Configure Site Cache Servers

When you configure a site cache server, you specify:

  • Which Meridian Enterprise Server repositories to cache on the site cache server

  • The specific documents to preload into the cache so that they are available to local users

  • When to preload a cache so that new documents are available to local users

  • How much disk space on the site cache server to use for the cached documents

  • How long to retain the documents and when to remove the oldest documents

When the Site Cache Server component is installed, it creates two web applications in Internet Information Server:

  • BCSiteCache – Must be accessible by users to use the site cache.

  • BCSiteCacheClient – Must be accessible by system administrators to configure the site cache as described below. You can deny end users access to this application with IIS permissions.

The maximum size of files uploaded to the site cache server is 2 GB. This may be considerably more than is possible with PowerWeb, which is limited by Internet Information Services. You can adjust the limit as described in the Accruent knowledge base article How to increase the upload file size limit of PowerWeb.

When using Site Cache Mode with Shared Workspaces, the server hosting Meridian must be added to the trusted locations. If this is not done, the following error might appear when a user first attempts to download a document to the shared workspace "Local DB document update failed. The parameter is incorrect."

To provide preload tasks with a way to query site cache servers using HTTPS, ensure site cache servers have a self-signed certificate issued to localhost.

ClosedConfigure a Site Cache Server

To configure a site cache server:

  1. In Meridian Enterprise Server Administration Console, in the System Management group, click Settings.

    The Application Settings page appears.

  2. In the menu, click SITE CACHE.

    The Site Cache page appears and shows the currently registered servers.

  3. Select the server in the list that you want to configure and in the toolbar, click Configure.

    The configuration page of the site cache server opens in a new browser window.

  4. Click options or type values using the descriptions in the following table.

  5. Click Apply.

    Your changes are saved.

Site cache server options

Group

Option Description

General Settings

Cache folder

The root path on the site cache server where to store the cached files. Sub-folders will be created here automatically for each repository. To validate the path, click Test.

General Settings

Description

Type a description of this site cache server to appear on the Site Cache page for easier identification.

General Settings

Preferable for subnets

Type one or more ranges of IP addresses that should use this site cache server. To define IP range, use network prefix notation, also known as CIDR notation. Separate ranges with the semicolon character (;). PCs within a specified range will show the text Preferred: next to the site cache server display name in the site cache server list as described in Configuring a site cache connection.

For example, 100.70.0.0/20;100.100.1.0/16 specifies two IP ranges: 100.70.0.1 to 100.70.15.254 and 100.100.0.1 to 100.100.255.254.

Repositories

Display name

Lists all the Meridian Explorer repositories and Meridian Enterprise vaults that are registered on the Meridian Enterprise Server to which the site cache server is connected.

Repositories

DMS Type

The repository type, either ExplorerClient or WebAccess (Meridian Enterprise web client).

Repositories

Available

The current availability of the repository.

Repositories

Cache enabled

Indicates whether the repository is cached by the current site cache server.

This option requires a Site Cache Server license (part number contains M--SCH) if the component is not installed on the same computer as Meridian Enterprise Server.

Cleanup settings

Cache info

The amount of disk space currently used by the cache relative to the maximum cache size.
Cleanup settings

Max cache size

The maximum amount of disk space (in MB) to use for cached documents. The default is 50% of the available free disk space. The current size of the cache is shown as a bar graph and as a percentage. To delete the currently cached files, click Clear cache.

Cleanup settings

Files will expire if not used for

The maximum number of days to keep documents in the cache before they are deleted to make space available for newer documents.

Click Schedule to specify when and how often the cache cleanup should occur. This dialog box requires similar input to the Windows Task Scheduler. The required fields are indicated by the asterisk (*) character.

Monitor

User

The names of the users that are currently connected to the site cache. The computer from which they most recently connected is shown in the Machine column.

Information events

  Log of background activities for troubleshooting

Error events

  Log of errors for troubleshooting

ClosedConfigure Caching for a Specific Repository

To configure caching for a specific repository:

  1. In the row of the repository that you want to configure, click the Edit icon .

    The Edit repository settings dialog box appears.

  2. To pre-load specific documents into the cache before users request them, select an existing collection from Collection for preload.

    All Meridian Explorer repositories provide a collection named All Documents that is selected by default when caching is enabled. Meridian Enterprise vaults do not provide a default collection so you must create one as described in the Accruent Meridian Enterprise User's Guide.

    If this option is empty, no documents from the repository will be preloaded into the cache. They will still be available to users but they will be downloaded from the repository first, which will take longer than if they were preloaded in the site cache. On subsequent requests, they will be downloaded from the site cache, which is faster.

  3. To enable caching of the repository, check the box next to Cache enabled.

  4. Click Save.

ClosedUnregister a Repository

You may only unregister a repository that is unavailable. You may also unregister a repository as described in Unregister Repositories.

To unregister a repository:

  • In the row of the repository that you want to unregister, click the Actions icon and then click Unregister.

ClosedConfigure Number of Connection Attempts

If your organization enforces an account lockout policy for failed logon attempts and users change their passwords but forget to update their site cache configuration as described in Configure a site cache connection, their Active Directory account can become locked when the site cache client attempts to connect with an incorrect password. To prevent account lockout, you can reduce the number of connection attempts.

To configure the number of connection attempts:

  1. On the Meridian Enterprise Server computer, open the file BlueCieloECM.SiteCache.LwsClient.exe.config in a text editor and find the BlueCieloECM.SiteCache.LwsClient.Properties.Settings group.

  2. Change the value of MaxNumOfReconnects to a positive number that is less than the account lockout threshold.

    A value of 0 causes unlimited reconnection attempts.

  3. Save and close the file.

2021 R2