the azd init command to initialize the project with azd.
```
azd init
```
When prompted for an environment name, enter docs-aspireredis.
Run the azd up command to begin the deployment process:
```
azd up
```
Select the Azure subscription that should host your app resources.
Select the Azure location to use.

The Azure Developer CLI provisions and deploys your app resources. The process may take a few minutes to complete.
When the deployment finishes, click the resource group link in the output to view the created resources in the Azure portal.

Azure Cache for Redis
Redis Container

The deployment process provisioned an Azure Cache for Redis resource due to the .AppHost configuration you provided.

A screenshot showing the deployed Azure Cache for Redis.

Clean up resources

Run the following Azure CLI command to delete the resource group when you no longer need the Azure resources you created. Deleting the resource group also deletes the resources contained inside of it.

az group delete --name <your-resource-group-name>

For more information, see Clean up resources in Azure.

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