Dell Storage Manager 2020 R1 Administrator's Guide

Branch Cache

Branch cache, when properly configured in both the client computers and the FluidFS cluster, significantly improves performance for consecutive reads from different clients on the same network communicating with FluidFS cluster over WAN.

To optimize WAN bandwidth when users access content on remote servers, branch cache reads content from the main office and caches the content at branch office locations, allowing client computers at branch offices to retrieve the data locally. When branch cache is configured, Windows branch cache clients first retrieve content from the storage system and then cache the content on a computer within the branch office. If another branch-cache-enabled client in the branch office requests the same content, the storage system first authenticates and authorizes the requesting user. The storage system then determines whether the cached content is still up to date and, if it is, sends the client metadata about the cached content. The client then uses the metadata to retrieve content directly from the local host of the cache, if such data exists locally. The client then uses the metadata to retrieve content directly from the cache of the local host.

Branch cache has the following limitations:

• FluidFs will not calculate hash for files smaller than 64 KB or larger than 256 MB.
• The hash calculation will not be performed on read-only, full, or replication destination volumes.