Drupal as an application framework is a very powerful tool, but we can all learn something about optimizing our applications through effective caching strategies. There are a great deal of helpful resources out there that provide a solid foundation for using Drupal's cache, but we will dig deeper into the discussion, covering a wide array of caching strategies and optimization techniques.

This session will bring you up to speed on all the latest and greatest ways to cache data in your Drupal application. I will talk about when, where, why and how we cache data effectively, and, as a bonus, we will talk about how the caching system is changing in Drupal 8, and what advantages Drupal 8 brings (hint: services and dependency injection). We will also cover systems that provide alternative caches, and what the advantages and disadvantages of using them are.

The goal of this session is to give you a deeper understanding of Drupal's cache and how to use it effectively, as well as giving you some background and use cases for technologies like Memcache, Varnish, APC and others. I would also like to spend a good portion fielding questions about caching and talking about specific problems and solutions, so come prepared with questions.