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Understanding Write Cache in Provisioning Services

Server
Applicable Products
• Provisioning Services

Information
This article provides information about write cache in Provisioning Services (PVS) server.

Write Cache in Provisioning Services Server

In PVS, the term “write cache” is used to describe all the cache modes. The write cache includes data written by
the target device. If data is written to the PVS server vDisk in a caching mode, the data is not written back to the
base vDisk. Instead, it is written to a write cache file in one of the following locations:

• Cache on device hard disk

• Cache in device RAM
• Cache on device RAM with overflow on hard disk
• Cache on server

When the target device is booted, write cache information is checked to determine the presence of the cache
file. If the cache file is not present, the data is then read from the original vDisk file.
All current versions of PVS have the option for distributing write cache. It is called Multiple Write Cache
Paths. The multiple write cache paths (for a store) option provides the capability of distributing the write cache
files across multiple physical media. This feature helps to improve I/O throughput for heavily loaded servers.
When a target device starts the server chooses one of the write cache paths from the list based on the MAC
address of the client. The goal of selecting a path based on the MAC address is to get an even distribution of the
clients across the available paths. The algorithm selects the same path for a given client each time that client is
booted.
This functionality is needed to ensure that during a High Availability (HA) failover the new server would
choose the same write cache for the client (otherwise it would not be able to find the write cache file and the
client would hang). If the defined write cache path is not available to a server, the server falls back to the
standard vDisk path.
It is not recommended for the Cache on the server to be used in production environments.

Cache on device Hard Disk

Requirements

• Local HD in every device using the vDisk.

• The local HD must contain Basic Volume pre-formatted with a Windows NTFS file system with at list
512MB of free space.
The cache on local HD is stored in a file on a secondary local hard drive of the device. It gets created as an
invisible file in the root folder of the secondary local HD. The cache file size grows, as needed, but never gets
larger than the original vDisk, and frequently not larger than the free space on the original vDisk. It is slower
than RAM cache, but faster than Server cache and works in a HA environment.

Cache in device RAM

Requirement

• Appropriate amount of physical memory on the machine.

The cache is stored in client RAM (memory). The maximum size of the cache is fixed by a setting in vDisk
properties. All written data can be read from local RAM instead of going back to the server. RAM cache is
faster than cache on server and works in a HA environment.
Note: If more different sectors are written than the size of the cache, the device stops.

Cache on device RAM with overflow on Hard Disk

Requirement

• Provisioning Service 7.1 or later.

• Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or later.
• Local HD in every device using the vDisk.

When RAM is zero, the target device write cache is only written to the local disk. When RAM is not zero, the
target device write cache is written to RAM first. When RAM is full, the least recently used block of data is
written to the local Write Cache disk to accommodate newer data on RAM. The amount of RAM specified is
the non-paged kernel memory that the target device consumes.

Cache on Server

Requirements

• Enough space allocated to where the server cache will be stored.

Server cache is stored in a file on the server, or on a share, SAN, or other location. The file size grows, as
needed, but never gets larger than the original vDisk, and frequently not larger than the free space on the
original vDisk. It is slower than RAM cache because all reads/writes have to go to the server and be read from a
file. The cache gets deleted when the device reboots, that is, on every boot the device reverts to the base image.
Changes remain only during a single boot session. Server cache works in a HA environment if all server cache
locations to resolve to the same physical storage location. This case type is not recommended for a production
environment.

Additional Resources

Selecting the Write Cache Destination for Standard vDisk Images

Turbo Charging your IOPS with the new PVS Cache in RAM with Disk Overflow Feature