Introducing network caching

Network caching is a technology that allows network devices or network appliances to cache content. If used effectively, this can allow organizations to use the caching device to deliver content to office locations where devices have poor network connectivity to where the master source of the content is located.

Common devices that use caching are Riverbed devices and Cisco WAAS devices, which stands for Wide Area Application Services. While you might think these devices could help with the deployment of Configuration Manager, they may actually cause you more pain than help.

It is really common to see these devices in large organizations; it is also common to think that you can use these to replace distribution points to deliver content to clients on slower sites.

Configuration Manager can, however, take advantage of BranchCache, which will enable a similar solution at a software level. This would be a recommended course of action if you are unable to deploy distribution...