Here is a quick checklist of Best Practices to be followed when deploying Smart Cache.
1. Determine if Smart Cache is the right Hybrid Solution for your deployment
Smart Cache is the next generation of Storage Sync, and it supports almost all the use cases of our Storage Sync customers. There are two exceptions to this: Revit collaboration within an office and database applications, like ArcGIS. If users in your business use any of these applications, please consider Storage Sync as your primary option.
2. Review the Product Guide
It is recommended that IT administrators review the Product Guide in the Smart Cache Installers article before installation.
3. Determine the right size for the data disk
IT administrators are recommended to review the size of folders they are synchronizing and consider the rate at which the data usage is growing in the specific folders before provisioning the data disk. Provisioning a smaller size data disk can lead to sync failures and errors.
4. Provision the data disk (initial install & increasing size)
The installer creates two disks: the system disk and data disks. The data disk is sized at 50GB by default. IT administrators are required to increase the size of the data disk before they initially boot the VM up for the first time. Any effort to re-size/delete-add the data disk after the initial install can lead to disk corruption.
Thin and Thick provisioning of disks is supported. A recommendation is to use fixed limits if the disk is provisioned as a Thin disk.
5. Schedule an install during off-peak hours
The sync engine follows a sophisticated algorithm to scan the folder structure and synchronize folders and files locally. Depending on the size of folders that are being synchronized, this operation could take anywhere from a few minutes to multiple days. It's recommended that IT administrators set up the device during off-peak hours and allow the first full sync operation to be complete over the weekend.
6. Deploy Smart Cache close to users
Smart Cache provides maximum performance benefit when deployed close to the users. We recommend that administrators identify the location that provides the least latency between users and the device before the installation. For example, deploying in a remote construction site where designers and construction engineers are actively accessing content is more efficient than deploying the Smart Cache in a data center in the same scenario.
7. Configure static IP address
The discovery process of the Egnyte Desktop App utilizes the FQDN and IP address it gets from the CFS and performs a latency test to identify the best device to connect to. We recommend that the Smart Cache device is given a static IP address.
If this is not feasible for your deployment, it's recommended that a DHCP address with reservation is provided to ensure the device received the same IP address at every boot. Refer to the Configuring Static IP section of the Product Guide in the Smart Cache Installers article for details.
8. Selecting folders to synchronize
Synchronizing folders to Smart Cache consumes bandwidth and disk space. In order to be efficient, we recommend that IT administrators only sync select folders that are useful and the ones that will provide the most benefit when available at LAN speeds to users. For Example, instead of synchronizing the entire /Shared or /Private folder tree, consider synchronizing selected sub-folders /Shared/Marketing and selected private folders of users in the remote location like /Private/ACME.
9. Complete initial sync before rolling out to users
Since synchronization can take a few minutes to a few days, depending on the size of the folders being synced, it's recommended that IT administrators wait for the first full sync to be successfully completed before rolling the device out to user groups. Onboarding users and having them connect to Smart Cache when the initial sync is in progress can cause file conflicts and duplication.
10. Limiting Groups added to the device
Egnyte Desktop App is designed to proxy all user requests through Smart Cache if the user belongs to the group that is added to the device and if the user is Hybrid Connected. IT admins are recommended to only add groups of users that are residents in a particular location where the device is deployed.
For example, consider 2 remote offices (NY and SFO) with Smart Cache.
NY Office: /Shared/Sales and users are from the sales group.
SFO Office: /Shared/Marketing and users are from the marketing group.
Bets practices dictate that the NY Smart Cache only syncs /Shared/Sales and adds users in the sales group while the SFO Smart Cache only syncs /Shared/Marketing and adds users in the marketing group.
Smart Cache supports 300 users per device.
11. Rolling out the Egnyte Desktop App
Egnyte Desktop App is a single client that provides a unified experience for users. Follow the best practices for deploying and using the desktop app.
12. Changing folder selection to be synced
IT administrators should schedule changes to the folders synced to the device during off-peak hours to allow enough time for a re-scan sync to be completed.