Managing Microsoft Data Transfer Services

StifleR does not include its own proprietary data transfer protocol, but rather, it can optimize the functionality of native Microsoft data transfer and peer-to-peer services such as Branch Cache and Delivery Optimization as well as traditional download services such as BITS and LEDBAT.

The below sections provide a summary of these data transfer services:

BranchCache

BranchCache is a wide area network (WAN) bandwidth optimization technology which improves bandwidth utilization by allowing content to be cached and shared amongst peers. StifleR has a unique ability to configure and control the peering of BranchCache enabled clients centrally. Traditionally BranchCache uses broadcasts to detect peers, but StifleR extends this functionality by allowing peering between clients on well connected subnets. 2Pint has also developed tools to allow content to be peered using BranchCache during the OSD (Operating System Deployment) process within WinPE which can improve efficiency during a traditional PC build.

Delivery Optimization

Microsoft Delivery Optimization (DO) functions as an HTTP based peer-to-peer content delivery solution which is orchestrated by Microsoft's DO cloud services. The goal of DO is to reduce the impact of downloading content by multiple machines, by sharing the content amongst peers or via a local caching server. StifleR can optimize DO by defining shared policies and peering groups as well as report when DO is being used.

BITS

BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) is used to facilitate asynchronous, prioritized, and throttled transfer of files between machines using idle network bandwidth. The goal of BITS is to reduce the impact of content downloads to other applications on a given computer. BITS was designed to download content as a background process. StifleR allows administrators to configure policies to networks to throttle bandwidth utilization.

LEDBAT

LEDBAT is a background data transfer service built into the Windows which is designed to dynamically control the bandwidth being used transfer data using unused bandwidth. LEDBAT can be enabled on Configuration Manager distribution points so that when CM clients download content, the bandwidth dynamically increases or is reduced depending on how much bandwidth is available on the network itself. StifleR has the ability to report which data transfers are using LEDBAT.