Windows 7 Features: Branch Cache
Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 1:41AM One of the new features aimed at businesses is Branch Cache. Branch Cache allows content from remote file servers and web servers to be cashed locally in the branch office. The neat thing is that the data can be cashed on a local sever (Hosted Cache) or can be distributed across Windows 7 client PCs (Distributed Cache).
This means that an employee can download a file stored on the company's intranet at the central office to their computer in a branch office. This file can then be stored using Branch Cache on a server in the branch office so that other users can download it locally on their faster LAN instead of having to go over the slower WAN connection back to the central office.
Branch Cache has a number of configuration options, here are a few examples. You can set permissions so that only authorized users can access the files, files can expire after a set amount of time so that a fresh copy would have to be pulled again from it's original location and you can set the size of the Branch Cache partition on the clients.
Branch Cache, Windows 7 in Windows 