Using an external GeoWebCache

The integrated GeoWebCache is a convenient way to use a powerful caching tool while avoiding the complexity of an external installation and configuration. So, what is the point of using an external instance of GeoWebCache?

In a production environment, you will often have to deal with multiple GeoServer instances, running in parallel like a cluster. Indeed, we will see how to configure such a scenario in Chapter 11, Tuning GeoServer in a Production Environment. When more than one GeoServer publishes the same data, you cannot efficiently use the integrated GeoWebCache. There is no way to connect all the GeoServers to a single GeoWebCache. Anyway, it would make no sense as you will introduce a single point of failure in your architecture.

So, you have two ways to go--using the integrated GeoWebCache on each GeoServer node, duplicating the tiles and wasting a lot of space, or installing an external GeoWebCache and linking it to each GeoServer node.

Installing and configuring...