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89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
www.TheEdison.com
212.367.7400
White Paper
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity
and WAN Bandwidth Savings with
Microsoft BranchCache™
Version 2
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright 2012 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either
expressed or implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for
errors resulting from its use.
All products are trademarks of their respective owners.
First Publication: March 2011, Version 2: August 2011
Produced by: Barry Cohen, Sr. Analyst and Editor-in-Chief; Manish Bhardwaj, Lead
Analyst; Kelly Strand Anderson, Sr. Analyst;
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 8
Objective ..................................................................................................................................... 8
Audience .................................................................................................................................... 8
Contents of this Report ............................................................................................................. 8
The Remote Office Dilemma ............................................................................................... 8
Testing BranchCache Performance ..................................................................................... 9
Test Results ............................................................................................................................ 9
Conclusions and Recommendations .................................................................................. 9
Appendices ............................................................................................................................ 9
The Remote Office Dilemma ..................................................................................................... 10
The Dilemma ........................................................................................................................... 10
The BranchCache Solution ..................................................................................................... 11
Testing BranchCache Performance ........................................................................................... 13
Test Methodology ................................................................................................................... 13
Test Scenarios ...................................................................................................................... 14
Test Data ............................................................................................................................... 18
Laboratory Configuration ...................................................................................................... 18
At Emulated Headquarters ................................................................................................ 18
App-V Configuration ......................................................................................................... 19
Remote Office ...................................................................................................................... 19
Test Results .................................................................................................................................. 21
Summary of Results ................................................................................................................ 21
Scenarios ................................................................................................................................... 26
Test Scenario 1 – CIFS/SMB File Accesses ....................................................................... 26
Test Scenario 2 – HTTP File Downloads .......................................................................... 28
Test Scenario 3 – SCCM Application Package Download............................................. 33
Test Scenario 4 – MOSS 2007 File Access ......................................................................... 39
Test Scenario 5 – App-V ..................................................................................................... 42
Conclusions and Recommendations ........................................................................................ 48
Appendices .................................................................................................................................. 50
Test Environment .................................................................................................................... 50
Test Results .............................................................................................................................. 52
CIFS/SMB Test Results ........................................................................................................... 53
Results Summary ................................................................................................................ 53
Details ................................................................................................................................... 54
HTTP Test Results ................................................................................................................... 59
Results Summary ................................................................................................................ 59
Details ................................................................................................................................... 60
MOSS2007 Test Results .......................................................................................................... 64
Results Summary ................................................................................................................ 64
Details ................................................................................................................................... 66
SCCM Test Results .................................................................................................................. 69
Results Summary ................................................................................................................ 69
Details ................................................................................................................................... 71
App-V results ........................................................................................................................... 75
Results Summary ................................................................................................................ 75
Details ................................................................................................................................... 76
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 2
Executive Summary
Organizations seeking to lower operating expenses are investigating technology
solutions that can directly lower costs and improve productivity. One area in which
these organizations are seeking solutions is in the IT infrastructure supporting remote or
branch offices. Remote office workers frequently and repeatedly download the same
files from the central office. Increasingly, these files are composed not only of text but
also of mixed content types that include photographs, illustrations, animations, and
videos. Such documents are much larger than in the past, demanding very high Wide
Area Network bandwidth utilization levels and slowing file access with adverse impact
on productivity.
Application virtualization allows organizations to streamline the deployment of
software to the end user. Applications virtualized with App-V can be deployed and
launched by end users at a much quicker rate than traditional complete local
deployments. Deploying large modern programs to remote offices consumes large
amounts of bandwidth and is very time-consuming, making the practice expensive.
With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has delivered BranchCache™, a solution to
address the remote office challenge. Working in conjunction with Windows Server 2008
R2, Windows 7 clients with BranchCache capability enabled can expect to see significant
performance improvements when downloading files from the central office.
The concept behind BranchCache is straightforward: when BranchCache is enabled, a
copy of data accessed from an Intranet web, SharePoint, or file server over the WAN is
cached locally in the branch office. When another client on the same network in the
branch office requests the same file, the file is transferred from the local cache rather
than from across the WAN. BranchCache improves performance when copying files
between central and remote or branch offices using the SMB, HTTP, and HTTPS
protocols.
Microsoft commissioned Edison Group to examine WAN bandwidth savings with
BranchCache. In order to quantify the extent of the performance improvement that
organizations can expect, Edison analysts created a set of use case scenarios and ran
comparison tests over a range of typical WAN network types. These tests compared the
performance of Windows 7 clients with BranchCache capability enabled against client
PCs running the older Windows operating systems Windows XP and Windows Vista.
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Edison’s results showed savings that, in many cases, exceeded our expectations. The
results were consistent across all the network bandwidth conditions and for all the
operating systems and BranchCache settings. These savings included:
CIFS/SMB file downloads for a PowerPoint presentation were as much as 69 percent
faster while utilizing an average of up to 59 percent less bandwidth than with Windows
Vista or Windows XP.
User download times with the HTTP protocol were 63 percent faster than with
Windows Vista and Windows XP, while requiring 49 percent less Wide Area Network
bandwidth.
Downloading an application or patch using Microsoft System Center Configuration
Manager (SCCM) and the BITS protocol was 76 to 79 percent faster and utilized 53 to 58
percent less bandwidth.
When transferring a file from a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007),
clients running Windows 7 with BranchCache were 65 to 68 percent faster and utilized
66 percent less bandwidth than Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Edison testing shows that BranchCache greatly accelerates App-V performance. It is 24
to 34 percent faster and utilizes 33 to 37 percent less bandwidth than App-V. These
savings in time and bandwidth are especially important to those people responsible for
application deployments and updates.
The following chart (Figure 1, Page 4) illustrates the bandwidth savings for the three
operating systems tested across four business use scenarios. A second chart (Figure 2,
Page 5) illustrates the bandwidth savings for the three operating systems for the App-V
business use scenario. These levels of bandwidth savings can have a direct and
immediate effect on operating expenses, especially in organizations where WAN costs
are growing quickly.
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Figure 1 - BranchCache Bandwidth Utilization Savings
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 5
Figure 2 - BranchCache Bandwidth Utilization Savings: App-V
For businesses looking to improve the productivity of workers in remote offices,
downloading files in less than one third the time previously required could be directly
translated into greater worker productivity and job satisfaction. (See Figure 3, Page 6 for
a chart illustrating potential time savings for four business use scenarios. See Figure 4,
Page 7 for a chart illustrating potential time savings for the fifth business use scenario:
App-V.) For many organizations, virtualizing standard applications with App-V can
significantly lower provisioning costs. When run on Windows 7 with BranchCache,
organizations can obtain the same App-V benefits for their branch offices that App-V
offers to LAN-based implementations. While App-V does run on Windows XP and
Vista, for branch offices its performance really shines on Windows 7 with BranchCache.
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Average Bandwidth Used
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Figure 3 - BranchCache File Download Time Savings
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 7
Figure 4: BranchCache Savings - Application Delivery Time: App-V
Based upon the evidence of our tests, Edison believes that for some organizations, the
costs of upgrading to Windows 7 can be significantly offset by bandwidth savings alone.
If organizations are already contemplating PC upgrades to these remote offices,
upgrading to Windows 7 with BranchCache should be considered the new standard.
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Average Download Time
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Windows Vista
Windows XP
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 8
Introduction
Objective
Since the release of Windows 7 on October 22, 2009, many organizations have been
testing the new operating system. Among the new features that organizations should
strongly consider when making IT purchases or upgrade decisions is BranchCache.
BranchCache is a new feature in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that enables
the acceleration of file download times for users in remote offices over a variety of
networks without requiring additional bandwidth or installation of accelerator
appliances.
Microsoft has published several documents that provide executive and technical
overviews of BranchCache that are available at www.branchcache.com. This white
paper does not duplicate the contents of those documents. Instead, it is intended to
provide third-party validation of Microsoft’s performance claims for BranchCache,
while also providing some hard metrics that readers can use in determining how
BranchCache can lower bandwidth costs and improve the productivity of workers in
satellite offices.
Audience
Technically savvy business decision makers who are concerned with Wide Area
Network costs and remote office productivity should read this white paper. It will also
be useful for those organizations that are evaluating Windows 7 and assessing strategies
for upgrading their installed base of Windows XP and Vista clients.
Contents of this Report
This white paper contains the following sections:
The Remote Office Dilemma
This section describes the effect on productivity experienced by remote workers because
of long file transfer delays when accessing commonly used files or documents from a
centrally located server share, web server, SharePoint Server, Configuration
Management Server, or Microsoft Application Virtualization Server.
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Testing BranchCache Performance
This section describes the test scenarios and testing methodology Edison developed and
used. It includes a high-level discussion of the lab environment, the configurations, and
test methodologies.
