Using BITS

Novell^® Application Launcher^TM can use the Microsoft* Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to transfer applications to a workstation. Unlike Application Launcher's standard transfer method which competes with other applications for available network bandwidth, BITS uses idle network bandwidth to transfer files, increasing or decreasing the rate at which files are transferred based on the amount of idle network bandwidth available. For example, if a network application begins to consume more bandwidth, BITS decreases its transfer rate.

BITS is aware of the network conditions only on the workstation; BITS is not aware of network conditions beyond the workstation. If there are no applications running on the workstation that use the network, BITS consumes most of the available idle bandwidth. This does not mean the network beyond the workstation is idle; the network might be at full capacity.

The following two sections provide information to help you understand and use BITS:

• Understanding How Application Launcher Uses BITS
• Enabling Application Launcher to Use BITS

Understanding How Application Launcher Uses BITS
When using BITS to transfer an application, Application Launcher creates a BITS job that contains the application content (files, Application Object settings, etc.) and job settings (the three settings configured on the BITS Settings page) and then queues the job for BITS. BITS transfers the application content to a temporary directory on the local drive (c:\windows\temp\$jobid$, where jobid is the ID of the BITS job). After BITS completes the transfer, Application Launcher copies the application content to the NAL cache and then distributes the application when it is installed or launched.

Any of the following circumstances will cause Application Launcher to cancel a BITS job and transfer the application itself:

• The workstation does not have BITS v2.0 installed.
• BITS encounters a fatal error during transfer of the application content (see Minimum Retry Delay on the BITS Settings page).
• BITS encounters a transient error during transfer of the application content and cannot make any progress in the allotted time (see No Progress Timeout on the BITS Settings page).

For additional information about BITS, see in the MSDN Library. For specific information about how BITS handles the lifecycle of a job, see .

Enabling BITS
To enable Application Launcher to use BITS when transferring application content:

1. Make sure BITS v2.0 (minimum requirement) is installed and running on any workstations where you want to use BITS.
   
   BITS v2.0 is already included in Microsoft* Windows XP SP2. You do not need to install it on Windows XP workstation with SP2 or newer installed.
   For workstations with Windows XP, Windows XP SP1, or Windows 2000 SP4, you can download BITS v2.0 from .
   
   
2. Enable Application Launcher to use BITS as the transfer method. To do so, set the Enable BITS setting to Yes in the Launcher Configuration settings for a User, Workstation, Group, Workstation Group, Organizational Unit, Organization, or Country object.
   
   For example, if you want Application Launcher on Bob Smith's workstation to use BITS to transfer applications associated with Bob, double-click Bob Smith's User object, click the ZENworks tab, click Launcher Configuration, click Add to display the Launcher Configuration dialog box, click the User tab, select the Enable BITS setting and then select Yes.
   
   If you also want Application Launcher to be able to use BITS to transfer applications associated with Bob's workstation, double-click the Workstation object for Bob's workstation, click the ZENworks tab, click Launcher Configuration, click Add to display the Launcher Configuration dialog box, click the Workstation tab, select the Enable BITS setting and then select Yes.
   
   
3. For the applications you want BITS to transfer, set the user and workstation associations to Force Cache.
   
   Application Launcher uses BITS as the transfer method only for associations that are marked Force Cache (Application object > Associations tab > Associations page). Application Launcher is used for any associations that are not marked Force Cache.
   
   For example, if you want Application Launcher to use BITS to transfer AppABC to Bob Smith, double-click AppABC's object, click the Associations tab, locate Bob Smith in the Associations list (or add him to the list), then select the Force Cache check box for the Bob Smith association.

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