Step 1. Enable Notifications in NCache
The very first step in building a real-time monitoring and alerting system with NCache is to enable event notifications at the cache level. By default, NCache allows you to configure whether a cache should broadcast certain events (like when nodes join or leave, cache stops, or items are added/removed). This setting can be controlled through NCache Manager, which is the GUI tool that comes with NCache. To enable it, simply open NCache Manager, right-click on the cache you want to monitor, and select Properties. Within the properties window, navigate to the Advanced Options or Notifications section (depending on your version of NCache). There, you’ll find options to enable event notifications. Once enabled, any client connected to this cache will be able to subscribe to those events programmatically. This step is crucial because if notifications are not enabled at the cache configuration level, your application will never receive real-time alerts, regardless of how much code you write. Think of this as turning on the “push notifications” switch for your distributed cache cluster.