Test Results
This section provides a summary of our test results, showing how BranchCache affects
file transfer performance within the scenarios tested.
Conclusions and Recommendations
This section provides Edison’s analysis of the benefits of BranchCache and
recommendations for implementation strategies.
Appendices
The appendices contain details of the test environment and methodology, as well as the
test result details.
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The Remote Office Dilemma
The Dilemma
It was just a few years ago that organizations recognized the need to address the issues
of server sprawl – the proliferation of file and application servers across their corporate
landscape. Among the first steps taken were physical consolidation of servers from
distributed computer rooms and closets to more and more centralized data centers. This
change has resulted in significant cost reductions, especially with the emergence of
server virtualization as the ultimate consolidation tool.
Consolidation success has exposed a new concern: network latency and the lower speed
of Wide Area Networks (WANs) adversely affects the speed of file access to which users
have been accustomed when servers that used to be “just down the hall” are moved
“across the continent.”
In addition, the nature of server access and the files users are downloading have
changed. Where small Microsoft Word documents and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets of
less than 1 MB in size once predominated, today mixed media documents containing
images, movies, audio, and video are becoming more and more common. Users are also
likely to access these much larger sized files via Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
or other corporate websites.
Another dilemma facing many organizations is addressing the expansion of a large and
diverse portfolio of applications to the desktop. While restricting application choice to a
narrow set of tested, approved, and locked-down applications offers an appealing
benefit in reducing IT costs by limiting the breadth of applications available, this
approach can frustrate users who need greater flexibility than it provides. One technique
that can be used to resolve the flexibility challenge is application virtualization.
Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) is one example of an application
virtualization platform. As part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP),
App-V enables organizations to deliver applications as centrally managed virtual
services. This can reduce deployment complexity, eliminate application conflicts, and
simplify the Windows Desktop OS image footprint, which will speed desktop PC
provisioning. App-V can deliver significant operational savings for many organizations;1
however, an obstacle can be delivering applications to branch offices across a WAN.
1 For more information about App-V see
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/appv/default.mspx
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Some of the advantages of consolidation can be negated due to the lower speed and
higher latency of WANs and the much larger file sizes being transferred. Loading a
virtualized instance of Microsoft Office over a slow WAN connection can make
application virtualization an impractical option. These possibilities can require
organizations to increase the bandwidth of their WAN connections (often at a very high
cost), bring back local servers (thus reviving server sprawl), or invest in Wide Area
Application Acceleration Appliances. This last options — acceleration appliances — can
be beneficial where business-critical applications need acceleration, but such devices can
also add significant cost as well as complexity to the management of remote offices.
The BranchCache Solution
Microsoft BranchCache is designed to provide the file transfer performance
organizations are looking for without the need for costly WAN upgrades or additional
hardware to manage. BranchCache improves performance when copying files between
central and remote or branch offices using the SMB, HTTP, and HTTPS protocols. SMB
is the protocol used for transferring files between shared folders on Windows networks.
HTTP and HTTPS are the protocols used by web browsers and many other applications.
The concept behind BranchCache is straightforward: when BranchCache is enabled, a
copy of data accessed from an Intranet web, SharePoint, or file server is cached locally in
the branch office. When another client on the same network in the branch office requests
the same file, the file is transferred from the local cache rather than from across the
WAN.
BranchCache operates in two modes:
Distributed Cache. In this mode, Windows 7 client computers utilize a peer-to-peer
architecture. The first client to download a file caches a copy of the file and sends it
directly to other clients as they request it.
Hosted Cache. In this mode, content is cached to a computer on the branch network
running Windows Server 2008 R2 as the Hosted Cache. Other clients needing the
same content retrieve it directly from the Hosted Cache. Computers running the
Hosted Cache can run the Server Core installation option of Windows 2008 R2 and
can host other applications.
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Figure 5 illustrates these modes:
Figure 5 - BranchCache modes (from Microsoft)
The BranchCache caches are passive: data is only retrieved when a client requests it.
This means that using BranchCache does not increase WAN utilization. Since only read
requests are cached, write operations are not affected. BranchCache operations also
respect security policies and technologies, such as SSL and IPsec.
BranchCache requires the use of Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise editions on
workstations and Windows Server 2008 R2 on servers. For more complete list of servers
that support BranchCache, please visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/ee307962(WS.10).aspx.
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Testing BranchCache Performance
Edison established a lab environment for testing BranchCache performance claims that
use of cached content will result in better user productivity and higher return on
investment. The lab was configured to test performance over a range of use cases and
test conditions. These use cases are simulations of typical branch office user interactions
with central office servers. The test conditions utilize a WAN emulator to demonstrate
the effect of different WAN networks. Tests compared the effect of Windows 7 with
BranchCache on network bandwidth and end user download times in comparison to the
older Microsoft operating systems Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista
Business.
These tests are a simulation designed to illustrate the benefits of using BranchCache.
Real-world implementations of BranchCache will experience different results that are
dependent upon many factors, including the configuration of the PCs in the branch
offices, the design of the branch office LAN, the configuration and provisioning of the
WAN, and many other factors. In addition, the tests in the first four scenarios were run
using late beta or release candidate versions of the operating systems and some of the
server products tested. In keeping with past experience with pre-released software,
performance with the released versions may be better than the results Edison has
documented.
Test Methodology
As has been previously described, BranchCache accelerates performance of the SMB,
HTTP, and HTTPS protocols, offering two branch office configuration modes —
Distributed Cache and Hosted Cache. In order to provide use cases that illustrate these
protocols, Edison defined several scenarios and devised a testing methodology that
would compare the network bandwidth used and end user download times with
BranchCache in Windows 7 in both modes and in comparison to the older Microsoft
operating systems Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista Business.
The files transferred averaged 20 MB in size. This size was chosen to require measurable
and differential transfer times and bits transferred readings on the WAN emulator.
Edison chose Microsoft Office 2010 as the test application for App-V in order to reflect
the recent release of both App-V version 4.6 and Office 2010. In addition, upgrading to
Office 2010 on top of the upgrade to Windows 7 offers an opportunity to update the IT
infrastructure to support virtual applications. The file sizes for using Microsoft Office
2010 with App-V are much larger, at about 2.6 GB, than the 20 MB files downloaded in
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 14
the other BranchCache tests. This large file size intimates both the challenge presented
by application virtualization across a WAN and how BranchCache can meet that
challenge.
Transfer time was measured with a stopwatch or the transferring application, where
applicable.
Test Conditions
Each set of tests was performed with the WAN emulator configured to emulate three
different WAN conditions. The table below (Table 1 - WAN Conditions and Use Cases,
Page 14) lists and describes the three WAN conditions with real-world use cases for each
condition.
Table 1 - WAN Conditions and Use Cases
WAN Conditions Real-World Use Case
1.5 Mbps from HQ to remote office, 384
Kbps from remote office to HQ, 40ms
round trip latency .01% packet loss
Regional (up to 1,500 mile) VPN over
DSL line at remote office
1.5 Mbps, 95ms latency, .02% packet loss New York to Los Angeles MPLS VPN or
leased line
5 Mbps, 195ms latency, .05% packet loss Transpacific MPLS link
These line conditions were chosen based on AT&T MPLS service level agreements.
Test Scenarios
The following are the test scenarios used for this project. Each of the five scenarios, run
in Hosted Cache mode and Distributed Cache mode for Windows 7 with BranchCache,
was tested in a lab environment consisting of five desktop PCs. For each scenario, a brief
description of the scenario and the use case context is followed by a description of the
specific test methodology used. References made to specific hosts, drives, and so forth
are explained in the Lab Configuration section that follows.
Scenario 1 – CIFS/SMB File Access
When users download a file from a folder on a file server to their client PC, the Server
Message Block (SMB) protocol is used. Over the years, Microsoft has added features to
SMB, usually under the Common Internet File System (CIFS) name. For the purposes of
this white paper, SMB and CIFS are used interchangeably. This test scenario measured
the time and WAN bandwidth required for this file transfer process.
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A file share on the server (named Content Server) was configured to generate
BranchCache hashes as per the Microsoft deployment guide. 2 Each workstation was
mapped to this share as Drive N. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 was opened on each
workstation and the file opened. A stopwatch was used to measure the time from when
the open button was clicked until the image of the first slide appeared on the screen.
This process was repeated on each workstation for multiple files; the workstations were
then rebooted into the next operating system, and the process repeated.
