Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education preview

Delivery Optimization and Microsoft Connected Cache are comprehensive solutions from Microsoft for minimizing internet bandwidth consumption. Delivery Optimization acts as the distributed content source and Connected Cache acts as the dedicated content source. Organizations have benefited from these solutions, realizing significant bandwidth savings of up to 98 percent with Windows 11 upgrades, Windows Autopilot device provisioning, Microsoft Intune application installations, and monthly update deployments.

Until now, Connected Cache could only be deployed to Configuration Manager with distribution points. With the release of Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education to public preview on October 30, organizations have more flexibility in deploying Connected Cache directly to host machines running Windows Server, Windows client, and Linux [Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)].

Supporting scenarios that are important to enterprises

While Delivery Optimization is mostly known for being a peer-to-peer delivery solution, it’s also the downloader that pulls update content in Windows from the cloud and provides enterprise and education users with tools to manage bandwidth traffic, throttling capabilities, and more.

Connected Cache technology complements Delivery Optimization as a dedicated software caching solution that can be deployed within enterprise and education organizations’ networks. Once deployed to host machines within a network, Connected Cache nodes will transparently and dynamically cache the Microsoft-published content that downstream Windows devices need to download. Using this solution, content requests from Delivery Optimization can be served by the locally deployed Connected Cache node instead of the cloud. This results in fast, bandwidth-efficient delivery across connected devices. Microsoft worked closely with numerous enterprise and education organizations to gather information about their bandwidth management needs. We used the great feedback we received to develop Connected Cache as a solution that supports the scenarios most important to you.

Moving from on premises to hybrid or fully cloud-managed scenario

Enterprises and educational institutions have used solutions like Configuration Manager for device management and content distribution. Many of these organizations:

• Manage all or part of their device tenant with Intune or other mobile device management (MDM).
• Are tasked with decommissioning their Configuration Manager distribution points.
• Are still faced with the challenge of managing content delivery bandwidth.

To support the on-prem to hybrid or fully cloud managed scenario, Connected Cache can be deployed directly to hardware or a virtual machine (VM) running either Windows Server 2022 using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2, which is an enterprise-ready, lightweight, first-party solution, or certain Linux distros (Ubuntu 22.04 and RHEL 8 and 9).

Branch office

Many enterprises and educational institutions have a global presence with remote locations where:

• Hundreds of Windows workstations are present.
• No dedicated server hardware or administrator is present on-site.
• Internet bandwidth may be limited and/or internet connectivity may be intermittent.
• Reserving bandwidth for office operations may be more important than download performance of Microsoft content.

To support the branch office scenario, Connected Cache can be deployed directly to Windows 11 workstations using WSL 2.

Enterprise or educational sites

The traditional enterprise or educational site occupies one or more buildings, and may have multiple locations where:

• Hundreds to thousands of Windows workstations, Windows servers, or virtual machines are present.
• Reuse of existing hardware is important (decommissioned Configuration Manager distribution point, file server, cloud print server) or dedicated server hardware is available on-site.
• Internet bandwidth may range from great to limited (T1), and/or internet connectivity may be intermittent.
• Reserving bandwidth for office or educational operations, especially during peak times, is a top priority.
• Performant downloads are necessary to support mass update, upgrade, or Autopilot provisioning operations.

To support the enterprise or educational site scenarios, Connected Cache can be deployed directly to hardware or VMs running Windows Server 2022. Deployments can be made using WSL 2. or certain Linux distros (Ubuntu 22.04 and RHEL 8 and 9).

Bulk management and deployment

Connected Cache Azure resources are typically managed using the Microsoft Azure portal web interface, but they can also be managed using Command-Line Interface (CLI). Connected Cache nodes can be remotely deployed via PowerShell or Linux shell scripts that require no direct user input, enabling deployment of cache nodes without on-site presence.

Create a Connected Cache in the Azure portal.

PowerShell snippet demonstrating use of Connected Cache CLI.

PowerShell script demonstrating use of bulk creations of cache nodes using CLI.

Telemetry by content type

Organizations want to have insights into the health of cache nodes and what content is being delivered to their devices. The Connected Cache Azure portal displays a near real-time and historical view of the outbound traffic in Mbps and volume by content type. These insights help ensure the cache is deployed correctly and devices are successfully pulling content from it. Further details such as cache efficiency (expressed as the percentage of content coming from Connected Cache), per site data, and per country data, will be available in Windows Update for Business reports.

Connected Cache management in Azure portal shows Office, Windows Update, and Intune downloads.

Deploy Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education

As of October 30, 2024, Windows Enterprise (E3, E5, and F3) and Windows Education (A3 and A5) users are able to use the Azure Marketplace to create “Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education” Azure resources that will be used to manage Connected Cache deployments. Once the Connected Cache Azure resource has been created, users can create as many cache nodes as required to support their network topologies or content deployment. Please see the Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education documentation overview page for more details.

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