What is Cache Warming?
What are the Benefits of Using Cache Warming?
What Is Cache Warming Configuration?
How to Configure Cache Warming?
How to Reconfigure Cache Warming Settings?
How to Check Cache Warming Status?
I Have Configured Certain File Types for Cache Warming for a Particular Folder but Why Do I Not See an Increase in Performance of the Application Load Time for the Configured Files?
Where Can I Check The Progress Of Cache Warming Of Files/Folders?
How to Modify the Enhanced Security Feature Settings (SMB Signing or Encryption) in SMB Collaboration Mode that is Available Only During Smart Cache Configuration Time?
Can I Use the Same Set of Folders for Smart Cache Folder Synchronization and Cache Warming Settings?
What is Cache Warming?
It’s a unique feature of Smart Cache which pre-fetches the files from Cloud before the user accesses them from either of the client applications like Desktop App or SMB share. It makes the first-time file loading experience much better and faster (as it loads from cache not from cloud).
What are the Benefits of Using Cache Warming?
- Loading of large file sizes especially BIM files for example Revit, AutoCAD and Civil 3D files will be much faster and quicker compared to without configuring this feature.
- Users can configure cache warming by particular folder(s) or folder hierarchy, file extension types and file size (at device level).
What Is Cache Warming Configuration?
It’s a setting that controls which files need to be pre-fetched to cache based on the below set of criterias.
- Folder selected (Any folder in the Egnyte cloud folder hierarchy)
- File extension per folder (like .docx, .pdf, .rvt file extensions and default is all file extensions are selected)
- Minimum file size by device (default minimum size is 10MB)
How to Configure Cache Warming?
Below are the steps to configure the cache warming:
- Go to Devices -> Storage Devices -> Select a device that is configured for cache warming -> Settings -> Click on Cache warming page
- Click on button Create Selection as shown below screenshot.
- Select the required folders from the folder picker which can be either the entire folder hierarchy or just one single folder from the folder hierarchy tree structure as shown in the below screenshot (currently it supports up-to 10 folders as limit for folder selection) - It's a mandatory setting that needs to be configured.
- Click on the Configure settings option from the bottom of the below screen present in Criteria for Cache Warming.
- Criteria for cache warming dialog pops up and below settings need to be completed (all are optional settings):
- Users are required to select the file size for the entire device which is used as a filtering criteria for prefetching of files to cache.
- For example, in the below screenshot, the user has selected “50MB” from the drop-down menu.
- Users are required to type the file type extension(s) against each folder that was selected in the previous step so that only those file type extensions are matched for pre-fetching the files to cache.
- "41388 - Foremont Hospital” is configured for .rvt and .dwg file formats only,
- "97959 - Cafe Expansion” is configured for all files as no file extension is mentioned.
- Users are required to select the file size for the entire device which is used as a filtering criteria for prefetching of files to cache.
- Save all the settings and close all the opened dialogues.
After cache warming configuration is saved, the Smart Cache device is going to download files, which are equal and greater than 50MB size criteria only from the selected folders “41388 - Foremont Hospital” (only .rvt and .dwg files) and “97959 - Cafe Expansion” (all files).
Cache warming on the backend has restrictions: up to 10,000 files and 50GB per folder-level. This prevents overwhelming the Smart Cache by not pre-fetching excessive cloud data onto the disk, ensuring optimal loading.
How to Reconfigure Cache Warming Settings?
- Go to the device settings page (Devices -> Storage devices -> Select a device that is configured for cache warming -> Settings -> Click on Cache warming page) and click on Create selection which is shown in the cache warming page as displayed in the below screenshot.
- You can go with a completely new selection by clicking on the button Clear selection on the top right corner as shown in the below screenshot or if you want to retain the current selection, then don’t click on the Clear selection button.
- Follow the steps mentioned in the above section (How to Configure Cache Warming?) to add any new folder(s) and for file extensions and minimum file size select from the “Criteria for Cache Warming” section.
How to Check Cache Warming Status?
Go to the device settings page (Devices -> Storage devices -> Select a device that is configured for cache warming -> Settings -> Click on Cache warming page) for getting to know the progress status of the cache warming. Prerequisite is user should have configured cache warming settings before coming to this page otherwise user will be displayed with the initial screen of adding new configuration.
Highlights of the cache warming status information are:
- Overall cached folders count
- Overall cached files count
- Overall cached files size
- Table showing folder level status information:
- Folder name selected
- File extension(s) configured
- Minimum file size configured
- Folder level status information with below states:
- PENDING - Download is yet to start.
- DONE - All files in that folder are downloaded to cache.
- IN PROGRESS - Files download is in progress.
- ERROR - some issue in download, please check logs for more information.
- PARTIALLY COMPLETE - Downloaded only few files out of all files present in cloud as cache hit the 10,000-limit or 50GB data size limit mark for that folder.
I Have Configured Certain File Types for Cache Warming for a Particular Folder but Why Do I Not See an Increase in Performance of the Application Load Time for the Configured Files?
Most probably it could be due to cache warming hitting the upper limit count of the device for the configured folder. For example, 10,000 files upper limit or 50GB data size limit for the said folder might have been hit, so pre-fetching of any files post this limit has stopped and that could be one of the strong reasons why performance of the application load time is not great even though the cache warming feature is enabled for the said file types in that particular folder.
Where Can I Check The Progress Of Cache Warming Of Files/Folders?
Go to Devices -> Storage devices -> Select a device that is configured for cache warming -> Settings -> Click on Cache warming page, where you can see the status of the cache warming with full details in terms of number of files and total cache downloaded with break-up for each folder selected in a tabular form.
How to Modify the Enhanced Security Feature Settings (SMB Signing or Encryption) in SMB Collaboration Mode that is Available Only During Smart Cache Configuration Time?
Enhanced security feature settings (SMB signing or encryption) is only available during Smart Cache installation time and only way to modify those options are by factory resetting of the device from the Smart Cache command prompt.
Can I Use the Same Set of Folders for Smart Cache Folder Synchronization and Cache Warming Settings?
We don’t recommend using the same set of folders selected for Smart Cache folder sync and cache warming as it consumes double storage on your local disk and it might provide undesired behavior.
If your use case requires a user to retain a copy of the data on the on-prem, then go for Folder Synchronization and if the use case is about collaboration of large files or specific file type extensions (e.g. BIM file types), then go for use cache warming setting.
For general collaboration use-cases of basic common file types, just directly use the Smart Cache either in Desktop App or Collaboration mode without any of the above configurations.
What are the Feature Level Differences Between Cache Warming and Folder Synchronization?
The feature level benefits between Cache Warming and Folder Synchronization is detailed in this article.