Scenario 2 – HTTP File Accesses
The HTTP protocol is the protocol of the World Wide Web and is used by web browsers
such as Internet Explorer 8 and many other applications to transfer content over the
Internet. In the business world, many corporate Intranets host web servers from which
files, such as presentations, forms, and so forth, are regularly transferred using the
HTTP protocol. In this scenario, files to be transferred are stored on the HTTP or web
server and accessed through a link on a web page.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) also uses the HTTP protocol. In our test
scenarios, we are treating MOSS as a separate scenario. This was done for two reasons:
First, since MOSS uses a database to store the files, the time required for file transfer
could be affected by latency inherent in the SharePoint architecture. Second, the secure
version of HTTP, HTTPS, needed to be represented, as well. Since many MOSS
installations utilize HTTPS, it was felt that tests for the HTTPS protocol using MOSS was
a reasonably realistic scenario.
For this scenario, the Content Server was prepared as a web server for BranchCache as
described in the BranchCache Early Adopter’s Guide3 and the BranchCache Deployment
Guide. An index.htm file of links to the TIFF files described above was placed on the
default web site of the server.
The workstations were then booted into Windows XP. On each workstation a TIFF file
was selected in Internet Explorer 8 and Save Target As was selected from the context
menu. The file was saved to the C:\TEMP folder. The transfer times reported by Internet
Explorer were used for our results.
2 Microsoft BranchCache Deployment Guide can be accessed on the Microsoft TechNet site at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee649232%28WS.10%29.aspx 3 The Microsoft BranchCache Early Adopters Guide is available at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd637762%28WS.10%29.aspx (at the time of writing).
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 16
This process was repeated for each of the workstations in turn waiting for the transfer
on each station to complete before starting the next transfer. The process was repeated
with two additional files to identify anomalous results.
The process was repeated with the workstations running Windows Vista and Windows
7 using the Distributed Cache mode. Finally, the BranchCache Group Policy Objects
were changed to enable the Hosted Cache mode, and additional files were downloaded.
The amount of data transferred in the download was recorded by resetting the counters
on the Apposite Linktropy 4500 as the Save button was clicked on the workstation and
noting the value at the end of the download. As there is handshaking traffic between the
two networks at all times, variations in data transfer values that represent data rates
below 20 Kbps are considered insignificant.
Scenario 3 – SCCM
System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), a member of Microsoft’s System Center
family of Information Technology management solutions, is a tool for the
comprehensive assessment, deployment, and updating of servers, client computers, and
devices across physical, virtual distributed, and mobile environments. SCCM provides a
range of services to an organization. Among these is the distribution of software
application packages to client computers for installation.
When transferring these packages, SCCM uses a combination of the SMB protocol and
the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) protocol. The BITS protocol is used to
facilitate prioritized, throttled, and asynchronous transfer of files using idle network
bandwidth. The BITS protocol can make use of BranchCache to accelerate file transfers,
but the protocol itself is not affected by doing so. The prioritization, throttling, and other
BITS features are still in effect, so the degree of acceleration experienced by BITS
transfers is not as great as for the other scenarios. At the time of testing, SCCM with
BITS was not supported in Hosted Cache mode, so no testing was performed for this
configuration. The release version of BranchCache and the updated SCCM now support
Hosted Cache mode. Edison expects that the performance gains experienced in our other
tests would carry over to SCCM in Hosted Cache Mode.
For this scenario, self-extracting ZIP files were each packaged as an Advertised
Application via SCCM. Using the Advertised Applications Control Panel applet, each
ZIP file was downloaded to the workstation and the time to download recorded.
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Scenario 4 – MOSS 2007
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is Microsoft’s fastest growing product ever.
Companies who are running Microsoft Windows Servers, Microsoft Windows clients,
and Microsoft Office productivity applications are implementing SharePoint servers at
an incredible pace. If a company is not yet using a full-blown MOSS 2007 server farm,
chances are they are using the free Windows SharePoint Services, which provides many
of the same features without the infrastructure and management overhead associated
with MOSS.
As tested, getting a file from a SharePoint server is the same as getting one from any
web server. For this scenario, a document repository of PowerPoint .PPTX files was
created, and they were downloaded as in the HTTP test. As previously described, the
HTTPS protocol was used to simulate the typical use of that secure protocol. Otherwise,
the test methodology was the same as for the HTTP scenario.
Scenario 5 - App-V
Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) is Microsoft's solution for centrally
managing and deploying virtualized applications to the desktop. With App-V, instead
of downloading and installing an entire application, only the code necessary to start the
program is downloaded from a central Virtual Application Server. This download is
typically 20 to 40 percent of the total application. While the application is being used,
additional application code is downloaded and cached on the user's PC. When the
session terminates, the application and its user preferences are cached in a file-based
location on the user's PC. Subsequent uses are loaded from this cache, resulting in faster
load times and low impact on the network.
One challenge for organizations is that delivering a large application across the WAN
via App-V can consume considerable bandwidth and time, which can add up when
multiplied by all the users in a branch office who may need this application. Our testing
was intended to demonstrate how adding BranchCache to the equation can decrease the
amount of time it takes to deliver applications virtualized using App-V while improving
user experience and lowering the operating costs associated with bandwidth usage.
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Test Data
For the file download tests (CIFS/SMB, HTTP, SCCM, and MOSS2007) a series of 14
scanned photos in TIFF format, each 21-22.5 Mb in size, were saved on the Content
server. For SMB testing, each photo was also inserted into a PowerPoint 2007 .PPTX file..
The file names and sizes appear in the appendix.
For the App-V tests, the application package created was Microsoft Office 2010.
PowerPoint 2010 was the program launched during the test itself.
Laboratory Configuration
The following is the laboratory configuration for this project (see Figure 6, page 19).
Whether noted explicitly below or not, all operating systems, server, and productivity
applications had the latest service packs and patches applied.
At Emulated Headquarters
1 Physical server (Dell 2950, dual 1.86 GHz quad core Xeon processors, 16 GB
memory)
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition R2 w/Hyper-V with the following virtual
servers
VM1 – HQ2008R2
IIS with FTP Server, Valid HTTPS certificate
Domain controller for TestDomain.local VM2 – SQL08A
SCCM 2007 SP2 Virtual Machine (Downloadable from Microsoft)
VM3 – Winn2008R2-Sharepoint
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Gateway® DX4200-09 with AMD Phenom™ X4 9100e (1.80 GHz, quad core)
processor and 4 GB memory
Windows Server 2008 R2
SCCM server.
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App-V Configuration
1 Physical Server – (HP DL160 G5 dual 2.53 GHz quad core Xeon processors, 48 GB
memory, Windows Server Enterprise Edition R2 w/Hyper-V with the following
virtual servers:
VM1 – Content Server with Windows Server 2008 R2, BranchCache-enabled, used
for serving Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus from a folder named
OF2010XP.V01 with a size of 3.2 GB.
OU Named BranchCacheEnabledDistributed mode for holding Distributed mode-
enabled desktops, and GPO applied for Branch Cache and firewall settings.
OU Named BranchCacheEnabledHostedMode for holding Hosted mode-enabled
desktops and GPO applied for Branch Cache and firewall settings.
Figure 6 - Test Network Configuration Diagram
Remote Office
1 Physical Server
Acer Veriton 460 G PCs. (Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 Processor, 3 GB memory 160 GB
hard drive and Marvell Gigabit Ethernet.)
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition R2 providing Domain Controller, DHCP
and hosted BranchCache services to the five workstations.
App-V Physical Server (HP Proliant DL360 G6, Dual 2.53 quad core Xeon processors,
16 GB memory, 250 GB Hard Disk, Windows Server Enterprise Edition R2).
6
7
5
3
41
2
0
PowerEdge 2950
HQ File, web and SCCM
Server
Remote
PC 5 PowerEdge 1950
0
1
2
3
Remote Office Server
Remote Office Headquarters
10/100 Network
Switch
10/100 Network
Switch
Remote
PC 1
Remote
PC 2Remote
PC 3
Remote
PC 4
Shunra WAN
Emulator
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Five Workstations
Acer Veriton 460 G PCs. (Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 Processor, 3 GB memory 160 GB
hard drive and Marvell Gigabit Ethernet.)
Each workstation has three partitions, multiple boot configuration
All configurations saved to disk images w/Ghost for easy reversion
Partition 1
Windows XP SP3 fully updated via Windows Update
Office 2007 SP2
Partition 2
Windows 7
Office 2007 SP2
Partition 3
Windows Vista Business SP2
Office 2007 SP2
A second hard drive holds an image of the three working partitions created with
Acronis True Image allowing systems to be reverted to a pristine state after each test
run.
For App-V testing, Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus was installed on all PCs
and partitions instead of Microsoft Office 2007.
Network
The PCs are connected to Dell unmanaged 10/100 Ethernet switch.
Subnet is 172.17.128.0/24 (an RFC 1918 reserved private network).
Apposite Linktropy 4500 WAN Emulator which routes traffic to the headquarters
network (10.16.252.0/24 also an RFC 1918 reserved net).
