Coherence for .NET allows .NET applications to access Coherence clustered services, including data, data events, and data processing from outside the Coherence cluster. Typical uses of Coherence for .NET include desktop and web applications that require access to Coherence caches.

Coherence for .NET consists of a lightweight .NET library that connects to a Coherence*Extend clustered service instance running within the Coherence cluster using a high performance TCP/IP-based communication layer. This library sends all client requests to the Coherence*Extend clustered service which, in turn, responds to client requests by delegating to an actual Coherence clustered service (for example, a Partitioned or Replicated cache service).

An INamedCache instance is retrieved via the CacheFactory.GetCache() API call. Once it is obtained, a client accesses the INamedCache in the same way as it would if it were part of the Coherence cluster. The fact that cache operations are being sent and executed on a remote cluster node (over TCP/IP) is completely transparent to the client application.