ElasticCache is a caching service that uses Memcached. Memcached is an in-memory key-value store that provides no persistence or replication. It is fast and preferable for caching relatively small static data. At a certain point, implementation knowledge is needed to ensure Memcached is behaving as expected. Production issues can occur if objects do not fit properly into Memcached slabs, which allocate fixed-size chunks of memory. Monitoring tools like "stats slabs" help analyze slab allocation and object eviction patterns.