Belkin IP-enabled KVM switch.
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Test Results
Summary of Results
Edison believes that the best way to view the results of our testing is from the
perspective of how much less time and how much less WAN bandwidth in MB is
required to transfer files to a branch office using BranchCache compared to a previous
version of the operating system (Windows Vista or Windows XP).4
The charts on the following pages illustrate the average BranchCache savings on file
transfer time and bandwidth utilization for the four test scenarios in all test conditions.
As can be seen in Figure 7 (Page 22) the download times for Windows 7 with
BranchCache show consistent download times and are significantly faster than for the
earlier operating systems. Figure 8 (Page 22) shows the reduced application delivery
time delivered with BranchCache when compared to the earlier operating systems.
4 App-V results are presented separately for two reasons. First, the much larger file sizes for the
App-V tests requires charts with different time and bandwidth scales than that used for the other
scenarios. Edison felt that combining two different scales in a single chart was confusing. Second,
while end-users directly experience the benefits of BranchCache when downloading files in their
day-to-day work, the main benefits of the affect BranchCache has on App-V application transfers
are experienced by system administrators. Presenting the App-V results separately, it was felt,
would allow these different audiences to more easily focus on the performance that was most
salient to their interests.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 22
Figure 7 - BranchCache File Download Time Savings
Figure 8 - BranchCache Savings, Application Delivery Time: App-V
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The bandwidth savings delivered by Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled, as seen in
Figure 9 (Page 23) and Figure 10 (Page 24), are also significant, though less consistent
due to the differing nature of the file transfer protocols being accelerated. 5
Figure 9 - BranchCache Bandwidth Utilization Savings
5 See the scenario descriptions above or the results details below for more information on how the
transfer protocols in the four scenarios can affect file transfer time and bandwidth utilization.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 24
Figure 10 - BranchCache Bandwidth Utilization Savings: App-V
For HTTP, file download times with Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled was over 60
percent faster than Windows XP or Windows Vista. Windows 7 with BranchCache
enabled required almost one-half the bandwidth than either Windows XP or Windows
Vista.
When file downloads were performed using MOSS 2007, the need for MOSS to access
SQL Server slowed down the file downloads somewhat, but the file download using
Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled still required approximately two-thirds less time
and two-thirds less bandwidth than Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Downloads through SCCM exhibited a 76 to 79 percent download time reduction for
Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled and over a 53 to 58 percent bandwidth savings
over Windows XP or Windows Vista.
CIFS/SMB file download times were from 55 to 69 percent faster for Windows 7 with
BranchCache enabled and utilized from 45 to 59 percent less bandwidth than Windows
XP or Windows Vista.
The following table (Table 2, Page 25) shows the performance in time and bandwidth
summarized above.
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Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 25
Table 2 Average Results for Scenarios
HTTP MOSS SCCM SMB App-V
Time
Windows 7 11.50 34.20 45.86 48.52 401.96
Windows XP 107.51 108.06 189.33 158.44 541.00
Windows Vista 108.06 98.50 214.17 108.44 472.72
Windows 7 Advantage
over Windows XP
63% 68% 76% 69% 26%
Windows 7 Advantage
over Windows Vista
63% 65% 79% 55% 15%
Bandwidth
Windows 7 11.50 7.72 13.29 9.46 50.1
Windows XP 22.53 22.80 31.71 22.97 66.48
Windows Vista 22.45 22.91 28.50 17.14 67.16
Windows 7 Advantage
over Windows XP
49% 66% 58% 59% 25%
Windows 7 Advantage
over Windows Vista
49% 66% 53% 45% 15%
Downloading and launching an application (Microsoft PowerPoint 2010), deployed with
App-V had a 26 percent advantage over Windows XP and a 15 percent advantage over
Windows Vista. Bandwidth savings were 25 percent as compared to both older
operating systems (Table 3, Page 25).
Table 3 Average Results for App-V Scenario
App-V
Time
Windows 7 401.96
Windows XP 541.00
Windows Vista 472.72
Windows 7 Advantage over Windows XP 26%
Windows 7 Advantage over Windows Vista 15%
Bandwidth
Windows 7 50.1
Windows XP 66.48
Windows Vista 67.16
Windows 7 Advantage over Windows XP 25%
Windows 7 Advantage over Windows Vista 25%
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 26
As can be seen in Table 2 and Table 3, the effect of BranchCache on file download time is
significant enough in productivity savings, but the effect on bandwidth can have the
greatest effect on operational cost savings.6
Scenarios
The sections below provide summaries of the effect of Windows 7 with BranchCache
enabled for each of the five test scenarios. The data upon which these summaries are
based is presented in the appendices. All of the tests in these scenarios were performed
using the set of test conditions described in the lab configuration section. These tests
included both asymmetric and symmetric WAN emulation. Asymmetric networks are
typical of those provided by DSL and cable networks. In these networks, the download
speed is usually greater than the upload speeds.
Since the results of BranchCache acceleration for both Hosted and Distributed cache
modes were very similar and the performance of Windows XP and Windows Vista were
also similar, the charts only show some of the results of the testing. This choice was
made so that the charts would be easier to read. Detailed results tables can be found in
the appendices.
Test Scenario 1 – CIFS/SMB File Accesses
The CIFS/SMB File Access Test consists of file downloads initiated from within
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 for files on a network share (mounted as Drive N). The times
were based upon the time required to open the file.
Results
The following charts show the average performance comparison between Windows 7
with BranchCache enabled versus the performance of Windows XP and Windows Vista.
The Average Bandwidth Used chart (Figure 11, Page 27) and the Average Download
Time chart (Figure 12, Page 27) show that Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled
requires much less time and bandwidth than either Windows Vista or Windows XP. It
should be noted that Windows Vista had improvements in CIFS/SMB protocol
processing, which is shown by the better performance of Vista over XP.
6It is important to note that when a cached file is transferred, it is the performance of the caching
computer and Local Area Network that is affecting transfer time. Almost no Wide Area Network
bandwidth is being used for the transfer other than that required for determining the existence
and state of a previously transferred and cached file and checking credentials and access controls.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 27
The two charts on the following pages show the results of acceleration on CIFS/SMB file
downloads. The charts show that downloads to XP or Vista clients take consistent
amounts of time 7 and use the same bandwidth for each client transfer, and that
Windows 7 with BranchCache greatly accelerates the download.
The different test conditions – network speed and latency – have a definite effect on the
speed of all the transfers: slower speeds require longer transfer times (Figure 13 - SMB
Test Results: Transfer Time, Page 28). The test conditions have no effect on Windows 7
bandwidth utilization, as can be seen by the overlap for all Windows 7 results (Figure 14
- SMB Results: Bandwidth Utilization, Page 29). Also clearly seen is the BranchCache
effect on speed and bandwidth, with markedly sharp falloffs in both metrics.
The download time for Windows 7 Distributed Mode for the Symmetrical 5 Mbps WAN
condition does not show as great a savings, as the faster network speed shortened the
time required for the initial file download, while the shortest and most accelerated
download time approached the limits of the available bandwidth for all three WAN
conditions.
7 The slightly shorter time illustrated for the third client is an anomaly of chart preparation. For
clarity purposes, only the first of two test runs for the first three clients was selected for the chart.
For the SMB scenario, the performance of the third client was slightly faster than for the previous
two clients. The fourth and fifth clients and second test run were more consistent than this
particular download instance.
Figure 12 - Average Bandwidth Used:
CIFS/SMB Protocol (Smaller is better) Figure 12 - Average Download Time:
CIFS/SMB Protocol (Smaller is better)
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 28
Figure 13 - SMB Test Results: Transfer Time
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 29
Figure 14 - SMB Results: Bandwidth Utilization
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 30
Test Scenario 2 – HTTP File Downloads
The HTTP File Access Test consists of file transfers initiated from a page hosted on an
HTTP or web server.
Results
The chart, Average Download Time (Figure 15, Page 30) illustrates the 63 percent time
savings delivered by Windows 7 with BranchCache over the nearly identical download
times (see appendices for details) required by Windows Vista and Windows XP.
The bandwidth savings for Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled showed savings of 49
percent as compared to the bandwidth required by Windows Vista or Windows XP
(Figure 16, Page 31).
Figure 15 - Average Download HTTP Protocol (Smaller is Better)
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 31
The following two charts show the results of acceleration on HTTP file transfers (Figure
17 - HTTP Test Results: Transfer Time, Page 32 and Figure 18 - HTTP Test Results:
Bandwidth Utilization, Page 33). The charts show that file downloads to Windows XP or
Windows Vista clients take consistent amounts of time and use the same bandwidth for
each client transfer, and that Windows 7 with BranchCache greatly accelerates the file
download.
