# Read and write data to the cache
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This section assumes that you've created an Amazon EC2 instance and can connect to it. For instructions on how to do this, see the [Amazon EC2 Getting Started Guide](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/EC2_GetStarted.html). 

This section also assumes that you have setup VPC access and security group settings for the EC2 instance from where you are connecting to your cache, and setup valkey-cli on your EC2 instance. For more information on that step see [Setting up ElastiCache](set-up.md). 

In addition to the steps below, if you have a large or global application you can greatly increase read performance by reading from replicas. For more information on this more advanced step see [Best Practices for using Read Replicas](ReadReplicas.md).

**Find your cache endpoint**

**AWS Management Console**

To find your cache’s endpoint using the ElastiCache console:

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon ElastiCache console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticache/](https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticache/). 

1. In the navigation pane on the left side of the console, choose **Valkey caches**.

1. On the right side of the console, click on the name of the cache that you just created. 

1. In the **Cache details**, locate and copy the cache endpoint. 

**AWS CLI**

The following AWS CLI example shows to find the endpoint for your new cache using the describe-serverless-caches command. Once you have run the command, look for the "Endpoint" field.

**Linux**

```
aws elasticache describe-serverless-caches \
		--serverless-cache-name CacheName
```

**Windows**

```
aws elasticache describe-serverless-caches ^
		--serverless-cache-name CacheName
```

## Connect to your Valkey Cache (Linux)
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Now that you have the endpoint you need, you can log in to your EC2 instance and connect to the cache. In the following example, you use the *valkey-cli* utility to connect to a cluster. The following command connects to a cache (note: replace cache-endpoint with the endpoint you retrieved in the previous step).

```
src/valkey-cli -h cache-endpoint --tls -p 6379
set a "hello"          // Set key "a" with a string value and no expiration
OK
get a                  // Get value for key "a"
"hello"
```

## Connect to your Valkey Cache (Windows)
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Now that you have the endpoint you need, you can log in to your EC2 instance and connect to the cache. In the following example, you use the *valkey-cli* utility to connect to a cluster. The following command connects to a cache. Open the Command Prompt and change to the Valkey or Redis OSS directory and run the command (note: replace Cache\$1Endpoint with the endpoint you retrieved in the previous step).

```
c:\Valkey>valkey-cli -h Valkey_Cluster_Endpoint --tls -p 6379
set a "hello"          // Set key "a" with a string value and no expiration
OK
get a                  // Get value for key "a"
"hello"
```

You may now proceed to [(Optional) Clean up](GettingStarted.serverless-valkey.step3.md).