"We rolled out 1200 Chromebooks to classrooms and CACHEBOX means that we haven't needed to increase our bandwidth."
Rodney Leer, Brenham Independent School District, USA "ApplianSys is the only vendor that takes the time to look at our appliances for us, and it really goes a long way."
Mike Caruso, Orland Park Consolidated High School District 230, USA "Our bandwidth problems have been practically eliminated. Monitoring & customization is a snap with the web interface."
Desert Academy, Santa Fe, USA "We have eliminated human-error from the updates and with administrators no longer having to work unsociable hours there is higher job satisfaction"
Dan Risher, Network Manager, UCG, USA "I like the namesurfer interface in a lot of ways, it is easy to use"
Michael Stumpo, DNS Team, Maryland State Archives, USA

Alexandria’s new ‘wonder’ – CACHEBOX

September 02, 2019
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ApplianSys is pleased to announce that Lycée Français d’Alexandrie, a French international school in Alexandria, Egypt, has deployed CACHEBOX to stop software updates and video content overwhelming its internet link and inhibiting learning.

Lycée Français d’Alexandrie, a prominent international school, employs load-balancing, firewalls and filtering to keep students secure and maintain optimal access to online content. However, students often struggle to access content quickly enough – despite a recent bandwidth upgrade to 16Mbps.

Curricula from Hachette and ProNote regularly include pop-up YouTube videos, but when a whole class views them individually – all at the same time – students face buffering and long slow load times, negatively impacting learning.

But IT Manager Mohamed Haikel knew it wasn’t just bandwidth-hungry video that was to blame. Software updates for the school’s many various devices have been growing in size and frequency. Windows, iOS, Apple apps and antivirus downloads often saturate the internet from 8.00am to 5.00pm.

With device numbers set to increase, Mohamed needed a way to stop updates bringing lessons to a standstill. Using Apple Caching on a Mac-mini helped a little with iOS content, but he needed something that could offload much more content.

CACHEBOX caches far more content than any other caching solution – including multiple vendor updates. By downloading a copy and serving it direct to subsequent requests, most demands don’t need any access to the internet at all. Quickly convinced, Mohamed deployed a CACHEBOX.

“When school returned after summer break, an astounding 96.8% of total school downloads was for software updates but CACHEBOX served up to 90% of it from cache,” says Marianne Cowie, CACHEBOX Consultant. “Mohamed can be confident of delivering a responsive user experience, despite a plan to double student numbers in the coming years.”

About

Lycée Français d’Alexandrie is a French international school in Alexandria, Egypt, run by the Mission Laïque Française (“French lay mission”), a non-profit organisation working to spread the French language and culture by creating and running schools outside France. Approved by the French Ministry of Education, the school provides education for 780 students from 3 to 18 years, who need regular access to French online content and assessment sites.