The different test conditions – network speed and latency – have a definite effect on the
speed of all the file downloads: slower speeds require longer transfer times. This is
evident for the 5 Mbps downloads for Windows Vista where the download time is less
than half for the slower networks. It also is apparent with the faster initial client
performance for Window 7 with BranchCache enabled. The acceleration provided by
BranchCache is not as profound over the faster network, at least for a file size that is
small relative to the connection speed.
The test conditions have no effect on BranchCache bandwidth utilization, as can be seen
in the near total overlap of the BranchCache results. BranchCache is equally efficient
across the full range of test conditions utilized in this study.
Figure 16 - Average Bandwidth Used: HTTP Protocol (Smaller is better)
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Symmetrical 1.5Mbps Windows Vista
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Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 1.5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Figure 17 - HTTP Test Results: Transfer Time
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 33
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Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 1.5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Figure 18 - HTTP Test Results: Bandwidth Utilization
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 34
Test Scenario 3 – SCCM Application Package Download
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) enables the automated
transfer of application installation and patch files to end-user computers. SCCM utilizes
the BITS throttling mechanism to manage the transfers, while the files themselves are
transferred using the SMB protocol. The BranchCache Acceleration Affect only operates
on the actual SMB file transfer aspect of an SCCM transaction, so the results are not as
marked as for the two previous (HTTP and MOSS) tests.
At the time of testing, SCCM with BITS was not supported in Hosted Cache mode, so no
testing was performed for this configuration.8 The release version of BranchCache and
an updated SCCM now support Hosted Cache mode. Edison expects that the
performance gains experienced in our other tests will carry over to SCCM in Hosted
Cache Mode.
Results
SCCM download times for Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled were 76 percent faster
than for Windows XP and 79 percent faster than for Windows Vista, as can be seen in
the chart (Figure 19 – Average Download Time: SCCM, Page 34). Application and
operating system installations and patching can be very disruptive of productivity.
Savings of this order of magnitude can be a major productivity boost.
8 The inability to test SCCM in hosted mode is what drove the decision to show only Windows 7
with BranchCache enabled in distributed mode in these charts.
Figure 19 - Average Download Time: SCCM
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 35
Bandwidth utilization was also much lower with Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled
than with the older operating systems, though perhaps not so spectacularly. (Figure 20 –
Average Bandwidth Used: SCCM, Page 35) Nevertheless, Windows 7 used 53 percent
less bandwidth than Windows Vista and 58 percent less bandwidth than required by
Windows XP.
Figure 20- Average Bandwidth Used: SCCM
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 36
The following two charts show the results of acceleration on downloads of SCCM
Application Packages (Figure 21 - SCCM Test Results: Transfer Time, Page 37 and Figure
22 - SCCM Test Results: Bandwidth Utilization, Page 38). As in the other scenarios, the
charts show that transfers to XP or Vista clients take consistent amounts of time and use
the same bandwidth for each client transfer, and that Windows 7 with BranchCache
greatly accelerates the data transfer.
The different test conditions – network speed and latency – have a definite effect on the
speed of all the transfers: slower speeds require longer transfer times. The effect of the
higher network speeds is less pronounced with SCCM. Edison attributes this difference
to the differences in the BITS protocol as compared to the other protocols tested.
The download for Windows Vista under Asymmetrical conditions, as would be
expected, utilized more bandwidth than downloads for Windows Vista under the
symmetrical conditions. This was due to the longer time required for the client to
communicate back to the SCCM server under asymmetrical conditions, thus slowing the
entire process.
This example shows a clear advantage for Windows 7 clients using BranchCache for OS
and application downloads or patching from an organization’s SCCM servers when
there is an asymmetric connection. The savings in bandwidth from over 30 MBs of data
transferred to nearly zero data transferred can have a considerable positive effect on
branch office WAN utilization.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 37
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Distributed Cache
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Symmetrical 5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Figure 21 - SCCM Test Results: Transfer Time
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Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 1.5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Symmetrical 5Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Figure 22 - SCCM Test Results: Bandwidth Utilization
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 39
Test Scenario 4 – MOSS 2007 File Access
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables users to access files from a database-
supported and application-driven portal. In this test scenario, files were downloaded
using the same technique as was used for the HTTP tests in Scenario 2. The only
differences were that MOSS access was over the secure HTTPS protocol, and the files
themselves were stored in the MOSS database.
Results
The BranchCache savings in time and bandwidth were very symmetrical. As illustrated
in the chart (Figure 23 – Average Bandwidth Used: MOSS 2007) bandwidth savings were
the same 66 per cent for Windows 7 as compared to Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Time savings for Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled over Windows XP were 68
percent. The savings over Windows Vista were 65 percent (Figure 24 – Average
Download Time: MOSS 2007).
Figure 24 - Average Bandwidth Used: MOSS
2007 (Smaller is better.)
Figure 24 - Average Download Time: MOSS
2007 (Smaller is better.)
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 40
The chart (Figure 25 - MOSS 2007 Test Results: Transfer Time, Page 41) shows the results
of acceleration on MOSS 2007 HTTPS file downloads. The chart shows that file
downloads to Windows Vista clients take virtually identical times for the slower
asymmetrical and symmetrical network conditions without noticeable variation during
the tests. This showed that there was little to no communication to the MOSS server once
the download commenced. The performance for Windows Vista at 5 Mbps shows some
speed variation. As in a previous test, this variation was an anomaly of the chart-making
procedure: the download to second client for the first test run was slightly slower than
for the other clients in either test run. Since the chart only shows three runs, this
difference is more obvious than it would be if all the test runs were shown.
Bandwidth utilization for file downloads with MOSS 2007 (Figure 26 - MOSS 2007 Test
Results: Bandwidth Utilization, Page 42) was very consistent for both operating systems
illustrated. The chart line overlaps reveal that the two 1.5 Mbps downloads to Windows
Vista utilized virtually identical bandwidth, while the 5 Mbps Windows Vista download
utilized slightly less bandwidth, but the results under all three conditions were very
similar in utilization. Once again, the chart line overlap shows that Windows 7 with
BranchCache results were nearly identical for all three test conditions, quickly
approaching zero WAN bandwidth utilization.
Organizations with MOSS 2007 servers hosting remote offices connected over a range of
network conditions will see a significant productivity boost due to faster file download
speeds. Bandwidth costs and contention will also be positively affected by running
Windows 7 clients with BranchCache enabled.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 41
Figure 25 - MOSS 2007 Test Results: Transfer Time
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 42
Figure 26 - MOSS 2007 Test Results: Bandwidth Utilization
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 43
Test Scenario 5 – App-V
Microsoft Application Virtualization enables organizations to simplify the management
and deployment of applications to PCs and laptops. It does this by delivering only the
code necessary to start the program when the user clicks the application shortcut.
Additional code is downloaded as needed in the background as the program is used.
In this scenario, Edison created a program package using Microsoft Office 2010 and,
using the App-V deployment tools and Administrative tools, a shortcut to Office was
delivered to a user on each PC for each operating system being tested. For the test, the
user started the PowerPoint 2010 program, the duration from initial click to PowerPoint
being ready to use was timed, and the bandwidth utilization was measured.
Results
The size of the virtualized application files being delivered was much greater than that
for the file downloads performed in the other tests. Naturally, this resulted in much
longer download times. The tests for Windows 7 with BranchCache in Distributed Cache
mode showed little to no performance improvement while the tests for Windows 7 in
Hosted Cache mode showed similar benefits to those achieved in the other download
scenarios. Edison believes that in distributed cache mode, the PCs’ were unable to
provide the performance required by the large files being transferred. It is possible that
PCs with much higher performance characteristics would show greater performance
gains in distributed mode.
The BranchCache savings in bandwidth were very symmetrical. As illustrated in the
chart (Figure 28, Page 44), bandwidth savings was 33 percent for Windows 7 as
compared to Windows Vista and 37 percent as compared to Windows XP. Time savings
for Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled over Windows XP was 24 percent. The
savings over Windows Vista was 34 percent (Figure 27, Page 44).
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 44
Figure 27: App-V Average Download Time
Figure 28: App-V Average Bandwidth Utilization
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Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 45
The two charts on the following pages show the results of acceleration by starting an
application with App-V. The charts show that application startup on XP or Vista clients
take consistent amounts of time and use the same bandwidth for each client transfer,
and that Windows 7 with BranchCache greatly accelerates the download.
The different test conditions – network speed and latency – have a definite effect on the
speed of all the transfers: slower speeds require longer transfer times (Figure 29, Page
46). The test conditions have less effect on Windows 7 bandwidth utilization, as can be
seen in Figure 30, Page 47).
