"Our bandwidth problems have been practically eliminated. Monitoring & customization is a snap with the web interface."
Desert Academy, Santa Fe, USA "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 "We were getting congested daily, now I am shocked at how little bandwidth we are using, even after allowing student devices on our network."
Jerry Butler, Chase-Raymond Unified School District 401, USA "Teachers and students could barely access video content - now, they're delighted that they can do more with video and other classroom content"
Mike Evans, Network Administrator, Hampton Academy, USA

Universidad Tecnólogica de Coahuila

About Universidad Tecnólogica de Coahuila

Located in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico, Universidad Tecnólogica de Coahuila (UTC) caters for 3,200 students. UTC is part of a group of universities called Coordinacion General De Universidades Tecnólogicas, that receive partial funding from the government.

To support e-Learning UTC encourages internet use in the classroom and made plans to implement a Learning Management System (LMS) – called Smart English – with content from sites including YouTube and SoundCloud.

CHALLENGE

  • Software updates congesting network
  • Slow browsing speeds and internet restrictions for users
  • Had to block YouTube even though it was essential to LMS usage

SOLUTION

  • CACHEBOX230

BENEFIT

  • Software updates taken off network
  • Instant speed improvements for users
  • Fast access to Smart English content
  • Freed up bandwidth capacity for other learning curriculum

Network link constantly saturated
With a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme, UTC’s 100Mbps bandwidth link served around 1,600 concurrent student devices. But with such heavy demand for internet access, the link was constantly overwhelmed by student requests.

Network congestion caused slow speeds as UTC’s students tried to access content in the classroom.

This led Network Manager Juan Eduardo Sanchez to implement controls over the network’s traffic, blacklisting certain sites, including YouTube.

But with the new LMS highly dependent on YouTube content, Eduardo needed a solution that would allow access to it.

CACHEBOX – the ideal solution
Turning to his trusted DDI vendor, ApplianSys, he found they offered a caching solution that was schools-focused and affordable.

Eduardo decided to deploy a CACHEBOX230 to handle student traffic and offload demand on bandwidth. “Having happily used my DNSBOX solution for years, I was already familiar with the basic GUI and knew ApplianSys’ products are reliable and easy to use,” he says.

With CACHEBOX: Network congestion alleviated. YouTube back in use.
Once deployed, CACHEBOX instantly freed up UTC’s precious bandwidth. Network congestion was alleviated as popular requests from students were stored locally and served via cache.

With CACHEBOX’s reporting, Eduardo gained advanced visibility of his network traffic, quickly learning that thousands of repeat requests for large software update files were the primary cause for network congestion.

Since deployment, CACHEBOX stores gigabytes of Microsoft, Apple and Chrome updates, and serves them locally. As a result, it has saved an average of 65-70% of UTC’s available bandwidth capacity, month after month.

 

Thanks to CACHEBOX, UTC can unblock YouTube videos and fully implement Smart English without worrying about bandwidth congestion – giving students a seamless e-learning experience.

“One time, our network went down following a problem at our ISP’s end. I had to disconnect CACHEBOX and other equipment to get the ISP issue resolved. When it was fixed, I forgot to switch CACHEBOX back on – and that’s when I truly experienced how slow everything was – we were at 1Mbps connectivity at the time,” says Eduardo.

“But as soon as I switched CACHEBOX back on, I immediately saw a faster connection – between 35-50 Mbps. That’s when I realised how much more useable CACHEBOX makes the internet!”

 

PDF-icon-sm Download Universidad Tecnólogica de Coahuila’s case study