In the cases where I've done this, I've pretty much done what you have and implemented my own quick and dirty caching!

Quick and dirty caching layer. If you are running a loadbalanced server make sure that your cache get's refreshed on all servers. You can implement a ICacheRefresher for that

Dave

Thanks Tim and Dave ... looks like I'll be sticking with my quick-n-dirty caching! :-P

Good point about the ICacheRefresher too!

Thanks,
- Lee

We inherited a few websites with "dirty" caching layers. I like quick, i don't like dirty. :-)

If you use the built-in Umbraco Caching which repopulates if the cache expires, you'll be good to go.

var id = 123;
var valueFromCache = ApplicationContext.ApplicationCache.RuntimeCache.GetCacheItem("cackeykey-123", () =>
{
    var myRelation= ApplicationContext.Services.RelationService.GetByParentOrChildId(id);
    return myRelation;
});

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