Chromebooks Bandwidth Issue

[memerton]

Just wanted to explain our situation, see if anyone else is having the same problems and if anyone has a solution!

 

We are a large Primary school and have just switched from Windows 10 to a mixture of Chromebooks and Laptops running CloudReady. We also have the Wonde logins set up which works really well. However, when the Chromebooks started being used in classes last week we started having problems with really slow logins (something that I didn't think would be a problem with Chromebooks). After further investigation, it appears that the Play Store and Extensions are installed per user. If a class of 25 are logging on to Chromebooks at the same time then there is a bottleneck at our APs and it also uses up all our bandwidth on our leased line. I have therefore temporarily disabled the Play Store and larger extensions (more than a few mb). Disabling these things now means that logging on is fine again.

 

However, this does cause a problem. One of the attractions of using Chromebooks is the ability to use Android Apps. This would be great if the Play Store, Android Apps and extensions were downloaded once and stored on the device. However, they are downloaded per user so every time a user logs in to any Chromebook it has to pull down all of those things which then clogs up our network. We have decent Switches and APs (not ac) and 100MB Leased Line. I'm guessing there are no easy solutions to this but any advice is appreciated!

[PotNoodleTech]

No easy solution other than to petetion google / request to change the way the play store works on them. It becomes a big problem once you start operating hundreds of chromebooks.

 

For managed chromebooks, the play store apps should always be deployed per "chromebook location" in the admin interface, not by user location.

 

The above, and the fact there is currently no caching server for google updates so all your updates etc have to go straight out on to the internet, is a big drawback of chromebooks.

 

Still the benefits far outweigh the above few drawbacks IMHO.

[rogerdnixon]

If the Chromebooks are set to wipe user data and you have some Android apps force deployed, then the apps are cached on the device for the next user. Does not help the first time everyone logins in - but mitigates the issues somewhat over time. Downside is that if you wipe local users data, you also limit the available storage to download and install apps - so only force install the ones you really need as you won't be able to do many.

 

Basically, android apps on ChromeOS are best in a 1:1 setup - not multiuser.

[Ditto]

Basically, android apps on ChromeOS are best in a 1:1 setup - not multiuser.

Is this equally true with 'Chrome Store' apps?

[rogerdnixon]

Depend on the App. Some of the extensions can be quite big - so things like Screencastify and Nimbus or EquatIO - but a lot are just links - so will deploy quite quickly even on limited bandwidth.

[memerton]

Potential solution although haven't tried it yet! Run Chromebooks in Kiosk Mode. Children can then login via Wonde in a web browser rather than at startup. Hopefully data wouldn't be wiped at the end of the kiosk session - that would be the key to it being a working solution.

[Michael]

100Mb for a large Primary isn't that fast anymore - depending on who your provider is, you can probably double to 200Mb without it breaking the bank, or even faster.

[PotNoodleTech]

100Mb for a large Primary isn't that fast anymore - depending on who your provider is, you can probably double to 200Mb without it breaking the bank, or even faster.

 

100MB here for a secondary with 1000+ devices.

[Michael]

100MB here for a secondary with 1000+ devices.

 

Have you made enquiries about just how much it would cost to double or treble your existing bandwidth? I know on some older LA networks, you can only upgrade in increments of 10. In saying that, 1Gb for a Secondary isn't that uncommon these days.