NetApp Global File Cache Replacement with Resilio Active Everywhere

Introduction

With NetApp announcing the end of support for its Global File Cache (GFC), it’s time to choose a high-performance replacement that helps you move faster as your business and data demands grow.

Resilio is a powerful alternative to NetApp GFC, delivering seamless, high-performance file access for globally distributed teams. 

It leverages the File Caching job type of the Active Everywhere Platform to facilitate high-speed, low-latency access to large data sets even when accessed concurrently by hundreds of users across multiple locations.

Technical Overview

The File Caching job type defines one or more Primary Storage instances and Caching Gateways to enable efficient data access.

‍Primary Storage devices are deployed centrally and accessed over WAN, using on-premises or cloud-native storage solutions, such as AFF C-series, FAS series, Azure NetApp Files, or Amazon FSx for NetApp. Whether you’re using NetApp on-premises or cloud (ANF, FSxN, etc.), Primary Storage devices store the golden copy of the data that’s synchronized across all Resilio Agents. Additionally, there is no requirement to add storage for Resilio to work as a replacement for NetApp GFC.

‍Caching Gateways function similarly to Global File Cache Edge instances, positioned in close proximity to the end-user, like in remote branch offices. Local users access the data over SMB or NFS, ensuring high-speed and low-latency performance. This architecture ensures optimal user experience while minimizing the WAN traffic to a minimum, significantly reducing operating costs.

Caching Gateways and Primary Storage devices run Resilio Agents—lightweight services that together form a multipoint-to-multipoint network, enabling fast and efficient transfers of large data sets.

The number of Caching Gateways and Primary Storage agents required for a File Caching job depends on the organization’s size, the number of locations, and the volume of data exchanged daily. Resilio Active Everywhere is highly scalable, easily adapting to your organization as it grows or changes.

File Caching Job

File Caching Jobs define the configuration and behavior of data synchronization tasks. Each job specifies which agents communicate with the Primary Storage and which act as Caching Gateways.

Jobs also assign optional capabilities, such as File Locking or Reference Agent roles. Additionally, jobs can include a range of parameters that enable you to optimize performance based on specific application requirements, network conditions, or bandwidth constraints.
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Optimize Your Deployment

Maximizing performance and efficiency by aligning your Resilio deployment with real-world data access patterns.

• Pin Frequently Accessed Resources
  Keep high-demand files or folders readily available by pinning them to Caching Gateways. This ensures users can access them instantly without waiting for on-demand fetches from Primary Storage.

• Pre-Fetch Files with Hydration Policies
  ‍If your organization follows predictable data access patterns and datasets are frequently needed by one or more remote locations, you can define a hydration policy to proactively fetch specific files or folders from Primary Storage. This guarantees instant access for end users when they request resources, which is ideal for time-sensitive or scheduled workflows.

• Manage Concurrent File Access with File Locking
  Enable File Locking to prevent conflicts when multiple users work on the same files. This feature helps maintain data integrity and ensures employees don’t overwrite each other’s changes or miss updates from collaborators.

• Scale-Out Clusters for Large Organizations
  ‍For large organizations with hundreds of users accessing large data sets simultaneously, organizing Caching Gateways in scale-out groups improves IOPS and throughput of your storage and adds resiliency. When a Caching Gateway in such a group downloads a file from the Primary Storage, the file is automatically shared across all Caching Gateways in that group. Data transfers between grouped Caching Gateways are kept within the local network. To get the most out of your deployment, integrate DFS-N to manage load distribution for intelligent routing and failover.

  

• High Availability for Primary Storage
  ‍Ensure data availability and fault tolerance by configuring Primary Storage devices in high availability groups. This setup ensures your data remains synchronized even when one of the nodes experiences a failure or is undergoing scheduled maintenance, minimizing downtime and risk.

Move Faster

As a powerful alternative to NetApp Global File Cache (GFC), Resilio delivers a modern, high-performance replacement that goes far beyond traditional caching.

With real-time replication across any location, device, OS, storage type, block, file, or object, Resilio ensures fast, reliable access to data anywhere.

Unlike legacy gateways, Resilio uses peer-to-peer architecture to eliminate central bottlenecks. This enables global file distribution, bidirectional sync, and local file changes to be saved and shared instantly, supporting seamless collaboration at the edge.

As your environment grows, Resilio scales effortlessly, offering the speed, flexibility, and resilience needed for hybrid work and distributed operations.

Get your organization supercharged with the high-performance only available from Resilio Active Everywhere —connect with our solutions engineering team for a personalized demo.