Introduction

BranchCache is a wide area network (WAN) bandwidth optimization technology that is included in some editions of the Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Windows® 7 operating systems.

To optimize WAN bandwidth, BranchCache copies content from your main office content servers and caches the content at branch office locations, allowing client computers at branch offices to access the content locally rather than over the WAN.

This resource provides instructions on how to collect information from clients utilizing the BranchCache feature for the SMB protocol and use that information to determine the effectiveness of BranchCache as deployed by providing a measure of bandwidth saved.

Requirements

• Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Windows® 7

Resources

For more information about the BranchCache feature, visit BranchCache on Microsoft TechNet
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/dd425028.aspx

For more information about the technologies in this resource, see the following resources in the Windows Server® 2008 and Windows Server® 2008 R2 Technical Library.

Active Directory Domain Services
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110928

File Services
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163286)

Group Policy
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110930

Microsoft SMB Protocol and CIFS Protocol Overview (Windows) in the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163293

Usage

The usage help text for Get-BandwidthSaving.ps1 is the following:

PS > help .\Get-BandwidthSaving.ps1 -detailed
 
NAME
    Get-BandwidthSaving.ps1
 
SYNOPSIS
    Using a forwarded event log generate bandwidth statistics
    and calculate the bandwidth saved by the SMB BranchCache
    feature.
 
 
SYNTAX
    Get-BandwidthSaving.ps1 [-InputFile] <String> [[-LogFile] <String>] [<CommonParameters>]
 
 
DESCRIPTION
 
 
PARAMETERS
    -InputFile <String>
        Mandatory. The absolute or relative path to the evtx event
        log as exported from Event Viewer that contains
        BranchCacheSMB EventID 3005 counter summary events.
 
    -LogFile <String>
        Optional. Whilst the script is running a list of machine
        names is output to the log file indicated.
 
    <CommonParameters>
        This cmdlet supports the common parameters: Verbose, Debug,
        ErrorAction, ErrorVariable, WarningAction, WarningVariable,
        OutBuffer and OutVariable. For more information, type,
        "get-help about_commonparameters".