You work as a senior administrator at Contoso.com. The Contoso.com network consists of a single domain
named Contoso.com. All servers on the Contoso.com network have Windows Server 2012 installed, and all
workstations have Windows 8 installed.
You are running a training exercise for junior administrators. You are currently discussing the Always Offline
Mode.
Which of the following is TRUE with regards to the Always Offline Mode? (Choose all that apply.)
A.
It allows for swifter access to cached files and redirected folders.
B.
To enable Always Offline Mode, you have to satisfy the forest and domain functional-level requirements, as
well as schema requirements
C.
It allows for lower bandwidth usage due to users are always working offline.
D.
To enable Always Offline Mode, you must have workstations running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008
R2.
Explanation:
There are no domain/forest/schema requirements, but clients must be running Windows 8/Windows Server
2012 or later.
Offline Files have four modes of operation:
Online
Slow link
Auto offline
Manual offline
Offline Files transition between the three modes online, slow link and auto offline depending on connection
speed. The user can always override the automatic mode selection by manually switching to manual offline
mode.
To determine the connection speed two pings with default packet size are sent to the file server. If the average
round-trip time is below 80 ms (Windows 7) or 35 ms (Windows 8), the connection is put into online mode,
otherwise into slow link mode. The latency value of 35/80 ms is configurable through the Group Policy setting
Configure slow-link mode.
Reads, Writes and Synchronization
In online mode, changes to files are made on the file server as well as in the local cache (this induces a
performance hit – see this article for details). Reads are satisfied from the local cache (if in sync).
In slow link mode, changes to files are made in the local cache. The local cache is background-synchronized
with the file server every 6 hours (Windows 7) or 2 hours (Windows 8), by default. This can be changed through
the Group Policy setting Configure Background Sync. In auto offline mode, all reads and writes go to the local
cache. No synchronization occurs. In manual offline mode, all reads and writes go to the local cache.
No synchronization occurs by default, but background synchronization can be enabled through the Group Policy
setting Configure Background Sync.