store. Redis is often called "the Swiss Army Knife of web application

development." It can be used for caching, queuing, and storing session data

for faster access than a traditional relational database, among many other

use cases. Learn more on the <a href="/redis.html">Redis page</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://www.memcached.org/">Memcached</a> is another widely used in-memory

applications by modifying your <code>redis.conf</code> settings.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>Document-oriented</h2>

<p>A document-oriented database provides a semi-structured representation for

nested data.</p>

document-oriented data store such as MongoDB.</p>

</li>

</ol>

<h1>Redis</h1>

<p><a href="https://redis.io/">Redis</a> is an in-memory key-value pair

database typically classified as a <a href="/no-sql-datastore.html">NoSQL database</a>.

Redis is commonly used for <a href="/caching.html">caching</a>, transient data storage

and as a holding area for data during analysis in Python applications.</p>

<p><a href="" style="border: none;"><img src="/source/static/img/logos/redis.jpg" width="100%" alt="Redis logo." class="technical-diagram" /></a></p>

<div class="well see-also">Redis is an implementation of the <a href="/no-sql-datastore.html">NoSQL database</a> concept. Learn more in the <a href="/data.html">data</a> chapter or view the <a href="/table-of-contents.html">table of contents</a> for all topics.</div>

<h3>Redis tutorials</h3>

<p>Redis is easy to install and start using compared to most other persistent

backends, but it's useful to follow a walkthrough if you have never

previously used Redis or any NoSQL data store.</p>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="/blog/install-redis-use-python-3-ubuntu-1604.html">How to Use Redis with Python 3 and redis-py on Ubuntu 16.04</a>

contains detailed steps to install and start using Redis in Python.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-redis">How To Install and Use Redis</a>

is a Redis starter guide.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h3>Redis with Python</h3>

<p>Redis is easier to use with Python if you have a code library client that

bridges from your code to your Redis instace. The following libraries and

resources provide more information on handling data in a Redis instance

with your Python code.</p>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/andymccurdy/redis-py">Redis-py</a> is a solid

Python client to use with Redis.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://charlesleifer.com/blog/walrus-lightweight-python-utilities-for-working-with-redis/">Walrus</a>

is a higher-level Python wrapper for Redis with some caching, querying

and data structure components build into the library.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="http://jamesls.com/writing-redis-in-python-with-asyncio-part-1.html">Writing Redis in Python with Asyncio</a>

shows a detailed example for how to use the new Asyncio standard library in

Python 3.4+ for working with Redis.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h3>Redis Security</h3>

<p>Redis should be customized out of its default configuration to secure it

against unauthorized and unauthenticated users. These resources provide

some advice on Reids security and guarding against data breaches.</p>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="http://averagesecurityguy.info/2015/09/17/pentesting-redis-servers/">Pentesting Redis servers</a>

shows that security is important not only on your application but also

the databases you're using as well.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>Redis, just as with any relational or NoSQL database, needs to be secured

based on <a href="http://www.antirez.com/news/96">security guidelines</a>. There is

also a post where the main author of Redis

<a href="http://www.antirez.com/news/96">cracks its security</a> to show the tradeoffs

purposely made between ease of use and security in the default settings.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.isredisallsafe.com/">Is your Redis server safe?</a> is a tool

to test that your Redis instances are locked down. The tool is based on

the blog post

<a href="http://www.antirez.com/news/96">a few things about Redis security</a>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://medium.com/@shahinism/for-gods-sake-secure-your-mongo-redis-etc-4f310cf1bed2">For God’s sake, secure your Mongo/Redis/etc!</a>

digs into the unfortunate default security settings that come with many

NoSQL databases which can be used to compromise your systems. Make sure

to not only install your dependencies such as Redis, but automate modifying

default settings to lock them down against attackers.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h3>General Redis resources</h3>

<p>Once you have configured Redis, become comfortable using it and locked it

down against malicious actors, you will want to learn more about operating,

scaling and collecting metrics. The following resources should help you

get started in those areas.</p>

<ul>

<li>

<p><a href="https://github.com/mikeblum/redis-playbook">Redis-playbook</a> is an Ansible

playbook for installing, configuring and securing a Redis instance.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>GitHub wrote a retrospective on

<a href="http://githubengineering.com/moving-persistent-data-out-of-redis/">moving persistent data out of Redis</a>

and into <a href="/mysql.html">MySQL</a> that is worth a read as you scale up your

Redis usage.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p>This video on

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP9EKvWt0zo">Scaling Redis at Twitter</a> is

a detailed look behind the scenes with a massive Redis deployment.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://blog.heroku.com/real-world-redis-tips">Real World Redis Tips</a>

provides some guidance from Heroku's engineers from deploying Redis at

scale. The tips include setting an explicit idle connection timeout,

using a connection pooler and avoiding using <code>KEYS</code> in favor of <code>SCAN</code>.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/how-to-collect-redis-metrics/">How to collect Redis metrics</a>

shows how to use the Redis CLI client to grab key metrics on latency.</p>

</li>

<li>

<p><a href="https://medium.com/appaloosa-store-engineering/you-should-revise-your-redis-max-connections-setting-8136f063c916">You should revise your Redis max connections setting</a>

is a retrospective from a hard web application failure due to Redis

connections maxing out on Heroku, and how to avoid this in your own

applications by modifying your <code>redis.conf</code> settings.</p>

</li>

</ul>

<h1>Application Programming Interfaces</h1>

<p>Application programming interfaces (APIs) provide machine-readable

data transfer and signaling between applications.</p>

<h2>2017</h2>

<h3>January</h3>

<ul>

<li>Further work on the <a href="/git.html">Git</a> page.</li>

<li>New <a href="/git.html">Git</a> page.</li>

<li>New resources and descriptions on the

<a href="/development-environments.html">development environments</a> page.</li>