The download time for Windows 7 Distributed Mode for the Symmetrical 5 Mbps WAN
condition does not show as great a savings, as the faster network speed shortened the
time required for the initial file download, while the shortest and most accelerated
download time approached the limits of the available bandwidth for all three WAN
conditions. Edison believes this is due to performance constraints imposed by the client
PCs as compared to the much higher performance server use for hosted mode.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 46
Figure 29 - App-V Transfer Times
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 47
Figure 30 - App-V Bandwidth Utilization
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Symmetrical 1.5Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Symmetrical 5Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 48
Conclusions and Recommendations
Edison analysts created and ran a series of tests designed to provide quantified data that
would illustrate the effects of the file transfer acceleration provided by using Windows 7
and Windows Server 2008 R2 with BranchCache enabled. The result of Edison’s testing
shows that BranchCache delivers on its promise. File downloads were, on average, 69
percent faster with Windows 7 and BranchCache than for Windows XP and 66 percent
faster than for Windows Vista. Bandwidth utilization averaged 58 percent less for
Windows 7 versus Windows XP and 53 percent less than Windows Vista.
Starting Microsoft Office 2010 programs such as PowerPoint was 24 percent faster with
Windows 7 and BranchCache in Hosted Cache mode than for Windows XP and 34
percent faster than for Windows Vista. Bandwidth utilization averaged 37 percent less
for Windows 7 versus Windows XP and for 33 percent less for Windows Vista.
With the vast range of possible configurations and tariffs, Edison has made no attempt
to calculate the potential financial savings attributable to lower bandwidth utilization,
but it should be obvious that the significant bandwidth savings possible with
BranchCache could have an ameliorating effect on operating system upgrade costs,
possibly sufficient to justify branch office upgrades.
Edison believes that the results support several recommendations for organizations
contemplating upgrading their end-user operating systems to Windows 7. The first of
these is to stage upgrades to central servers and branch offices. Upgrade remotely
accessible servers to Windows Server 2008 R2 and remote branch computers to use
Windows 7, adding branch servers using Windows Server 2008 R2 where necessary.
Distributed Cache mode allows IT professionals to take advantage of BranchCache with
minimal hardware deployments in the branch office. However, if the branch has
deployed other infrastructure (for example, servers running other workloads) using
Hosted Cache mode may be beneficial for increased cache availability and caching for
the entire branch office. (Microsoft suggests that Distributed Cache mode can be
adequate for offices of fewer than 50 users on a subnet).
The second recommendation is to consider the replacement of shared folder network
designs with SharePoint. Whether an organization utilizes Windows SharePoint Services
(WSS, available at no charge) or the more sophisticated and centrally manageable
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), the productivity benefits of higher transfer
speeds and lower bandwidth costs can offset many SharePoint adoption costs while
providing the recognized business value of the SharePoint portal paradigm.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 49
A third recommendation is to include Microsoft Application Virtualization as part of
any plans for upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010. For many organizations, the extra
infrastructure and effort in configuration of the App-V will pay off very quickly due to
lower administrative and Help desk costs, easier management of application licenses,
and the other benefits offered by App-V. These savings are compounded by bandwidth
and other savings delivered by the combination of Windows 7 and Windows Server
2008 R2 with BranchCache.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 50
Appendices
Test Environment
This section consists of a detailed listing of the equipment and software utilized in
testing, including applicable configuration settings details.
Remote Office Workstations (5)
Model Acer Veriton 460 G
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 (2.93 MHz)
Memory 4 GB
Operating Systems
Windows XP Professional
Windows Vista Business
Windows 7 Enterprise
Hard Drive 160 GB Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA II
Remote Office Switch
Dell PowerConnect 2216 unmanaged 10/100 16 ports
Remote Office Server – App-V
Model HP Proliant DL360 G6
CPU Dual Intel Xeon E5540 quad core (2.53 GHz)
Memory 16 GB
Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Hard Drive 250 GB HD
Roles and Features BranchCache Hosted Cache server
File Server
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 51
Remote Office Server
Model Acer Veriton 460 G
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 (2.93 MHz)
Memory 4 GB
Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Hard Drive 160GB Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA II
Roles and Features
Active Directory Domain Controller
IIS web server
BranchCache Hosted Cache server
File Server
WAN Emulator
Apposite Linktropy 4500 WAN Emulator configured as router
Virtual Server Host
Model Dell PowerEdge 2950
CPU Intel Xeon E5320 (Quad core 1.83 GHz)
Memory 16 GB
Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 Datacenter with Hyper-V
Hard Drive 4x73 GB SAS on PERC 5i RAID controller
Virtual Machines
Active Directory Domain Controller
HQ2008R2 – A File and Web server used as the data source
for SMB and HTTP testing
SQL08A – A Windows Server 2003 R2 server running SQL
Server 2008 hosting the SCCM and SharePoint databases
Virtual Server Host – App-V
Model HP Proliant DL360 G6
CPU Intel Xeon E5540 (Quad core 2.53 GHz)
Memory 8 GB
Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 Datacenter with Hyper-V
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 52
Hard Drive 1x250 GB SAS
Virtual Machines
Active Directory Domain Controller DNS, WINS, IIS8,
Certificate Authority Server and APP-V 4.6 w/ MS office
2010 APP-V published virtual Application
SCCM and MOSS hosts
Model Gateway DX4200-09
CPU AMD Phenom™ X4 9100e (1.80 GHz, quad core)
Memory 4 GB
Operating Systems Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
Hard Drive 160 GB Western Digital Caviar Blue
Virtual Machines
Active Directory Domain Controller
HQ2008R2 – A Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise system
providing file and web services used as the data source for
SMB and HTTP testing
SQL08A – A Windows Server 2003 R2 server running SQL
Server 2008 hosting the SCCM and SharePoint databases.
Test Results
The following pages present the results of Edison’s testing. The results are presented for
each test scenario in the form of a summary table that lists each test condition and
operating system, and in detail tables showing the results of each test run.
In the summary tables, the results for each platform, for each WAN condition are shown
in one table. A second table shows the percent advantage of Windows 7 with
BranchCache enabled versus the legacy operating systems Windows Vista and Windows
XP.
In the details tables, file transfer duration is presented in minutes and seconds (MM:SS).
Data transferred is presented in MB or KB as measured during transfer through the
WAN emulator.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 53
CIFS/SMB Test Results
Results Summary
The test results show that Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 58 percent faster and
requires 45 percent less bandwidth than Windows Vista. The results also show that
Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 69 percent faster while requiring 59 percent
less bandwidth than Windows XP.
The performance advantages are not as great when compared to the results from some
other scenarios. Edison believes the performance difference is due to the way the
application (PowerPoint 2007) interacts with the network while retrieving the file. While
the files were being transferred, it appeared that the first data blocks were being sent
from the remote server while BranchCache was checking whether the file existed in a
local cache. When the cached file was identified, network transfers stopped and the
remainder of the file was transferred from the branch cache. Presuming our observation
matches BranchCache design, it is probable that transferring larger files would
demonstrate a greater difference in speed and bandwidth utilization.
CIFS/SMB Scenario Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization
MB Transferred
Windows 7
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows 7 Distributed Cache 56.75 9.56
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows 7 Hosted Cache 54.13 9.09
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 58.63 9.21
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 52.13 9.11
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 35.88 9.63
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 33.63 10.14
Windows XP
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows XP 154.00 23.05
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP 160.67 22.93
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 54
CIFS/SMB Scenario Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization
MB Transferred
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP 160.67 22.93
Windows Vista
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384Kbps
Windows Vista 128.50 23.50
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista 127.33 5.06
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista 69.50 22.87
Average bandwidth and download times by platform
Platform Average Bandwidth Used
in MB
Average Download Time
in Seconds
W7 w. BC Enabled 9.46 48.52
Windows Vista 17.14 114.51
Windows XP 22.97 158.44
Comparison of Windows 7 with Windows Vista and Windows XP
Windows 7 Advantage Average Bandwidth Used Average Download Time
Versus Vista 45% 58%
Versus XP 59% 69%
Details
The following tables show the results for all the test runs for each WAN bandwidth
condition. The files on the remote server were pre-cached, so only the first Windows 7
workstation to download the file utilized WAN bandwidth. The other Windows 7
workstations downloaded the file from the branch workstation’s cache. Test runs ceased
after three successful transfers occurred without significant deviation in performance
(indicated as NTR in the table).
