Cache, Queue & Session Management with Redis

Redis is a powerful in-memory data structure store serving as a database, cache, message broker, and queue. This guide walks you through Redis integration with your Laravel application on Zerops for high-performance caching, session management, and queue processing.

Zerops provides Valkey, an open-source Redis alternative that delivers high-performance key/value storage with full Redis compatibility. Valkey supports all common Redis use cases — from caching and message queues to primary database functionality.

Adding Redis Service

To use Valkey (Redis) features with Laravel, first either import Valkey as a service to your Zerops project

services:
  - hostname: valkey
    type: valkey@7.2
    mode: NON_HA  # use HA in production

or add the Valkey service to your project manually from the Zerops GUI.

High Availability Mode

For production environments, we recommend using HA mode. This configuration:

• Ensures automatic failover during node failures
• Provides data replication across multiple nodes
• Improves reliability and uptime

Environment Configuration

Basic Redis Settings

Environment variables control how your Laravel application connects to and uses Redis. Below are the core settings grouped by functionality:

zerops:
  - setup: app
    build:
      base:
        - php@8.4
      os: alpine
    run:
      base: php-nginx@8.4
      os: alpine
      siteConfigPath: site.conf.tmpl
      envVariables:
        # Redis Connection Settings
        REDIS_CLIENT: phpredis    # PHP Redis client for better performance
        REDIS_HOST: valkey        # Internal hostname of Valkey service
        REDIS_PORT: 6379         # Standard Redis port number

        # Cache Configuration
        CACHE_PREFIX: cache      # Namespace for cache keys
        CACHE_STORE: redis       # Use Redis as primary cache

        # Session Configuration
        SESSION_DRIVER: redis    # Store sessions in Redis
        SESSION_ENCRYPT: false   # Disable session encryption
        SESSION_LIFETIME: 120    # Session timeout in minutes
        SESSION_PATH: /          # Cookie path setting

        # Queue Configuration
        QUEUE_CONNECTION: redis  # Use Redis for job queues
        BROADCAST_CONNECTION: redis  # Redis for event broadcasting

Feature-Specific Configuration

Redis Caching

Laravel's cache system offers a unified API across different cache backends. The following configuration establishes Redis as your primary cache store for fast, reliable data caching:

config/cache.php

'default' => env('CACHE_STORE', 'database'),

'stores' => [
    'redis' => [
        'driver' => 'redis',
        'connection' => env('REDIS_CACHE_CONNECTION', 'cache'),
        'lock_connection' => env('REDIS_CACHE_LOCK_CONNECTION', 'default'),
    ],
],

'prefix' => env('CACHE_PREFIX', Str::slug(env('APP_NAME', 'laravel'), '_').'_cache_'),

Session Management with Redis

Using Redis for session storage provides better performance than file-based sessions and enables seamless session sharing across multiple application servers. You can also set up a custom session connection in the config/session.php file.

config/session.php

'driver' => env('SESSION_DRIVER', 'redis'),
'lifetime' => env('SESSION_LIFETIME', 120),
'encrypt' => env('SESSION_ENCRYPT', false),

Queue System Configuration

Redis queues offer a robust solution for handling background jobs in Laravel. This configuration sets up Redis as your queue backend with retry policies and connection settings. You can also set up a custom queue connection in the config/queue.php file.

config/queue.php

'default' => env('QUEUE_CONNECTION', 'redis'),

'connections' => [
    'redis' => [
        'driver' => 'redis',
        'connection' => 'default',
        'queue' => 'default',
        'retry_after' => 90,     // Retry failed jobs after 90 seconds
        'block_for' => null,     // Don't block when no jobs available
    ],
],

Consider using Supervisor for managing Laravel queues in production.

Performance Optimization

Configure your Redis connection pool for optimal performance:

'redis' => [
    'client' => env('REDIS_CLIENT', 'phpredis'),
    'options' => [
        'cluster' => env('REDIS_CLUSTER', 'redis'),
        'prefix' => env('REDIS_PREFIX', ''),
        'pool' => [
            'max_connections' => 50,
            'timeout' => 30,
        ],
    ],
],

Working with Redis Features

Cache Operations Examples

// Store items in cache with expiration time
Cache::put('key', 'value', $seconds);

// Retrieve cached items with optional default value
$value = Cache::get('key');

// Store items indefinitely until manually removed
Cache::forever('key', 'value');

Queue Processing Examples

// Dispatch a job to the Redis queue with specific connection
ProcessPodcast::dispatch($podcast)->onConnection('redis');

// Start the queue worker process for Redis
php artisan queue:work redis

Session Handling Examples

// Store data in the Redis session
session(['key' => 'value']);

// Retrieve data from the session with optional default
$value = session('key');