Forum Discussion
Caching Google Play Applications for Deployment via EMM
Hi,
Does Google offer any caching service to help reduce bandwidth usage when deploying apps through an EMM solution?
For example, in the case of public iOS applications, Apple provides a Content Caching service that speeds up downloads and reduces bandwidth consumption: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/depde72e125f/web.
Regards.
4 Replies
I wish! I was chatting with Googlers about this 5+ years ago. Raising it here is a good opportunity to spark those conversations again Lizzie :)
Nothing officially available through Google Play app distribution that I am aware of but there are concepts like Xtreme Hub for SOTI that offer a local relay server distribution method. This is incredibly helpful for the distribution of large files like firmware updates or large APKs to a location with a limited ISP connection that we often see in warehouses and retail stores. We use these relay servers to push the large file once through the ISP connection onto a local server in the environment from the primary cloud EMM. Devices then connect to that relay server on their local network to pull the files more directly without consuming ISP bandwidth.
Depending on which EMM you are using, they may provide a local relay server that you can set up and copy your files to. Then you can configure your devices to download the files from the relay server. This is much faster since all communication happens locally.
We have used local relay servers to migrate all our devices from Android 8.1 to 10 and then from 10 to Android 13 multiple times. As you may know, OS update files are large and can be several gigabits in size. Using local relays made the process much more efficient and significantly reduced the load on our network. Both Omnissa Workspace ONE and SOTI support relay servers, and I believe other EMMs offer similar functionality as well
Yes, absolutely! This architecture works for distributing files and apps from EMMs like WS1 and SOTI that can deliver them to Android devices directly. I am however not aware of such a model available to deliver apps in a distributed manner when passing them through Managed Google Play. This is yet another reason why those specific EMMs are so good for the mission critical / line of business Android Enterprise use case and why purely AMAPI aligned EMMs fall short.
