The Case for Caching

 
 
P. J. Connolly began writing for IT publications in 1997 and has a lengthy track record in both news and reviews. Since then, he's built two test labs from scratch and earned a reputation as the nicest skeptic you'll ever meet. Before taking up journalism, P. J. was an IT manager and consultant in San Francisco with a knack for networking the Apple Macintosh, and his love for technology is exceeded only by his contempt for the flavor of the month. Speaking of which, you can follow P. J. on Twitter at pjc415, or drop him an email at pjc@eweek.com.
By P. J. Connolly  |  Posted 2011-06-15 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

As you may recall, one of the big beefs I have with Apple's plans for distributing Mac OS X 10.7 Lion as an online-only upgrade is the pain involved in downloading the software over and over, when one wants to install it on multiple machines.

1106lion_hero

Will Mac OS X Lion be cached on the next-generation Time Capsules?

Apple's been working on the problem for a while, and it's possible that there may be a solution in sight. 9to5 Mac is reporting that the latest update to AirPort Utility has code built into it that would seem to allow TimeCapsules, and perhaps AirPort Extreme base stations with attached storage, to cache software updates locally rather than requiring each machine on the network to pull the update from Apple's servers.

In a way, this offers the ordinary user the same functionality that is present in Mac OS X Server. I'm all for a download-once-for-local-distribution approach to updates; it simply makes sense and appeals to my love of efficiency as well.

Now the big question is: will Apple enable local caching for the upgrade to Lion? That may be too much to hope for, even though that makes even more sense than caching updates.

 
 
 
 
del.icio.us | digg.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Google Ad
Manage your Newsletters: Login   Register My Newsletters























 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rocket Fuel