Redis is an open-source, no-SQL, in-memory data structure store used as a cache, database, and message broker. It supports data structures such as hashes, strings, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, hyperloglogs, bitmaps, and geospatial indexes with radius queries. Redis can be used for a variety of areas, including real-time analytics, content caching and leaderboards. It is written in C and supports multiple programming languages. One of the main advantages of Redis is its speed. It stores data in memory. So, we can access it much more quickly than a traditional disk-based database.
It also supports a wide range of data types and has advanced features such as transactions and publish/subscribe messaging, real-time analytics, leaderboards etc.
Redis also supports data persistence, which means that data can be written to disk in order to prevent data loss in the event of a crash or power failure.
It can be accessed using a client library in various programming languages. It includes C, C++, Python, Ruby, C#, Java, and more. Redis is available under a BSD license and is open-source.
Redis can be used in a cluster configuration with multiple Redis nodes to achieve higher scalability and availability and used as a standalone server. Also a hybrid configuration with a combination of in-memory and on-disk storage.
Overall, it is a powerful tool which is widely used for a variety of applications due to its high performance, flexibility, and support for multiple programming languages.
Install Redis on Linux
1. First, make sure that you have the necessary dependencies installed on your system.
It requires the make utility to build from source and a C compiler, such as GCC. If you don’t have these tools installed in your system, you can install them by running the following command:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential
2. Next, download the latest stable release of Redis from the official website (https://redis.io/download).
You can either download the tar.gz file or clone the Redis Git repository using the following command:
git clone https://github.com/redis/redis.git
3. Once the download is done, navigate to the Redis directory and build the Redis binaries using the following commands
cd redis
make
4. After the build process is complete, you can test the Redis installation by running the Redis client and server.
To start the Redis server, make use of the following command:
src/redis-server
To start the Redis client, use the following command:
src/redis-cli
5. You can now use the Redis client to interact with the Redis server and perform various operations, such as setting and getting key-value pairs.
To set a key-value pair, use the command SET, like this:
SET key value
To get the value of a key, use the command GET, like this:
GET key
If you want to run Redis as a background daemon, you can use the command:
src/redis-server –daemonize yes
It stores its data in memory by default. However, you can configure Redis to store data on disk by editing the configuration file located at redis.conf.
For example, you can set the save directive to save the data to disk after a certain number of seconds or a certain number of changes.
Install Redis on Windows
1.Download the latest stable release of Redis from the official website (https://redis.io/download).You can use https://github.com/microsoftarchive/redis/releases to get the latest release.
2.Extract the zip file.
3. Run redis-server.exe from extracted files, you can either directly run redis-server.exe by double clicking or run using the command prompt.
4.Run redis-server.exe from extracted files.Type ping then we will get PONG as a response if the server connection is there.
Redis supports a wide range of commands that can be used to manipulate data stored in Redis.
Here are some examples of common Redis commands:
Commonly used commands in Redis
SET key value: To set the value of a key.
GET key: To know the value of a key.
DEL key: To delete a key.
EXPIRE key seconds: To set a time-to-live for a key.
TTL key: To get the time-to-live of a key.
INCR key: To increment the value of a key.
DECR key: To decrement the value of a key.
LPUSH key value1 [value2 …]: To add one or more values to the beginning of a list.
RPUSH key value1 [value2 …]: To add one or more values to the end of a list.
LRANGE key start stop: To get a range of elements from a list.
SADD key member1 [member2 …]: To add one or more members to a set.
SMEMBERS key: To get all members of a set.
SREM key member1 [member2 …]: To remove one or more members from a set.
ZADD key score1 member1 [score2 member2 …]: To add one or more members, or update the score of a member in a sorted set.
ZRANGE key start stop [WITHSCORES]: To get a range of members from a sorted set, or to get a range of members and their scores from a sorted set.
To get the complete details, you can refer to the Redis documentation.
Get Good At Redis
Online tutorials and documentation: The Redis website (https://redis.io/) has extensive documentation on how to use Redis, including a tutorial section that covers the basics of the database. You can also find many online tutorials and resources that provide step-by-step instructions on how to use Redis.
Books: There are several books available on Redis that can help you learn the database, such as “Redis in Action” by Josiah L. Carlson and “Redis Cookbook” by Eben Hewitt.
Courses and workshops: There are many online courses and workshops available that can help you learn this. Some of these courses are free, while others are paid.
Practice: The best way to learn any technology is to practice using it. You can set up a Redis server on your local machine and try out different commands and features to get a feel for how the database works.
Ask for help: There are many online communities, such as Stack Overflow, where you can ask questions and get answers from experienced Redis users.
Advantages of Redis
Performance: It stores data in memory, which is much faster than reading data from a disk. This makes Redis unique for use cases that require real-time data processing.
Scalability: It can handle a large number of connections and data sets and it is highly scalable. This makes it a great choice for use cases that involve large amounts of data or high traffic.
Data Structures: It gives support for a wide range of data structures, such as sets, lists, hashes, etc. which makes it easy to store and get complex data structures.
Persistence: It supports persistence, it allows data to be stored on disk. So, data is not lost in case of a system failure.
Replication: It supports master-slave replication, which results in data being replicated to multiple servers for added reliability and performance.
Pub/Sub: It supports a publish-subscribe model, which makes it easy to implement real-time messaging and notifications.
Lua Scripting: It supports Lua scripting, which allows performing complex operations on data stored in Redis.
Conclusion
Overall, Redis is a powerful tool used for a wide range of areas due to its high performance, and flexibility. it provides support for multiple programming languages. However, we need to monitor the requirements of your application before using Redis.
