23.4. Caching

Business Central provides caching mechanisms for storing data sets and performing data operations using in-memory data. Caching data reduces network traffic, remote system payload, and processing time. To avoid performance issues, configure the cache settings in Business Central.

For any data lookup call that results in a data set, the caching method determines where the data lookup call is executed and where the resulting data set is stored. An example of a data lookup call would be all the mortgage applications whose locale parameter is set as "Urban".

Business Central data set functionality provides two cache levels:

Client cache

When the cache is turned on, the data set is cached in a web browser during the lookup operation and further lookup operations do not perform requests to the back-end. Data set operations like grouping, aggregations, filtering, and sorting are processed in the web browser. Enable client caching only if the data set size is small, for example, for data sets with less than 10 MB of data. For large data sets, browser issues such as slow performance or intermittent freezing can occur. Client caching reduces the number of back-end requests including requests to the storage system.

Back-end cache

When the cache is enabled, the decision engine caches the data set. This reduces the number of back-end requests to the remote storage system. All data set operations are performed in the decision engine using in-memory data. Enable back-end caching only if the data set size is not updated frequently and it can be stored and processed in memory. Using back-end caching is also useful in cases with low latency connectivity issues with the remote storage.