Caching Servers

[tmoon-mint]

Looking for a bit of advice regarding caching servers,

 

We do the vast majority of our app deployments via Meraki purely so that we can do silent installs. This does cause issues with Bandwidth however has we have 40 devices all downloading the same app at once.

 

Does anyone make active use of a caching server to alleviate these issues? And if so could you explain just how it works, want to do as much research as possible before implementing anything.

 

Thanks

[SovietRussia]

(OS X Server > Caching) We used to, but it takes down our entire WAN and nobody else can install apps - oops!

[Brimstone]

Looking for a bit of advice regarding caching servers,

 

We do the vast majority of our app deployments via Meraki purely so that we can do silent installs. This does cause issues with Bandwidth however has we have 40 devices all downloading the same app at once.

 

Does anyone make active use of a caching server to alleviate these issues? And if so could you explain just how it works, want to do as much research as possible before implementing anything.

 

Thanks

 

Unlike the answer below yours when configured correctly a Caching Server proves a vital component of large iOS deployments and saves massive amounts of strain on your internet bandwidth. The caching server essentially caches all iOS and App update content from Macs and iOS devices so that these come from your local network and not the internet, when ever anyone updates an app or the iOS all future updates come locally.

 

You will need a static public I.P. for it, so this can be a problem where you school is on a WAN with the LA allocating a pool a public I.P.'s. You can now also configure a specific set of internal static I.P.'s or a subnet/Vlan to further limit bandwidth across your own network.

 

Below is more technical write up...

 

Fraser Hess: Caching Server 2

[tmoon-mint]

Yes we are on the LA's WAN, may need to discuss this with them as it would massively improve my network performance.

[JasonNVSD]

Does anyone make active use of a caching server to alleviate these issues?

 

Yes. One in every school.

 

They're pretty easy to deploy too. Turn it on, it sends Apple a notification. A user device starts a download from the App Store, Apple knows there's a caching server on the same subnet and forwards the device there. If the server is offline for whatever reason, it times out and goes back to Apple.

[furby]

We use it and it works great. I'm trying to think what advice I can give but, I just turned it on and it started working. All the iOS devices and Mac's started pulling updates and Apps from the server.

 

To check that it's working you can just view the caching logs (like below)

http://i.imgur.com/DqUMUNJ.jpg

[davidacland]

Hi,

 

We're big fans of the caching service. We have a write up about it (although a little old) here: OS X Server - Caching Service Part 1 » Amsys and part 2: OS X Server - Caching Service Part 2 » Amsys

 

On simple networks you just plug it in and turn it on. For more complex / larger networks it will be worth getting input from your network administrator.