Cache Warming FAQ

What is Cache Warming?

What are the Benefits of Using Cache Warming?

What Is Cache Warming Configuration?

What are the Primary Use-cases of Cache Warming?

What are the Common Myths of Cache Warming?

What is the Litmus test for Cache Warming feature ?

What Is Cache Warming Configuration?

How to Configure Cache Warming?

How to Reconfigure Cache Warming Settings?

How to Check Cache Warming Status?

Cache Warming is configured for a particular folder but the user does not see an increase in performance of the application load time for the files from the warmed folder ?

Where Can one Check The Progress Of Cache Warming Of Files/Folders?

Is it possible to use the Same Set of Folders for Smart Cache Folder Synchronization and Cache Warming Settings?

What are the Feature Level Differences Between Cache Warming and Folder Synchronization?

What is Cache Warming?

Cache Warming is an additional feature (optional) designed to enhance the caching capabilities of Smart Cache. Essentially, it pre-loads the contents of the files from the Egnyte Cloud even before users access these documents through clients like DA or UNC share path.

The Smart Cache in its default settings adopts dynamic caching, which automatically caches the contents of all files as a user accesses them. However, with Cache Warming, IT administrators gain the ability to pre-load the contents, leading to a quicker file loading process. This speeds up the initial file loading by using a local cache instead of the cloud, making access faster and more efficient.

What are the Benefits of Using Cache Warming?

• Pre-loading Files: Cache warming allows IT admins to pre-load file content before a user needs to access them, ensuring the files are ready when required.
• Enhanced User Experience: Cache warming contributes to a smoother, more efficient first-time file-loading experience, improving overall user satisfaction.
• Efficient Resource Utilization: Cache warming can also help save bandwidth and optimize network resources by reducing the reliance on retrieving data from the cloud.

What are the Primary Use-cases of Cache Warming?

• Large basic file types like plan sheets, point cloud files, bigger MS Office file types or very large Image files.
  • For e.g., Assume a plan sheet of size 500MB needs to be loaded then choosing the folder which contains this plan sheet will pre-fetch the file contents to the disk and thus whenever the user opens the file it loads faster.   
  • For e.g., Assume an Office file type like Excel sheet of size 100MB needs to be loaded then choosing the folder which contains these excel sheets will pre-fetch the file to disk, so whenever the user loads them it loads faster.   
• The cache warming feature is particularly effective for large and complex application types such as Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D project files.
  • For e.g., Assume the below revit project folder structure.
    \Shared\Projects\Designs\Revit\Master.rvt
    \Shared\Projects\Designs\Revit\Ref\<<100’s of cross reference files>>
    Selecting the folder (Ref) which contains all the cross-reference files for cache warming and pre-fetches all the files onto disk (or) complete folder (Revit), makes the loading time of the Master.rvt file faster as dependent files are already available on the disk.

What are the Common Myths of Cache Warming?

Some of the common myths of Cache warming are:

• It’s an alternative to Folder Sync.
• It needs to be configured on the Smart Cache for normal functioning of the device.
• Without warming the folders, the files can’t be accessed over DA or UNC path.
• While the Cache warming job is in progress user can’t access the files.
• Whenever Cache warming job(s) results in failed state, then user can’t access files from those folders.

What is the Litmus test for Cache Warming feature ?

Here's the litmus test to qualify before an IT admin uses the Cache warming feature on their Smart Cache device.

• Are they seeing slowness in file opening for large files ( meaning file size greater than 100MB ) ?
• Admin don’t experience the same slowness when the same file is opened for the 2nd time ?

If both questions are answered "YES", then the IT admin can utilize the cache warming feature for folders with such files. This is because prefetching large files before user access can visibly speed up the loading experience.

Otherwise, the IT admin should evaluate whether there are any network latency or internet speed issues in their environment before contacting Egnyte for support.

What Is Cache Warming Configuration?

It’s an configuration setting that controls which files need to be pre-fetched to cache based on the set of criterias mentioned below:

• Need to select the Folder(s) or sub-folder(s) which need to be pre-fetched ( Choose from the folder picker navigating through the /Shared folder hierarchy ) - It’s mandatory attribute
• File extension(s) per folder ( like .docx, .pdf, .rvt file extensions and default is all file extensions get selected ) need to be selected - It’s an optional attribute
• Minimum file size per device ( default minimum size is 10 MB ) - It’s an optional attribute

How to Configure Cache Warming?

