QuickStart Guide
Overview
About This Guide
This guide is designed to get you up and running with StifleR in a ’Proof of Concept’ or LAB environment. For full design and implementation guidelines – read the Planning and Deployment Guide.
About StifleR
StifleR is a typical Client – Server application that uses bi-directional communication channels. The Server hosts an OWIN (Open Web Interface for .NET) implementation of Microsoft SignalR.
All communication is based on the Microsoft the Microsoft SignalR protocol, a web-sockets based protocol that runs over UDP, initiated first through an HTTP connection which then steps things up to web sockets. StifleR server also uses SignalR to communicate with the endpoint clients and any connected dashboards.
Understanding how SignalR works is not mandatory to use StifleR but is required if custom scripting or advanced configuration of StifleR is to be undertaken. Please refer to the 2PintSoftware Website for advanced information on the Microsoft SignalR platform.
Pre-Flight Checklist
Working P2P Infrastructure
StifleR requires a functioning Microsoft Peer to Peer (P2P) infrastructure in order to fully optimize your software distributions. Typically this includes BranchCache and/or ConfigMgr Peer Cache and/or Windows 10 Delivery Optimization.
LEDBAT - Low Extra Delay Background Transport
LEDBAT is designed to automatically yield bandwidth to users and applications, while consuming the entire bandwidth available when the network is not in use. It’s a scavenger protocol – it scavenges whatever network bandwidth is available on the network, and uses it. LEDBAT can optimize any TCP sender-side workload. It is enabled on the Content Server side and can be monitored by StifleR.
In order to track LEDBAT enabled downloads, each LEDBAT enabled content server (or SCCM DPs) requires an IIS ‘Response Header’ to be added that will tag LEDBAT traffic so that it can be identified by StifleR Clients. You can use the appcmd.exe command line program for this.
StifleR Server
A Suitable Server to act as the StifleR Server – this can be any server for the purposes of testing as the load will be very light.
Client Systems
Windows client systems are required, onto which you will install the StifleR Client software. These should represent your corporate client build (OS revision etc) as closely as possible.
Pre-requisite
Windows 7 SP1 or later
Supported are x86 or x64 versions of the operating systems
Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate versions
Newer Educational SKU is also supported
Microsoft .Net 4. 7 .2 (or higher) must be installed on the client
Microsoft .Net 4. 7 .2 (or higher) must be installed on the Server
bug within BITS that can cause it to ignore Bandwidth Policy)
Network
For the purposes of testing content delivery to low-bandwidth locations, we recommend that you emulate as closely as possible the WAN configuration of your production setup, sepcifically the available bandwdith. You can do this using NEWT, a VYOS Linux Router, or method of your choice.
Features Overview
StifleR is designed to provide two main enhancements to Enterprise-wide Content Distribution.
To greatly reduce the volume of WAN traffic transferred from content servers to remote
client systems by using Microsoft Peer to Peer technology.
To provide granular monitoring and control over the volume of WAN (and LAN) traffic, and
provide administrators with the ability to optimize network utilization and effectively control
bandwidth usage.
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