Ash, my experience says that Mark is correct. I believe the top vendors can all brag about similar throughput. But, my understanding is that's only what the VD puts on top of the process. There's still the back end data lookups, etc. To Mark's later point, that may not be a big deal either if those sources perform well.
Let's use a telecom example:
In a scenario where the VD serves an attribute that is a composite of multiple attributes from various sources (a mixed ODBC and LDAP call) or across numerous sources (customer databases from companies that merged or partner) and the attribute is needed to make a decision (does the subscriber get this feature) in real-time (the time between hitting "send" and hearing a ring) for millions of requests each second, effective use of cache can help – even though throughput is already relatively quick. In many (perhaps most) enterprise identity infrastructure uses, cache may not be of enormous value – or at least it's not the most compelling reason to use a Virtual Directory.
I can tell you that customers ask for it whether they need it or not. Probably because they have performance or availability concerns. But, from what I've seen the performance concerns are usually unfounded (unless the back end systems have serious problems). And VD cache isn't a great way to provide redundancy because it's implemented at an attribute level and cached based on use. If the idea is to put the entire data set somewhere else, you could argue that it'd be better to just have another directory instance there and do real-time synch (replication).
My opinion is that it's a nice feature to have in the tool bag when needed, but it's not always needed.
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