– Updated 09-09-14 – At their presser today, Apple announced that iOS 8 will be publicly available on Wednesday, September 17. The update is free and compatible with 10 current products:
iPhone 5S
iPhone 5C
iPhone 5
iPhone 4S
iPad Air
iPad with Retina Display
iPad 2
iPad mini with Retina Display
iPad mini
iPod touch 5th Generation
How are you going to protect your network?
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TechRadar speculates that Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS 8 will be released on September 10 and MacWorld UK reports that iOS 8 will run on most iPads, iPhones, or iPod Touch devices when it arrives. This means that if you haven’t already done something about it any iDevice that walks into your Wi-Fi will want to download 100+ megabytes of data. And you know what means user complaints that the internet is broken and the network is slow.
The folks at Exinda, a supplier of policy-based WAN Orchestration recently put out some suggestions on how to keep your network functional during Apple’s (AAPL) iOS 8 update madness, unlike the iOS 7 release last year. Few organizations were prepared for the effects that widespread software updates would have across corporate and educational networks.
Shortly after the software launch, download requests bombarded networks which prevented users from accessing key applications or completing work on time. Boston-based Exinda says reports from last year showed that the iOS 7 update used more than 60% of bandwidth and caused several networks to crash completely.
Exinda polled their community of networking experts to weigh in with three possible strategies to help you survive release week, no matter how complex your IT environment is.
Set an iOS policy
Set a policy to completely block software upgrades 20% of Exinda customers said that controlling iOS 7 upgrades was their biggest IT headache last year. If iOS 7 put a huge strain on your network last year, proactively blocking this year’s software release may be the best way to protect your network.
Before release week, simply create a policy using the Apple Software Updates application signature and set it to discard the traffic. This will cause all network traffic generated from iOS 8 to be discarded, effectively keeping your users from upgrading their devices on your network.
Limit the bandwidth software upgrades use
Depending on your network and users, you may have no choice but to let some of your users upgrade their devices during peak hours, particularly if you’re a school with a 1:1 iPad program. To control the amount of bandwidth iOS 8 can use on your network, set a policy that guarantees minimum and maximum levels of bandwidth that can be consumed during this upgrade. We recommend setting the minimum at 1 Kbps and giving this policy a low priority so it does not take precedence over your more important traffic.
Bruce Miller, vice president of product marketing at Xirrus in a Fierce Mobile article, advised IT administrations to deploy Wi-Fi network application control software that regulates how the network handles bandwidth-hogging apps and spikes in traffic.
IT needs to be savvy at the application level, identify when something like this happens and then be able to apply QoS [quality of service] or prioritization to applications, not just to users.
Cache iOS software upgrades
Cache software upgrades at the network edge – Last year many Exinda customers cached the iOS download at the network edge, which allowed their users to upgrade their devices without using too much bandwidth or hurting network performance. To do this, create a new policy to cache the iOS 8 upgrade. This means that after the software has been downloaded on the network once, each subsequent download request will be served up locally, letting you preserve your bandwidth and prevent network outages.
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The release of iOS 7 last year blindsided many IT managers. Large numbers of employees upgrading their devices at the same time caused many networks to crash, leaving users unable to 
access key apps or get work done on time.
I also blogged about how The NCAA Basketball and World Cup tournaments would be huge bandwidth wasters here. IT managers need to be more alert to events outside their network that can overwhelm the corporate network.
Related articles
- Exinda adds WAN orchestration (itworldcanada.com)
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.