Microsoft Windows Update and Network Bandwidth?

Brett Glass asks: "As we reviewed the cache statistics for our small ISP today, we noted that the traffic generated by Microsoft's Windows Update feature constituted 45% -- no, that's not a misprint -- of our total throughput. Because so many computers on the Internet run Windows, this massive resource drain occurs whenever Microsoft announces major security holes (as it did this week). The traffic could be greatly reduced, and service to users much improved, if the updates were cacheable at the ISP. But Microsoft has set up the service in such a way that the data can't be cached. (It's digitally signed, so inserting Trojans into the cache is virtually impossible; in any event, no more of an issue than intercepting the data stream.) Are others out there seeing the same pattern? How might Microsoft be convinced to make its updates cacheable, so as not to waste unthinkable amounts of bandwidth?"

Comments

MS wants you to host one internally

[dgallina]

No no! You're supposed to buy and install and manage an internal (corporate, academic, whatever) Windows Update server and manage your internal clients yourself.... :-)

Standard anti-MS rant

[Bistronaut]

I visited the site linked to in the post, and it came up with a message about how it doesn't work with my browser/OS (Mozilla/Linux). Boy, that just boils my blood! Oh, wait.

this nothing

[jsse]

compare to 95% usage last time Code Red visit. :)

The rest 5% is Netbios traffic.

Re:this nothing

[Lord Sauron]

So we have:

95% code red
50% Kazaa
40% HTTP
20% Spam
45% windows update

Gee, has anyone heard of a new science called Mathematics ?

Hope they don't notice . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

that the other 55% was used for Slashdot.

~~~

The other 55%

[Electrum]

Let me guess... the other 55% is porn?

The other 55%?

[Omega Hacker]

So dare I ask what the other 55% is? Here's my guess:

• 1% Instant messaging
• 1% Real email
• 3% SPAM
• 5% Web browsing
• 45% Windows vunlerability probes and active attacks

No, don't check. You don't want to know.

Re:Stats for the past 24 hours are even worse....

[Jon Peterson]

That's terrible. I mean Microsoft releasing frequent patches for their products - and then the users are finding those patches so easy to download and install that they keep doing it!

That's so typical of Microsoft. They don't care about the little ISPs, they just want their customer base to have free, simple, access to frequent updates and fixes, without giving a damn about the impact that has on Internet traffic.

I mean, at least when slashdot directs huge amounts of traffic to some dumb site about making a spaceship out of a floppy disc or whatever, they have the courtesy to always cache the site so that it doesn't take down the whole ISP that hosts that page.

Why can't MS be more like /. ?