Offline Files and Other Technology

Описание: This video will look at Offline Files and how it works with other Windows Technology. Check out    / itfreetraining   or http://itfreetraining.com for more of our always free training videos.

Offline Files allows files to be stored in a local cache and accessed locally rather than using the network or when the network is not available. The video will also look at how other technology works with Offline Files to improve the user experience.

0:28 – Offline Files was first introduced in Windows 2000. It is also sometimes called client-side caching. Let’s consider that there is a file share that has files on it. The user is in control as to which files they would like to have made available offline. Once they have been selected and have been made available offline, if the network were to be disconnected the users would continue to be able to access their files from the local cache. Changes that are made are synched with the server once the connection to the server becomes available again. This is basically how Offline Files works; however since its inception it has had improvements and additional features added.

1:08 - The majority of the large changes happened in Windows Vista, however there have been further improvements made after this. Sync Center has been added and it works in the background to sync files. Before this, synching could be configured to start once the user logs in, logs out, or when the network becomes available again. However, this process was never transparent to the user. Sync Center is different in that it runs in the background, thus entirely transparent to the user along with Offline Files automatically performing synchronization between locally stored files and the network stored files as required.

The next feature we will discuss is slow link mode. When enabled using group policy, Offline Files can automatically change to the local cache copy when a slow network connection is detected. Sync Center can also be configured to sync files over a slow network connection.

The next feature we’ll look at is Transparent Caching. As with slow link mode, this can be configured using group policy. Once it is enabled, a file that is accessed over the network will be stored in the local cache. When a user tries to access the file a second time, the system will perform a check against the version stored on the server to determine whether there has been a change. If there has not been a change, the system will use the local copy of the file versus copying the file across the network. This works well in conjunction with BranchCache. When BranchCache is enabled, transparent caching can retrieve the files using BranchCache instead of copying it over the local network. Offline Files also allows the offline cache to be encrypted using EFS. This prevents the cached files from being read by a 3rd party if the computer is ever lost or stolen.

The last feature we will discuss is one that has been added to Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1. It is the “Always available offline mode”. When this mode is enabled, Windows will always use the local cached versions even if the network is available.

We will now take a close look at some of the features of offline files.

3:16 – Sync Center controls the synchronization process. It is a bi-directional syncing process meaning that changes can occur on both sides. In many cases, Sync Center’s bi-directional syncing works quite well. For example, if a user were to take a laptop home and makes changes to their files, when they return to work the changes will be synced. While at work, changes will be made to the local copy. In this case, it is unlikely the user will change the same file on the network and the local copy at the same time. However, if this were to occur, this would result in a conflict. However, we’ll explain more about conflicts in a moment.

To open the Sync Center go to the sys tray, also called the Notification area, and select the green icon for Sync Center. If the icon is not present in the tray, press the up arrow to access the additional icons. Once the icon is selected, Sync Center will open. Currently with our example, Sync Center has been configured to sync offline files. If a file were to be changed on the local cache and network at the same time, this is known as a conflict. When this occurs, Sync Center will prompt the user to determine which version they would like to keep or if they would like to keep both versions.

Our description is too long for YouTube so please see the following link for the rest of the description as well as references:
http://itfreetraining.com/server#/off...

Credits
Voice Talent: HP Lewis http://hplewis.com
Video Production: Kevin Luttman http://www.KevinLuttman.com
Web Document: Phillip Guld http://philguld.com
Quality Assurance and Web Hosting: Edward M http://digitalmaru.com/
Administrative Support: Stacey Tucker http://www.virtualadminservice.com