tony_norman

Students have large ( 2GB +) files created on our Apple Mac suite. When saving to their school managed google drive the upload often fails/times out due to size. A few techie mates have suggested a caching server connected to the Apple Mac suite which can hold (buffer ?) the large files before being uploaded to their google drives. The vast majority of our school kit is Windows including all servers (with an additional set of Chromebooks.). I've looked around forums, but cannot find any good pointers. Suggestions? Thanks.

I would go with Smoothwall (or a similar product such as components from the Fortinet suite). Although these products are expensive for schools, they do have the range of resources needed to tackle all the modern filtering/firewall needs. Tackling the dynamic threats we all face is well covered by supporting unified threat management ( see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_threat_management ). To effectively manage our internet service does require the tools for the trade, and I feel Smoothwall is an excellent product and has excellent support. With an appliance on-site and cloud-based components this does ensure that I can manage my own issues very promptly - a block in place in 30 seconds. I used RM SafteyNet until a couple of years ago. Getting changes made could be a bit too slow for my liking, as the service was entirely cloud-based and necessitated email or telephone calls to get a concern looked at. Some delays would occur while a panel of experts would discuss whether a block was acceptable, based on consensus. The system was simple - static black lists, white lists of URLs and IPs. Due to the simplicity the service was very cheap. I haven't checked it out since 2014, but it desperately needed a means for end users to get an immediate block in place and some functionality for dealing with man in the middle attacks, deep packet inspection and other dynamic tools. I suppose it comes down to you get what you pay for. The modern tools like Smoothwall do provide the comprehensive suite of features for monitoring and managing your filtering/firewall. In Smoothwall's case their support in excellent (I have just spent time at the BETT Show in London talking to quite a few colleagues on this topic, and they all agreed Smoothwall support is first class).