How to Enable Caching and Configure Cache Drives
By default, a new installation of ISA Server is configured with a maximum cache size of 0 megabytes (MB), which means that ISA Server will not cache any content. To enable caching, you must define a cache drive. To define a cache drive, complete the following procedure:
1. Open ISA Server Management, expand Configuration, and then click Cache.
2. In the details pane, click the Cache Rules tab.
3. On the Tasks tab, click Define Cache Drives
4. In the Define Cache Drives dialog box, select one of the drives listed in the list box.
5. In Maximum cache size, type the amount of space on the selected drive to allocate for caching.
6. Click Set to configure the cache drive.
When you configure a drive to be used for caching, ISA Server creates a file with a .cdat extension in the \Urlcache folder on that drive. The .cdat file is as large as the amount of space you dedicated for caching on that drive. As ISA Server caches the objects, it places the objects into the .cdat file. If the .cdat file is too full to hold a new object, ISA Server removes older objects from the cache by using a formula that evaluates age, popularity, and size. The .cdat file can be accessed only by the Web proxy service.
How to Configure Cache Settings
After you define the cache drives, ISA Server will begin caching Web content based on the default caching configuration. This default configuration can be modified to meet your organization’s requirements. You can modify how ISA Server caches specific types of HTTP objects. By limiting certain types of content, you can improve the efficiency of the caching process. For example, you can configure ISA Server to limit the size of cached objects to reserve cache space for additional smaller objects.
To configure content settings for caching:
1. In ISA Server Management Console, in the console tree, click Cache, and then, in the details pane, click Configure Cache Settings.
2. In the Cache Settings dialog box, on the Advanced tab.
Configuring Caching