Below are the steps to configure the cache warming:

• Go to the device settings page:
  • Go to Devices.
  • Select Storage devices. 
  • Choose the device that is configured for cache warming.
  • Access Settings for that device.
• On the Settings page, click on the Cache warming option.
• Click on the button Create Selection as shown below screenshot.
  
  
  
  
• The necessary folders should be chosen from the folder picker. Either the entire folder hierarchy or just one single folder from the tree structure can be selected. It should be noted that up to 10 folders can be selected, as that is the current limit for folder selection. This setting is mandatory and must be configured.
  
  
  
• Click on the Configure settings option located at the bottom right of the screen shown in the Criteria for Cache Warming section.
  
  
  
• Once the Criteria for Cache warming dialog appears, the user has the option to complete the following optional settings:
  
  • The user needs to select the file size for the entire device, which serves as a filtering criterion for prefetching files to the cache.
    • For example in the below screenshot the user has selected “50MB” from the drop-down menu.
  • The user must type the file type extension(s) against each folder selected in the previous step. This ensures that only files with those specific file type extensions are matched for pre-fetching to the 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.
• Save all the settings and close all the opened dialogues.

How to Reconfigure Cache Warming Settings?

• Go to the device settings page (Navigate from Devices -> Storage devices -> Select a device that is configured for cache warming -> Settings -> Click on “Cache warming” page) and click on Create selection.
  
  
• Follow the steps outlined in the previous section (How to Configure Cache Warming?) to add new folders and their criteria for cache warming. Make sure to adhere to any limitations or restrictions, such as the maximum number of files or total size per folder-selection.

How to Check Cache Warming Status?

To check the progress status of cache warming, follow these steps:

• Go to the device settings page:
  • Go to Devices.
  • Select Storage devices. 
  • Choose the device that is configured for cache warming.
  • Access Settings for that device. 
• On the Settings page, click on the "Cache warming" option.

By following these steps, users can view the progress status of cache warming. Please note that it's necessary to have previously configured cache warming settings for the device. If no settings have been configured, the user will be directed to the initial screen for adding a 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.
    • DONE with Errors : The job is “PARTIALLY COMPLETE”, which means it has downloaded only partial files not all selected files from the cloud as cache hit the target of either the 10k file limit or 50GB data size limit per folder-selection.

Cache Warming is configured for a particular folder but the user does not see an increase in performance of the application load time for the files from the warmed folder ?

It's highly likely that the cache warming has reached the upper limit for the configured folder. For instance, hitting the upper limit of 10,000 files or 50GB of data size for the selected folder could have occurred.The prefetching of files would stop once the upper limit for the configured folder is reached. This could be a significant factor contributing to the suboptimal performance of application load times, even though the cache warming feature is enabled for the specified file types in that folder. If this isn't the scenario, it's recommended to reach out to support for additional assistance, as the problem might not be related to cache warming.

Where Can one Check The Progress Of Cache Warming Of Files/Folders?

Access the cache warming status with detailed information, follow these steps:

• Go to Devices.
• Select Storage devices.
• Choose the device that is configured for cache warming.
• Access Settings for that device.
• Click on the "Cache warming" page.

On this page, the Admin can indeed view the cache warming status with comprehensive details. This includes information such as the number of files, total cache downloaded, and a breakdown for each folder selected, all presented in a tabular form.

Is it possible to use the Same Set of Folders for Smart Cache Folder Synchronization and Cache Warming Settings?

Selecting the same folder for both Smart Cache Folder sync and Cache warming is not permitted. This is because it would consume double storage on the local disk, and the behavior in such cases is undefined.

For scenarios where the user needs to retain a copy of the data on-premises, Folder Synchronization is recommended. On the other hand, if the use-case involves simple collaboration of large files or specific file types (e.g. BIM file types), then Cache warming setting should be utilized.

For general collaboration involving basic common file types such as MS Office, PDF, and image files, it's advised to use the files directly without any additional settings. This is because Smart Cache supports dynamic caching by default.

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.