Automate
Once configured with the relevant Network and Location data, StifleR is designed to run on ‘Auto-Pilot’ and will transparently and automatically manage and adjust bandwidth controls across the Enterprise. In cases where there is a need to change settings manually, to expedite certain custom deployments for example, instant configuration changes can be automated and scripted via PowerShell and the 2Pint WMI Provider or can be changed directly through the dashboard GUI interface all at the client, subnet, site or enterprise level.
Automation and Efficiency
While the Dashboard interface can be used for small scale manual configuration and control, for serious, Enterprise wide automated administration StifleR can be configured via Microsoft PowerShell or WMIC scripting which interacts with the StifleR Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Namespace. There are limitless possibilities in this regard. For some examples and inspiration to get you started head over to the 2Pint Software KB site "StifleR - WMI, Scripts And Commands".
We also recommend that you read through the StifleRServerScriptingGuidance.ps1 script in the StifleR Server Installation folder which contains numerous handy code snippets to help with various administrative tasks.
Command Line Execution
Using the command line execution feature you can easily run commands across many systems at one time.
PowerShell Everywhere!
Same as the Command Line execution, but with PowerShell scripts on Clients instead. Each script is distributed to the client and executed.
Create Your Own BITS Downloads
StifleR not only monitors BITS downloads, it can create them too. Here’s a couple of suggestions for usage of this feature:–
Download the ‘top 10’ most accessed files from your corporate intranet into the BranchCache cache overnight
Seed (pre stage) certain key systems in remote Locations with Software Updates that can then be shared via BranchCache
Wake-On-LAN
StifleR has Wake-on-LAN technology built in which may be used to power on systems in a Location that hold cached content that are needed by Peer clients. This saves bandwidth and time as the transfer becomes P2P instead of WAN based.
Change Content Delivery Priorities
StifleR is designed to enable configuration and control over the static priority of different content types and allows you to change the priority of a job immediately using WMI. You can change the job priority in several different ways, depending on what you want to achieve:
Pause a running higher priority job in order to allow the next job in line to start. The original job can then be resumed once the other has completed.
Make changes centrally to the StifleR download job definition file (stiflerulez.xml) and push this to clients instantly via StifleR. e.g. change one type of BITS job to a higher priority to get certain content distributed ahead of existing traffic.
Changes to the bandwidth and priorities directly using WMI (or through the Dashboard) replicates settings within seconds, regardless of how many Locations you have targeted.
Multilane Transfer
Intelligent Bandwidth Sharing between active Devices
StifleR also allows for multilane transfers, i.e. multiple transfers at the same time. Using a combination of the locally cached BranchCache content and Data Deduplication, transfers can be allowed that put none, or very little, traffic on the WAN as most of the content is actually present already and it is only the balance of content that needs transferring. Here’s a scenario to help your understanding of how this works in the real world: -
A client at a remote location starts to download content. At the same time another peer at that same remote Location needs to download & install an updated version of the same content. Because of Windows Deduplication, a large percentage of the content is not required to be transferred over the WAN. Instead of waiting for the complete local data to become available the StifleR client on the second Peer will allow the download to go ahead, at the same priority as the existing download but at reduced bandwidth. This allows the peer to slowly download the content, which, due to De-Dupe, may be enough to get the installation started faster as most of the content will be sourced from the local caches and only a trivial amount coming over the WAN.
Summary
StifleR empowers you to re-prioritize content delivery quickly and non-destructively (without killing jobs). When you change content priorities, any paused content automatically resumes after the new higher priority content transfer completes, without retransmitting data already downloaded. You can specify job priority and also allow jobs to run side by side while using appropriate bandwidth in proportion to the job needs. StifleR also has the ability to monitor and adjust bandwidth usage up or down according to set limits. StifleR makes it easy to view, configure and manage all content priority changes and to monitor content transfer in real time.
Pause and Resume
An important function utilized by StifleR, which should already be healthy in your Software Distribution solution, is automatic pause and resume. This is the control that sets the ability to move something to the top of the queue, causing the currently active item to pause immediately. Later, when the urgent content finishes downloading, BITS will resume the interrupted download exactly where it left off without missing a byte and without re-transmitting data already downloaded. The healthy state of this function in the enterprise should be considered a pre-requisite for StifleR operation.
Stop and Resume
In some exceptional circumstances you may need to completely stop traffic from transmitting over the WAN.
Stopping every BITS job in the entire Enterprise is as easy as a click in the Dashboard or a single WMI command line:
StifleR uses the default BITS API commands so an administrator can just as easily Suspend, Resume, Cancel or Complete jobs.
By changing the argument list around a little, you can do some powerful stuff. If we change the “ALL” to an IP Network ID we can target resources in a more granular manner:
If true pause/resume is important to your organization, then it’s important to understand why this is unique. You can instantly pause content transfer non-destructively (without killing jobs) anywhere in your enterprise, and later resume exactly where it left off. There is no limit to the scope:
For delivery of a single piece of content
For all content delivery to a single Location or subnet
For all content delivery globally
By using PowerShell or any other WMI aware scripting language you can easily pipe objects to each other. For example, you can select a Location where bandwidth usage is too high and then suspend all jobs temporarily as required. Once again, refer to the scripting guide for examples and ideas in this regard.
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