Basic Administration > Managing Data > Site Administration > Understanding the Site > Typical Duties of Site Administrators > Configuring External Vaults or Replication Sites to Optimize Performance
  
Configuring External Vaults or Replication Sites to Optimize Performance
You can configure external file vaults so that document and part content is stored on a file system rather than in the database. This type of configuration can provide significant upload performance improvements and is appropriate when the site is frequently used to exchange large files (such as CAD model files).
By default, external storage rules are based on individual domains in each context. You can launch the External Storage Administrator client from the Utilities page in the context of a product, a library, or the site. (The client is not available from the context of a project, program, or organization.) When launched from a product or library context, product and library managers can set only the vaulting rules. The additional functionality within the External Storage Administrator is available only to site administrators. The client allows you to create vaulting rules for the System and Default domains associated with the context in which the client is launched.
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The rules needed for setting up an external file vault for a product or library cannot be inherited from the site.
If the increased number of vaults and file vault rules becomes unmanageable, you can force vaulting to be accomplished through a single vault by setting the wt.fv.forceContentToVault property to true. For how to set external file vault rules or set up a single vault, see Creating Vaulting Rules and Windchill Vault Configuration.
You can also configure replication sites so the document and part content files are replicated at a remote site where local users have only very low bandwidth connections to the Windchill server. You can launch the File Server Administration client from the Utilities page in the context of a product, a library, or the site. For a project or program, you can launch the Content Replication Rules from the project or program Utilities page.
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The File Server Administration is not available from the context of an organization.
As a site administrator, you would typically define only the replica site and the replication schedule. The product, library, project, or program managers would configure the replication rules for a particular context. The additional functionality within the File Server Administration is available only to site administrators.
For more information on content replication and how to set replication rules, see Managing Replication Rules.