Getting Started with Redis on Flash (RoF)

The steps to set up a Redis Enterprise Software cluster using Redis on Flash with a single node are:

• Step 1: Install Redis Enterprise Software or launch with Docker container
• Step 2: Set up a Redis Enterprise Software cluster with Redis on Flash
• Step 3: Create a new Redis on Flash database
• Step 4: Connect to your new database

If you are looking for more detailed installation instructions you can visit the installing and upgrading section of the technical documentation.

Step 1: Install redis enterprise software

Bare metal, VM, Cloud instance

To install on bare metal, VM, or instance; download the binaries from the Redis Enterprise download site. Once you have the bits on a Linux based OS, you need to untar the image

tar -vxf <downloaded tar file name>

Once the tar command completes, you can find a new install.sh script in the current directory.

sudo ./install.sh -y

Docker-based installation

For testing purposes, you run the Redis Enterprise Software Docker container on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

docker run -d --cap-add sys_resource --name rp -p 8443:8443 -p 12000:12000 redislabs/redis:latest

Step 2: Set up a cluster and enable Redis on Flash

Direct your browser to https://localhost:8443/ on the host machine to see the Redis Enterprise Software web console. Simply click the Setup button to get started.

On the node configuration page, select the Enable flash storage support checkbox and provide a cluster FQDN: mycluster.local. Then simply click the Next button.

If you don’t have a license key yet, click the Next button to try the trial version of the product. On the next screen, set up a Cluster Administrator account using an email for the login and a password.

Click OK to confirm that you are aware of the replacement of the HTTPS SSL/TLS certificate on the node, and proceed through the browser warning.

Step 3: Create a database

Select the “new redis db flash” option.

On the new redis on flash db page, click the show advanced option link and enter myredisflashdb for a database name and 12000 for the endpoint port number. Then click Activate to create your database.

You now have a Redis on Flash database!

Step 4: Connecting to your database

With the Redis database created, you are ready to connect to your database to store data. You can use one of the following ways to test connectivity to your database:

• Connecting with redis-cli, the built-in command-line tool
• Connecting with a Hello World application using Python

Connecting using redis-cli

Run redis-cli, located in the /opt/redislabs/bin directory, to connect to port 12000 and store and retrieve a key in database1

$ sudo /opt/redislabs/bin/redis-cli -p 12000
127.0.0.1:16653> set key1 123
OK
127.0.0.1:16653> get key1
"123"

Connect with a simple Python app

A simple python application running in the host machine can also connect to the database1.

In the command-line Terminal, create a new file called redis_test.py

vi redis_test.py

Paste the following into a file named redis_test.py.

import redis

r = redis.StrictRedis(host='localhost', port=12000, db=0)
print ("set key1 123")
print (r.set('key1', '123'))
print ("get key1")
print(r.get('key1'))

Run “redis_test.py” application to connect to the database and store and retrieve a key using the command-line.

python redis_test.py

The output should look like the following screen if the connection is successful.

set key1 123
True
get key1
123

Now that you have a database, if you’d like to generate load against the database or add a bunch of data for cluster testing, the memtier_benchmark Quick Start should help. However please note that to see the true performance and scale of Redis on Flash, you must tune your IO path and have the flash path set to the mounted path of SSD or NVMe flash memory as that is what it is designed to run on. For more information, see Redis on Flash.