I am working in a project where I was suggested that data caching might be useful.
I came across Apache Ignite but I am unable to understand if it is in fact just and in memory store or is it a layer above the database. If there is any clear explanation of how to integrate this into a .Net web application, it will be very helpful.
Apache Ignite is a distributed in-memory platform. It provides a transactional key-value storage as well as compute capabilities and other features. Generally it resides between applications and data sources (having the external data source is optional though).
To integrate with a .NET application simply run an embedded node using
Ignition.Start()method. You can then add as many standalone nodes as you like to scale out.Refer to this documentation for more info: https://apacheignite-net.readme.io/docs/getting-started-1