
Applications
E-Learning
Avantis ContentCache™ is designed specifically to meet
the caching and content delivery requirements of the education
sector. Internet usage and demand for online content is rapidly
growing but a large proportion of schools still don’t
have the broadband connections required to deliver ‘whole
class’ online learning.
Over the next five years a bewildering array of new e-learning
content will become available featuring high quality multimedia,
audio and video. Whilst this has the potential to transform
learning, it will send the requirement for bandwidth through
the roof (video-rich content typically increases the per-user
bandwidth requirement by as much as tenfold). In the UK, this
process is being accelerated by the advent of Curriculum Online
and by the forthcoming launch of the free BBC Digital Curriculum
service.
The DfES objective is to have 2MBits/sec internet connection
in every Primary School and 8 MBits/sec in every Secondary
School by 2006. However these connection speeds would only
support around 4 and 16 concurrent full screen VHS quality
video connections respectively.
Web caching and Content Delivery Networks (CDN) offer a more
cost effective way of improving internet performance and access
speeds than simply buying a faster internet connection. Becta
(British Educational Communications and Technology Agency)
and the Department for Education and Skills are now recommending
that a web caching appliance is installed in every school.
In a typical school up to 90% of internet traffic is generated
by pupils requesting the same web content more than once –
making caching particularly advantageous. However, ContentCache™
offers much more than just dynamic caching – allowing
high bandwidth content and e-learning resources to be hosted
and delivered from the local cache on the network. This provides
a better learning experience for all schools, regardless of
their internet connection speed, and frees up the connection
for other bandwidth intensive activities such as video conferencing.
ContentCache™ Management Software is also available
for local education authority or publisher use to centrally
manage clusters of ContentCache™ appliances installed
in a number of schools and carry out policy based content
deployment.
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