EricEyster (2/26/2014)
I didn't consider summary data as caching, but if that is the case, then our systems would never function without it. Analyzing customer trends on TB's of raw data would take hours.
I'm thinking that any time we persist data in a more accessible secondary location for re-use, wether it's pages in memory buffer cache, derived resultsets in a summary table or materialized view, in-memory tables (xVelocity), or memcached data in the middle tier, then it's all various forms of caching.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho