Pre-fetching means that patch content is downloaded by an Ondemand Content Master (OCM) from external sources before it is requested on-demand by a device that has the Patch Agent installed. Pre-caching means that already fetched patch content is replicated to specified Content servers and Satellites in the ZENworks zone to make it more readily available when requested by devices.
A patch must be downloaded by an OCM before it can be cached. This could be a patch that the OCM downloaded on-demand because a device requested it, or it could be a patch that was pre-fetched because of the Pre-Fetching configuration settings. You must have at least one Primary Server designated as an OCM. When you configure the Patch Server, it is pre-selected by default as an OCM. However, by configuring one or more other Primary servers in the Server Hierarchy configuration as OCMs, you can remove the Patch Server as an OCM (if required). For information, see Configure Ondemand Content Master Settings
in the ZENworks Ondemand Content Reference.
Rather than leaving the system default to only fetch and cache patches as they are requested on-demand by devices, you can configure zone settings to pre-fetch and pre-cache fetched content. Patches will continue to be pulled down on-demand by devices for installation by the Patch Agent according to the schedule set in Patch Policy Settings or in a remediation deployment. However, by configuring zone settings for pre-fetching and pre-caching, you can design the download and replication flow for content in a way that best suits your enterprise resources. For information about configuring content pre-fetch and pre-cache settings, see the following: