"Data Cache" on the "General" tab of the ribbon opens the window of the [[Invantive UniversalSQL/Invantive Data Cache/Invantive Data Cache|Invantive Data Cache]]: a copy of the tables of a platform, kept in a database of its own, which a statement reads instead of the platform. ## What It Is For A cloud platform is slow and is often charged per call. A report which reads the same ten tables every morning is therefore paid for every morning. The data cache reads those tables once, keeps them in a database - Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL - and answers the report from there, refreshing what has changed rather than everything. ## What the Window Shows The window lists what is cached and in what state: which tables and partitions have a copy, when each was last refreshed, how many rows it holds, and which of them are due. From there a refresh is started, a partition is dropped from the cache, and the log of earlier refreshes is read. A connection without a data cache configured cannot open the window: it reports `itgendcf001`, "Could not connect to the Invantive Data Cache provider", because there is no repository database to talk to. That is the ordinary state of a connection to the [[Invantive Query Tool/Sample Database|sample database]], which needs no cache at all. ## In a Statement Which tables are cached, how long a copy stays fresh and when a statement may use it are decided in the configuration of the cache and by the execution hints in the statement, not in this window. The window is the state and the operations; the behaviour is documented under [[Invantive UniversalSQL/Invantive Data Cache/Invantive Data Cache|Invantive Data Cache]]. The [[Invantive Query Tool/Connection Monitor|Connection Monitor]] tells the two apart while a statement runs: a call answered from a cache is ticked under "From Cache", and "Exclude Cached" leaves those out, which is how the traffic actually sent to the platform is read.