Software Architect's Handbook

Read-through pattern

With the read-through pattern, the cache is treated as the system-of-record and has a component that is able to load data from the actual system-of-record (the database). When an application requests data, the cache system attempts to get it from the cache. If it does not exist in the cache, it retrieves the data from the system-of-record, stores it in the cache, and returns it.