I saw the apple caching server mentioned on an earlier thread. Is this appropriate/functional/scaleable enough to implement as an ISP? It is an intriguing idea. From the docs I could find, I couldn't tell if it was only geared towards home / small business or if it could scale up to handle ISP level traffic.
thanks,
Lane
I saw the apple caching server mentioned on an earlier thread. Is this appropriate/functional/scaleable enough to implement as an ISP? It is an intriguing idea. From the docs I could find, I couldn't tell if it was only geared towards home / small business or if it could scale up to handle ISP level traffic.
It's a feature of macos server. You do get to register prefix with
apple, but I don't imagine colocating a mac mini is isp level traffic.
That said as714 peers extensively
so picking them up works too.
I have no experience with the Apple caching service specifically, but I have used Apple products (including some of their server software) for decades. Apple used to make mac mini models exclusively for server use. Their low power draw and relatively high density makes them an interesting choice for those that don't mind using "desktop grade" hardware for a project. There are some folks that even make rack-mount solutions for the Mac mini and Mac pro (search for RackMac). That said, my experience with several mac minis is that you will have at least one fault that will put them out of production (dead PSU, faulty HDD, dead mainboard) in a 2-3 year period when ran 24/7.
With Unix OS, a gigabit ethernet port, SSD, and i5 or i7, I would expect a mac mini to be as fast or faster than most other network appliances one might purchase. If one wanted something beefier, a mac pro would probably offer some expandability (on board dual 1gbps NICs + six 20Gbps thunderbolt 2 ports).
I would see why one might be curious, especially if this could cache the IOS updates used for all those tablets and other iDevices folks purchase from Apple.
We have been using this:
It does all the Apple and IOS caching and is built for the ISP level and
then some.
There are far more ISPs with less than 10G of total traffic than ISPs with more than 10G of traffic.
Maybe you can help.sell the product because that website doesn't do much in
terms of selling the product. What does it do and why would we use it?
They sell transparent caching, works great and we've been using it for a few years. Not cheap on the CAPX side but it sure does work.
I deliver 50% of all Netflix traffic while never hitting my transit links, Apple is even higher and windows updates is are near the 97% number. The great thing outside of cutting down on transit traffic is the increase speeds from serving it from within my network.
The support folks rock and take care of everything, we haven't touched it since we racked it up. Simple 1u Dell server with 10g nics, we currently just port mirror to it and let it do its thing.
I can share more if needed as well.
Luke
Luke Guillory
Network Operations Manager
Tel: 985.536.1212
Fax: 985.536.0300
Email: lguillory@reservetele.com
Reserve Telecommunications
100 RTC Dr
Reserve, LA 70084
Those dual Mac Mini 1U rack-mount cases are great! Two of the quad-core 'server' versions of the Minis gave quite a bit of punch for only 1RU @ 300mm deep.
I have a couple of these types of builds deployed for VoIP services in different DCs, both with auto failover from one Mini to the other. But in the 6 years they've been operation we've never had any failure requiring use of the failover machines 
Re the Apple Caching Server - I don't believe that will work at the ISP level. My understanding is that the clients requesting their updates are redirected (by Apple's own servers) to the caching server only if the caching server and the requesting client both appear (from Apple's perspective) to originate from behind the same (NAT'd) public IP address.
Pete
I haven't ever tried to do multiple public IPs (I only enable caching server once inside my home network as a test), but it looks like from the settings window that it is possible to have more than one public IP using your cache.
http://imgur.com/eBT7IyX
When the "serve clients with public addresses: on other networks" configuration is enabled, "client configuration" button gives generated DNS records which were also mentioned elsewhere in this thread (_aaplcache._tcp 259200.<dnssearchname> TXT record per network)
Theodore Baschak - AS395089 - Hextet Systems
https://ciscodude.net/ - https://hextet.systems/
http://mbix.ca/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204675
Content types supported by the Caching service
Justin Wilson
j2sw@mtin.net
Interesting! Thanks Theodore for pointing that out. It's been almost a year since I investigated caching server, and they've obviously extended the functionality since then (I've not seen that settings panel before).
In that case I retract my statement about it not being suitable for use at an ISP level. Perhaps it is after all!
Pete