Current situation:
- 300 main-sites each having either a 2008R2 or 2012R2 machine hosting file shares
- Many of this main-sites do have a branch-site, running Windows 7 & Vista machines which access shares on their respective main-site (currently no server machines on branch-site)
- Many of this sites are having bad links (2Mbit/3Mbit) to our datacenter due to geographical circumstances
- Backup of shares is done locally on each main-site server
- 2 mirrored datacenters
Problem:
- The WAN links between main-sites and their corresponding branch-sites are more then often congested (routed via main-datacenter)... basically all links are heavily maxed out
What I am thinking of:
- Move all the server-shares from the main-sites onto a central W2012R2 file server cluster within our datacenter
- Install branchcache feature on that cluster
- Install branchcache feature on each main-site server
- Install a cheap 2012R2 server within each branch-site and install branchcache feature
- Configure the servers to act as a "hosted cache mode"-client and point them to the cluster
- Configure the clients to use "hosted cache mode" and point them to their local BC-server
Question:
Maybe I am overlooking the obvious, but can this be done with BranchCache V1/V2? Would DFS be the better way to go? Any real-life experience?
