Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education Requirements

This article details the requirements and recommended specifications for using Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education.

Licensing requirements

• Valid Azure subscription: To use the Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education service, you'll need a valid Azure subscription that can be used to provision the necessary Azure resources.

  If you don't have an Azure subscription already, you can create an Azure pay-as-you-go account, which requires a credit card for verification purposes. For more information, see the Azure Free Account FAQ.

  While access to Azure is required for usage and management, the Connected Cache Azure resource does not incur any Azure cost

• E3/E5 or A3/A5 license: Your organization must have one of the following license subscriptions for each device that downloads content from a Connected Cache node:

  • Windows Enterprise E3 or E5, included in Microsoft 365 F3, E3, or E5
  • Windows Education A3 or A5, included in Microsoft 365 A3 or A5

  There's no limit to the number of licensed machines that can concurrently download from a Connected Cache node.

Cache node host machine requirements

General requirements

• Any previous installations of Connected Cache must be uninstalled from the host machine before installing the latest version of Connected Cache.

• These listed endpoints must be reachable by the host machine.

• The host machine must have no other services / applications utilizing port 80 (for example, Configuration Manager or a distribution point).

• To avoid impact to non-Connected Cache workloads, the host machine shouldn't have any Azure IoT Edge modules already installed.

• The host machine must have at least 4 GB of free memory.

• The host machine must have at least 100 GB of free disk space.

• The host machine must allow inbound/outbound traffic on port 80 and 443. Inbound is used for receiving content requests, and outbound is used for downloading and caching requested content.

  Note

  If the host machine is behind a firewall, ensure that the firewall rules allow inbound and outbound traffic on port 443. A port 80 firewall rule is autocreated during the cache node deployment process and cleaned up during cache node uninstall. For more information, see Missing WSL port forwarding rules (443, 5000).

Additional requirements for Windows host machines

• The Windows host machine must be using Windows 11 or Windows Server 2022 (or later) with the latest cumulative update applied.

  • Windows 11 must have OS Build 22631.3296 or later
  • Windows Server 2022 must have OS Build 20348.2227 or later

• The Windows host machine must support nested virtualization. Ensure that any security settings that may restrict nested virtualization aren't enabled, such as "Trusted launch" in Azure VMs.

• The Windows host machine must have Hyper-V PowerShell Management Tools installed during the deployment process. These components aren't necessary for a deployed cache node to operate, and can be removed after successful deployment.

  Enable Hyper-V Management Tools on Windows 11:

  Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V-Management-PowerShell -All
  

  Install Hyper-V Management Tools on Windows Server:

  Install-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V -IncludeManagementTools
  

  Disable Hyper-V Management Tools on Windows 11:

  Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
  

  Uninstall Hyper-V Management Tools on Windows Server:

  Uninstall-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V
  

• The Windows host machine must have WSL 2 installed. You can install this on Windows 11 and Windows Server 2025 by logging on as a local administrator and running the following command in an elevated PowerShell window:

  wsl.exe --install --no-distribution
  

Additional requirements for Linux host machines

• The Linux host machine must be using one of the following operating systems:
  • Ubuntu 24.04
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.* or 9.*
    • If using RHEL, the default container engine (Podman) must be replaced with Moby

Proxy support

Connected Cache is designed as a reverse proxy and won't work when placed behind a forward proxy that has caching on by default (e.g. most Squid-based proxies). Such forward proxies must be configured to allow internal proxies to directly connect to origin, or otherwise allow the Connected Cache node to directly access the Internet.

Recommended host machine networking specifications

• Multiple network interface cards (NICs) on a single Connected Cache host machine isn't supported.
• 1 Gbps NIC is the minimum speed recommended but any NIC is supported.
• The NIC and BIOS should support SR-IOV for best performance.

Recommended host machine hardware specifications

Based on your enterprise configuration, it's recommended to deploy your Connected Cache nodes to host machines that meet the following recommended hardware specifications: