How does the Windows Azure™ AppFabric Caching service compare with the Windows Server® AppFabric Caching capabilities?
The Caching service on Azure is a service that is managed by Microsoft® – similar to the existing services: Service Bus or Access Control. Customers benefit from this service by not needed to install and manage middle-tier caching servers, as the cache service provides this capability. Other than that, there functionality is much the same as the on-premise version available in Windows Server AppFabric.