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 55
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:35 22.6 MB 2:33 23.5 MB
2 2:34 22.7 MB 2:34 23.4 MB
3 2:35 22.6 MB 2:34 23.5 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:09 23.6 MB 2:08 23.4 MB
2 2:09 23.6 MB 2:08 23.4 MB
3 2:08 23.6 MB 2:09 23.4 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:11 22.6 MB 2:14 23.4 MB
2 0:18 3 MB 0:29 4.5 MB
3 0:32 5.7 MB 0:41 6 MB
4 0:30 4.5 MB 0:39 6.8 MB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 56
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:14 23.9 MB 2:07 22.0 MB
2 0:24 3.4 MB 0:29 4.5 MB
3 0:25 3.4 MB 0:35 5.6 MB
4 0:24 3.4 MB 0:35 5.6 MB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 3:01 23.0 MB 3:06 23.6 MB
2 3:00 23.2 MB 3:06 23.6 MB
3 3:01 23.1 MB 3:06 23.6 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:08 23 MB 2:10 23.6 MB
2 2:07 23.1 MB 2:10 23.6 MB
3 2:07 23.1 MB 2:11 23.6 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 57
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:12 23.1MB 2:14 22.7 MB
2 0:25 3.4 MB 0:25 3.4 MB
3 0:38 5.6 MB 0:49 7.2 MB
4 0:25 3.4 MB 0:31 4.2 MB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:05 23.2 MB 1:11 22.5 MB
2 0:27 4.5 MB 0:24 5.6 MB
3 0:29 5.6 MB 0:30 8.9 MB
4 0:35 6.7 MB 0:06 35 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:44 22.9 MB 2:33 23.0 MB
2 2:43 22.9 MB 2:39 23.1 MB
3 2:42 22.8 MB 2:43 23.0 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 58
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:33 22.9 MB 1:26 22.9 MB
2 1:34 22.8 MB 1:00 22.9 MB
3 1:07 22.8 MB 0:49 22.9 MB
4 1:04 22.8 MB 0:56 23 MB
5 1:06 22.8 MB 1:00 22.9 MB
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:05 23.2 MB 1:11 24.3 MB
2 0:27 4.5 MB 0:24 4.0 MB
3 0:29 5.6 MB 0:30 5.8 MB
4 0:35 6.7 MB 0:30 5.7 MB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:07 23 MB 0:57 23.6 MB
2 0:20 5.6 MB 0:28 7.8 MB
3 0:24 5.6 MB 0:16 3.4 MB
4 0:23 6.6 MB 0:34 5.5 MB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 59
HTTP Test Results
Results Summary
The test results show that Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 63 percent faster
than either Windows Vista or XP. Bandwidth savings for Windows 7 versus Windows
Vista or Windows XP was 49 percent.
HTTP Scenario Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows 7
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 51.40 9.00
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7
Hosted Cache 53.80 9.13
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed
Cache 50.60 8.99
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 53.80 9.13
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed
Cache 18.50 9.14
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache 11.50 23.63
HTTP Scenario Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows Vista
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows XP 123.70 22.58
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP 120.50 22.30
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP 78.33 22.70
Windows XP
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 121.50 22.57
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 60
HTTP Scenario Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Vista
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista 125.00 22.00
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista 77.67 22.77
Average bandwidth and download times by platform
Platform Average Bandwidth Used
in MB
Average Download Time
in Seconds
W7 w. BC Enabled 11.50 39.93
Windows Vista 22.45 108.06
Windows XP 22.53 107.51
Comparison of Windows 7 with Windows Vista and Windows XP
Windows 7 Advantage Average Bandwidth Used Average Download Time
Versus Vista 49% 63%
Versus XP 49% 63%
Details
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 22.6 MB 2:00 22.5 MB
2 2:06 22.8 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
3 2:07 22.6 MB 2:01 22.4 MB
4 2:08 22.7 MB 2:00 22.6 MB
5 2:06 22.6 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 61
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384Kbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:59 22.3 MB 2:04 22.9 MB
2 2:00 22.3 MB 2:02 22.8 MB
3 2:00 22.4 MB 2:03 22.8 MB
4 2:01 22.3 MB 2:02 22.8 MB
5 2:00 22.3 MB 2:04 22.8 MB
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:06 22.4 MB 2:02 22.5 MB
2 2:04 22.4 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
3 0:04 15 KB 0:03 18 KB
4 0:04 22 KB 0:03 27 KB
5 0:04 67 KB 0:03 21 KB
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:05 23.0 MB 2:11 22.6 MB
2 2:03 22.9 MB 2:08 22.7 MB
3 0:06 9 KB 0:05 14 KB
4 0:05 11 KB 0:05 33 KB
5 0:05 5 KB 0:05 41 KB
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 62
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:52 22 MB 2:01 23 MB
2 2:02 22 MB 2:02 22 MB
3 2:01 23 MB 2:01 22. MB
4 2:01 22 MB 2:02 23 MB
5 2:02 22 MB 2:01 22 MB
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 22 MB 2:02 22. MB
2 2:07 22 MB 2:03 22 MB
3 2:08 22 MB 2:03 22 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:03 22 MB 2:02 22.9 MB
2 2:02 22 MB 2:02 22.8 MB
3 0:02 7 KB 0:03 12 KB
4 0:03 41 KB 0:03 54 KB
5 0:03 19 KB 0:03 34 KB
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 63
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:05 23.0 MB 2:11 22.6 MB
2 2:03 22.9 MB 2:08 22.7 MB
3 0:06 9 KB 0:05 14 KB
4 0:05 11 KB 0:05 33 KB
5 0:05 5 KB 0:05 41 KB
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:26 22.8 1:21 22.6
2 1:16 22.8 1:19 22.7
3 1:11 22.7 1:17 22.6
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 22 MB 2:02 22 MB
2 2:07 22 MB 2:03 22 MB
3 2:08 22 MB 2:03 22 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 64
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 0:38 23.15 0:47 22.4
2 0:41 23.7 0:41 22.5
3 0:03 21 K 0:03 34 K
4 0:03 47 K 0:03 43 K
5 0:03 23 K 0:03 48 K
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 0:41 23.1 MB 0:42 22.8 MB
2 0:48 23.2 MB 0:46 22.9 MB
3 0:03 .012 KB 0:03 0
4 0:03 8 KB 0:03 12 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
The larger variations in transfer times on this test are caused by the higher packet loss
rate. Since TCP/IP drops its net utilization when a packet is lost, packets lost close
together or at the end of a file transfer have smaller effects than those spread out or at
the end of the file transfer. Vista and Windows 7 improved TCP/IP stacks recover faster
and handle latency better on long fat pipes.
MOSS2007 Test Results
Results Summary
The test results show that Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 65 percent faster
than Windows Vista, and 68 percent faster than Windows XP. Bandwidth savings for
Windows 7 versus Windows Vista or Windows XP was 66 percent.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 65
MOSS 2007 Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows 7
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 51.20 9.23
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7
Hosted Cache 32.75 5.71
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 50.30 9.10
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 32.75 5.72
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed
Cache 22.00 9.01
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 16.22 7.53
Windows XP
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows
XP 124.00 23.10
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP 123.50 22.77
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP 76.67 22.53
Windows Vista
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows
Vista 124.00 23.12
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista 124.17 23.12
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista 47.33 22.48
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 66
Average bandwidth and download times by platform
Platform Average Bandwidth Used in
MB
Average Download Time in
Seconds
W7 w. BC Enabled 7.72 34.20
Windows Vista 22.91 98.50
Windows XP 22.80 108.06
Comparison of Windows 7 with Windows Vista and Windows XP
Windows 7 Advantage Average Bandwidth Used Average Download Time
Versus Vista 66% 65%
Versus XP 66% 68%
Details
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 23.7 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
2 2:07 23.7 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
3 2:07 23.7 MB 2:01 22.5 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 23.6 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
2 2:07 23.7 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
3 2:07 23.6 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 67
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 23.6 MB 2:01 22.7 MB
2 2:06 23.5 MB 2:00 22.4 MB
3 0:04 6 kb 0:03 4 KB
4 0:03 12 kb 0:03 22 KB
5 0:03 27 kb 0:03 19 KB
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:02 23 MB 2:02 22.6 MB
2 0:03 22 KB 0:03 11 KB
3 0:03 4 KB 0:03 5 KB
4 0:03 13 KB 0:03 16 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:03 22.7 MB 2:04 22.8 MB
2 2:03 22.7 MB 2:04 22.8 MB
3 2:04 22.8 MB 2:03 22.8 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 68
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:07 23.6 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
2 2:07 23.6 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
3 2:07 23.7 MB 2:02 22.6 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:01 22.8 MB 2:02 22.8 MB
2 2:01 22.6 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
3 0:03 2.4 KB 0:03 6 KB
4 0:03 11 KB 0:03 8 KB
5 0:03 108 KB 0:03 16 KB
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:03 22.9 MB 2:01 22.6 MB
2 0:03 226 KB 0:03 0
3 0:03 0.59 KB 0:03 22 KB
4 0:03 25 KB 0:03 14 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 69
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:17 22.8 MB 1:20 22.2 MB
2 1:16 22.8 MB 1:16 22.3 MB
3 1:17 22.8 MB 1:23 22.3 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 0:42 22.8 MB 0:46 22.1 MB
2 0:53 22.9 MB 0:48 22.3 MB
3 0:46 22.8 MB 0:49 22 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
SCCM Test Results
Results Summary
The test results show that Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 76 percent faster
than Windows Vista and 79 percent faster than Windows XP. Bandwidth savings for
Windows 7 versus Windows Vista was 58 percent. Windows 7 required 53 percent less
bandwidth than Windows XP.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 70
SCCM Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows 7
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows 7 Distributed Cache 45.64 7.26
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 58.62 8.40
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 33.31 24.20
Windows XP
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows XP 190.67 29.28
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP 221.83 33.15
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP 155.50 32.70
Windows Vista
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384Kbps
Windows Vista 209.83 28.25
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista 219.33 33.05
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista 213.33 24.20
Average bandwidth and download times by platform
Platform Average Bandwidth Used
in MB
Average Download Time,
in seconds
W7- w. BC-Enabled 13.29 45.86
Windows Vista 31.71 189.33
Windows XP 28.50 214.17
Comparison of Windows 7 with Windows Vista and Windows XP
Windows 7 Advantage Average Bandwidth Used Average Download Time
Versus Vista 58% 76%
Versus XP 53% 79%
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 71
Details
The following tables show the results for all the test runs for each WAN bandwidth
condition. The files on the remote server were pre-cached, so only the first Windows 7
workstation to download the file utilized WAN bandwidth. The other Windows 7
workstations downloaded the file from the branch workstation’s cache. Test runs ceased
after three successful transfers occurred without significant deviation in performance
(indicated as NTR in the table).
