BITS Caching Server Solution

This is what I would do:

WSUS: How To Throttle BITS

Configuring BITS 2.0 and 3.0 for Download Performance

I do know that WSUS will allow the usage of upstream servers but I am hoping for a solution that does not require individual district & host configuration as WSUS does.  A WSUS solution could catch a large portion of traffic but there are always some computers that aren't configured the way that I would like.  Especially when I don't have direct control over them.

While I do have the capability to throttle the bandwidth on our packetshaper. I was seeking a more elegant solution that would improve the client's perceived download performance without requiring a massive coordination effort among the various technology departments.

Throttling the bandwidth is done via a GPO, nothing massive about it(Your only throttling BITS traffic, not all traffic). Configuring upstream servers is also very seamless and easy to configure.

Ok so I don't think that I have explained myself clearly enough.

1.  Throttling.  I can throttle down BITS traffic with a single step on my packetshaper.  This device sits just inside my firewall and distinctly identifies all types of traffic including BITS.  I do not want to do this.

2.  WSUS.  Of the 18 school districts that are attached to my WAN.  I have direct control over none of them.  This means I cannot make group policy changes to the clients at these sites.  If I deploy my own WSUS server and ask each of my districts to do the same and use mine as an upstream server, I will not get all of them to do it.  Leaving some unknown percentage still consuming bandwidth unnecessarily.

What I am seeking (which I know may not exist), is a transparent solution that could intercept windows update BITS requests and serve them on it's own.

One thought that I have had is to deploy WSUS and then block regular windows update.  This doesn't work because I place school district property at risk.

So any thoughts?

You spoke clearly, you're just refusing to listen. There is no other way. You can either schedule the updates to install at specific times with GPO or throttle Bits(With Gpo not packetshaper). Or deploy downstream WSUS servers.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457145.aspx

Background Intelligent Transfer Service Bandwidth Management

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is a file transfer service that transfers files in the foreground or background (default) between a client and a server. Background transfers use only idle network bandwidth in order to preserve the users interactive experience with other network applications, such as Internet Explorer. BITS examines the network traffic, and uses only the idle portion of the network bandwidth. BITS regulates its use of bandwidth as users increase or decrease their use of the bandwidth.  

Server 2008 may have what you are looking for

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd637785(WS.10).aspx

There is one other way but if you dont have the ability/authority to deploy GPOs and WSUS I would think this would be even harder. We used to run a caching appliance at several of our remote sites. Theoretically if you were to have a caching appliance on each endpoint of your WAN connection/school district then the windows updates could be downloaded once and then kept locally in the appliances cache without the need for any BITS, WSUS, etc.

We ran bluecoat proxysg appliances, but you can get them from many other companies riverbed, cisco, etc.

I guess that there isn't a way to actually do what I am looking for.  I will probably setup a WSUS server and ask the districts to point to it but I won't catch everything that way... Anyway,  thanks for the help!

dstewartjr:  maybe you can explain why you think that the packeteer won't throttle BITS, because it will.  Any traffic that it can positively identify can be limited or blocked all together.  I know that it accurately identifies BITS because that is how I know this issue exists.

It appears that what I am looking for doesn't exist