BranchCache Testing and Monitoring

2Pint Reporting Tool – BCMon.exe

BCMon Tool is a Command line tool for Realtime analysis of BITS downloads and BranchCache – perfect for testing and monitoring in a lab or test environment when you are starting out with BranchCache. Basic core functions are as follows:

1. Show you the BranchCache retrieval in Realtime from a BITS job

2. Show BranchCache performance counters

3. Analyse the BITS Eventlog

4. Send/retrieve BranchCache probes

BCMon.exe is a very handy tool which is ideal for testing and monitoring in the lab when you are starting out with BranchCache.

BCMon.exe can be run interactively on the client PCs to give you some pretty snazzy command line options to monitor and analyze BITS downloads and BranchCache activity.

Distribute BranchCache Monitoring Tool to Test Clients

In this step you will download and distribute BranchCache Monitoring Tool (BCMon.exe), a command line tool that allows for real time analysis of BITS Downloads and BranchCache.

https://github.com/2pintsoftware/BranchCache/tree/master/BCMon

There is no installation as such. Simply download the tool from the above link and copy it to a folder on the test clients. In order to fire up the tool, simply launch it directly from an elevated command prompt by typing BCMon.exe and you will be presented with the help information. There are a number of uses for this multifunctional tool beyond the scope of this guide and it is well worth while spending time to familiarize yourself with its other uses.

Summary Output

This can be useful as it provides a snapshot of past BITS downloads, and the BranchCache efficiency of each of those downloads. To launch the BCMon client in this mode, use the following command line:

BCMon.exe /BITS /analyze

Tip: You can use the above command line to verify the results of your ConfigMgr Deployments without having to go into the Event log.

Monitoring BITS downloads in Realtime

As we have already demonstrated if you use BCMon.exe with the /Realtime switch this allows you to monitor a BITS download on the local PC as well as BranchCache Source/Peer ratio in real time.

Now that the basic BranchCache P2P test environment has been configured we need to install some 2Pint magic in order to allow us to control and monitor network traffic in the testing that will follow.