At the time of testing SCCM was not supported in Hosted mode. These results are
shown as N/A.
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384Kbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:39 24.9 MB 3:31 32.6
2 2:47 25.1 MB 3:31 32.6
3 3:05 27.9 MB 3:31 32.6
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 3:27 32.6 MB 2:33 23.9 MB
2 3:26 32.6 MB 2:34 23.9 MB
3 3:27 32.6 MB 2:32 23.9 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 72
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 4:01 32.2 MB 3:31 32.6
2 0:11 166 KB 0:28 0.041
3 0:37 39 KB 0:21 0.085
4 0:28 12 KB 0:46 0.009
5 0:26 153 KB NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2 N/A N/A N/A N/A
3 N/A N/A N/A N/A
4 N/A N/A N/A N/A
5 N/A N/A N/A N/A
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 4:25 39.8 MB 2:59 26.6 MB
2 4:22 39.7 MB 3:00 26.5 MB
3 4:25 39.7 MB 3:00 26.6 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 73
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 4:22 31.8 MB 2:42 16.6 MB
2 4:22 31.9MB 2:40 16.5MB
3 4:25 31.9 MB 2:37 16.5 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 5:03 39.6 MB 4:50 25.6 MB
2 0:21 1.7 MB 0:22 42 KB
3 0:56 65 KB 0:34 49 KB
4 0:27 114 KB 0:27 36 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2 N/A N/A N/A N/A
3 N/A N/A N/A N/A
4 N/A N/A N/A N/A
5 N/A N/A N/A N/A
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 74
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 2:38 33.5 MB 2:26 31.9 MB
2 2:42 33.5 MB 2:34 31.9 MB
3 2:45 35.0 MB 2:28 31.8 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 4:30 31.8 MB 2:42 16.6 MB
2 4:21 31.9 MB 2:40 16.5 MB
3 4:30 31.9 MB 2:37 16.5 MB
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 1:37 16.4 MB 1:41 16.7 MB
2 0:21 1.1 MB 0:23 1.2 MB
3 0:22 42 KB 0:22 42 KB
4 0:14 32 KB 0:15 34 KB
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 75
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
Run 2: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization Data
Transferred
1 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2 N/A N/A N/A N/A
3 N/A N/A N/A N/A
4 N/A N/A N/A N/A
5 N/A N/A N/A N/A
App-V results
Results Summary
The test results show that overall, Windows 7 with BranchCache enabled is 34 percent
faster than Windows Vista and 24 percent faster than Windows XP. Bandwidth savings
for Windows 7 versus Windows Vista was 33 percent. Windows 7 required 37 percent
less bandwidth than Windows XP.
App-V Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows 7
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows 7 Hosted Cache 327.30 35.69
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7
Hosted Cache 546.80 46.99
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted
Cache 110.90 34.15
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows 7 Distributed Cache 446.70 42.00
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 582.55 52.52
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7
Distributed Cache 131.10 41.86
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 76
App-V Test Results
WAN Condition/OS
File Download
Time in Seconds
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Windows XP
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps
Windows XP 585.50 66.14
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP 807.50 66.14
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP 230.00 67.16
Windows Vista
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384Kbps
Windows Vista 745.67 64.94
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista 505.50 63.45
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista 167.00 58.54
Average bandwidth and download times by platform
Platform File Download Time in
Seconds
Bandwidth Utilization
MB Transferred
W7- w. BC-Enabled 357.56 42.00
Windows Vista 472.72 62.31
Windows XP 541.00 66.48
Comparison of Windows 7 with Windows Vista and Windows XP
Windows 7 Advantage Average Bandwidth Used Average Download Time
Versus Vista -33% -34%
Versus XP -37% -24%
Details
The following tables show the results for all the test runs for each WAN bandwidth
condition. For Hosted Mode, the files on the remote server were pre-cached, so only the
first Windows 7 workstation to download the file, fully utilized WAN bandwidth. The
second download used WAN bandwidth at the start of the download, switching to
cached data during the download process. The other Windows 7 workstations
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 77
downloaded the file from the branch workstation’s cache.9 For Windows XP and Vista,
test runs ceased after three successful transfers occurred without significant deviation in
performance (indicated as NTR in the table).
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 9:48 66.14 9:47 66.14
2 9:44 66.14 9:47 66.14
3 9:45 66.14 9:44 66.14
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 12:45 65.58 12:45 65.59
2 12:10 64.37 12:20 64.88
3 12:24 64.88 12:10 64.37
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
9 On certain occasions, one or more PCs would either consume a greater amount of WAN
bandwidth. Edison could not determine the cause of this behavior using the tools at its disposal.
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 78
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 12:59 71.49 12:55 71.73
2 5:51` 31.46 6:08 34.14
3 6:05 33.03 6:09 34.29
4 5:59 32.18 6:16 34.81
5 5:56 31.73 6:09 33.76
Asymmetrical 1.5 Mbps/384 Kbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 9:29 71.58 9:25 72.87
2 4:17 25.51 4:28 27.01
3 4:29 27.11 4:29 27.13
4 4:25 26.41 4:34 27.54
5 4:28 26.04 4:29 26.71
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 14:45 66.7 14:45 66.7
2 12:01 60.36 13:09 64.7
3 13:11 64.68 12:54 64.4
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 79
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 8:36 64.0 8:36 64.0
2 8:18 63.2 8:24 63.2
3 8:21 63.2 8:18 63.2
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 12:46 64.10 12:35 63.14
2 11:32 63.79 11:42 61.88
3 7:50 45.29 8:11 45.17
4 8:09 46.19 8:16 45.62
5 8:04 45.27 8:01 44.25
Symmetrical 1.5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 13:05 72.21 11:51 73.22
2 11:43 58.69 5:59 62.75
3 7:20 26.79 6:40 30.80
4 6:21 26.79 10:00 63.19
5 5:57 25.30 6:12 30.15
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 80
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows XP
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 3:55 68.0 3:58 68.0
2 3:45 66.8 3:47 66.8
3 3:47 66.8 3:48 66.8
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows Vista
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download
Time in
Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 3:06 60.5 3:06 60.5
2 2:56 58.9 3:01 59.8
3 2:15 55.3 2:18 56.3
4 NTR NTR NTR NTR
5 NTR NTR NTR NTR
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Distributed Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 3:12 61.34 3:14 61.35
2 2:00 38.47 1:58 38.04
3 1:56 37.32 2:01 38.42
4 1:55 36.57 1:53 36.50
5 1:50 34.87 1:52 35.77
Enhanced Branch Office Productivity and WAN Bandwidth Savings with Microsoft BranchCache™ Page 81
Symmetrical 5 Mbps Windows 7 Hosted Cache
Workstation
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 1:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
Run 1: File
Download Time
in Minutes:
Seconds
Run 2:
Bandwidth
Utilization MB
Transferred
1 2:58 59.85 2:01 61.12
2 1:51 37.54 1:33 25.69
3 1:48 30.57 1:38 30.25
4 1:22 23.24 1:26 21.63
5 1:18 22.16 1:34 29.42
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