It’s Monday morning, everyone’s hammering the servers, and your customers want the information yesterday. Part of the remote branch IT blues is that it can be darn hard to get quick access to the data stored at the company’s central office when you need it Right Now.
With Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, Microsoft has an answer to these woes. BranchCache enables a user in a remote office or home office to access the central office’s files much faster. The first person who wants the file — let’s call it MarketingBudget.xls — still needs to download it over the Internet the way you’re used to. But, once the first remote office user (we’ll call her Nancy) downloads the file, a copy is cached locally on either a local Windows Server 2008 R2 server, or, if need be, on a PC running Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate. That way, when Joe (in the cubicle next to Nancy) needs the file, Joe’s PC automatically grabs it from the local BranchCache server. Joe doesn’t waste time, not to mention bandwidth, by dragging the file from the central network servers all over again .
Doesn’t sound like much? Think again. Let’s say your company has several dozen employees all accessing the same multi-megabyte pricing Excel spreadsheet several times a day. The difference between waiting for the file repeatedly over a 1.54 Megabit per second T1 line adds up. What might take a minute or two over an Internet VPN or Secure Remote Connect takes less than a second over your local office’s Gigabit or even Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) network.
