When caching mode is set to simple, each server maintains its own cache in memory. A server obtains changes to an item’s persistent state only after the cached entry for that item is invalidated. This mode is suitable for read-only repositories such as product catalogs, where changes are confined to a staging server, and for architectures where only one server handles a given repository item type.

You can ensure that an item’s cached data is regularly refreshed by setting its item descriptor’s item-cache-timeout attribute. This approach can prevent stale data from accumulating in the item cache, and avoids the overhead of other caching modes. For many multi-server sites, setting this attribute to a low threshold, such as one minute, incurs only a low-risk delay in caching the latest data. See Cache Timeout for more information.