With SCCM 1610, Microsoft has released a new peer caching technology designated as “pre-release” that they refer to as Client Peer Cache. They describe Client Peer Cache as a new built-in solution that allows clients to share content directly from their local cache with other clients. It provides some basic peer caching capabilities, much like BranchCache, but is more tightly integrated into SCCM. This new SCCM product feature is a welcome endorsement of the need for peer-to-peer technology in endpoint management.
Adaptiva OneSite Anywhere™ peer-to-peer technology for SCCM has been dramatically boosting the speed and reliability of content distribution in Fortune 500 enterprises for years. OneSite brings SCCM with Client Peer Cache numerous game-changing advances not available with any other technology.
Enable Rapid Windows 10 OS Deployments
On its own, SCCM’s Client Peer Cache offers limited support for Windows 10 OSD, and still requires servers for critical capabilities such as PXE and State Migration Point roles. It also lacks automated content pre-staging functionality, and is not easily customizable. However, when paired with OneSite, SCCM with Client Peer Cache provides everything you need for high-volume, zero-touch Windows 10 OSD. The combined solution allows you to radically shrink deployment costs and timelines by:
- Eliminating global server infrastructure with Peer-to-peer PXE and Virtual State Migration Points
- Speeding delivery of OSD content with advanced content pre-staging
- Ensuring deployment readiness with global syncing of updated image content
- Reducing administrator workload through end-to-end automation
Reduce WAN Downloads Through Vast, High-availability Storage
When using SCCM with Client Peer Cache, storage at each operating location (i.e., LAN) is limited on each machine, either by GB or percentage. When OneSite is added to the solution, there are no limits because Adaptiva uses all available disk space while taking nothing away from end users. Organizations get practically unlimited storage at every location without impacting users, who still see their disk space as free and can use it at any time.
All this storage is organized into an intelligent Virtual SAN that reduces the need for re-downloading content over the WAN. OneSite’s Virtual SAN can automatically maintain multiple copies of content locally to ensure high availability. The Virtual SAN can self-select the best-suited machines to use for caching based on uptime, OS, chassis, resources, and other factors.
In addition, the self-cleaning cache retains the software and updates most needed at an office. It does this by first purging the content that has the most copies on other peers, retaining the least-prevalent files to ensure they remain available at that office. This further reduces WAN downloads, accelerates deployments, and boosts business continuity.
Eliminate the Need for Bandwidth Throttling and Scheduling
SCCM with Client Peer Cache provides traditional bandwidth management capabilities, throttling to a fraction of available bandwidth and scheduling software deployments for off-hours. However, throttling is configured on a per-peer basis, so content delivery is slowed to the same rate for both WAN and the LAN (peer-to-peer) transfers. By adding OneSite to SCCM with Client Peer Cache, companies can overcome all these limitations to speed software deployments.
With OneSite’s Predictive Bandwidth Harvesting, content delivery takes place as fast as possible with no throttling. When there is free bandwidth on the WAN or the LAN, OneSite will safely use it all to move content rapidly—instead of limiting itself to a “throttle speed.” The result is much faster delivery with no impact to other traffic.
Adaptiva makes system administrators’ lives much easier too. It relieves the burden of deciding how much to throttle each system, and eliminates the headache of scheduling different deployments for different times and days. Administrators can put huge amounts of content on the WAN any time of day and never worry about causing network congestion.
Gain Real Time Visibility and Control Over Content and Transfers
SCCM with Client Peer Cache provides a content dashboard that can show what data sources were used for transfers in the past but not in the present. By adding OneSite, administrators can view all server-to-peer and peer-to-peer content transfers worldwide in real time. Plus, they can instantly reprioritize, pause, resume, and cancel them on the fly.
The OneSite LiveFlow™ dashboard reveals everything at rest worldwide, too. A Facility Deployment Readiness Check that tells you if all needed Windows 10 OSD content is pre-staged on peers at an office. Put another way, it lets you ask the question, “Does the Paris office have all the content needed for Windows 10 OSD and, if not, what is missing?”
Implement True Enterprise-grade Peer-to-peer from Microsoft and Adaptiva
Microsoft provides basic peer-to-peer functionality, and looks to partners like Adaptiva to add advanced capabilities. In addition to the mission-critical capabilities described above, here are just a few of the ways OneSite advances the power of SCCM with Client Peer Cache:
- Support for roaming clients so no matter where a mobile user connects, they will get content locally or from the logically closest source
- Reliable delivery over slow, poor quality WAN links
- Intelligent handling of multiple, concurrent downloads to prevent WAN traffic jams
- Extremely low occurrence of peer failover by serving from online, least-loaded sources
- Instant failover if a serving peer ever fails
- Disk compression and state-of-the-art binary differential compression to optimize delivery
- Easy customization, integration, and automation through a visual WorkFlow Designer
- Instant software deployments with policy push (no waiting for polling intervals)
Microsoft has made it clear that they see peer-to-peer technology as a core component of software distribution going forward. As a long-time Microsoft partner, Adaptiva is thrilled to offer OneSite to enhance SCCM with Client Peer Cache to deliver unprecedented speed, reliability, and automation.
To see how Adaptiva OneSite can supercharge SCCM with Client Peer Cache in your enterprise, request a demo today. Together, we’re empowering companies to reduce the cost of software distribution using SCCM, and accelerating Windows 10 deployments.
