Deploy and manage desktop and mobile applications - Managing Enterprise Devices and Apps - page 99

Content management
Distribution points provide content to Configuration Manager clients. Before you can use
Configuration Manager to deploy software to a client device, you must have at least one dis-
tribution point that the client can access. Depending on the size of your environment, you can
implement additional distribution points as necessary to ensure efficient access to content for
Configuration Manager clients.
Distribution points host content files for:
■ Applications.
■ Packages.
■ Software updates.
■ Operating system deployments.
The efficiency of your distribution points depends on two main considerations:
■ Managing content distribution to your distribution points in a way that minimizes
impact to network bandwidth. You don't want to block clients from accessing content
each time you move new data to the distribution point.
■ Ensuring that Configuration Manager clients connect to appropriate distribution points
to access content for deployments. You want to ensure that clients have access to a
local distribution point rather than connecting to one on the other side of the country
or even one on another continent.
In Configuration Manager, the distribution point site system role includes a number of
features to utilize network bandwidth and store content efficiently. These include:

Scheduling and throttling You can schedule a specific time for availability and
limit the transfer rate you use when you distribute content to a distribution point over
a network connection. You can restrict rate limits to a percentage of available band-
width, or you can configure throttling based on the size of data blocks, in kilobytes
(KB), and the time delay between sending each data block (in seconds). Note that these
options do not apply when the distribution point is on a site server or when you con-
figure it as a pull-distribution point.

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Content library The content library is a common repository that stores all content
files for packages, applications, software updates, and operating system deployments.
Single-instance storage prevents storage of multiple copies of the same content files
on the distribution point. This provides a huge benefit by decreasing hard disk space
requirements for content. The content library is on the site server and on each distri-
bution point. The Package Transfer Manager site server component transfers content
from the site server to a distribution point.

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Content validation You can use content validation to ensure the integrity of content
that the content library stores. You can run content validation on a schedule that you
configure for the distribution point, or you can validate content manually from the

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