App-ID for Apple iOS Update

[wocomike]

Hi All,

I'm preparing for tomorrow's iOS8 update.  Last year with iOS7, we got slammed on bandwidth.  This year now that we have the Palo Alto, I'm configuring QoS so that the iOS update doesn't eat all of our bandwidth.

Does anyone know what App-ID the iOS update service falls under?  There is an apple-update app-id, but it appears to be only for computers running MacOS.  Do I just set a blanket policy covering all Apple traffic just to be safe?

Thanks,

-Mike

[hshah · Accepted solution]

Hi Wocomike,

There is no single app-id name "apple" which covers all apple traffic.

Instead we have separate app-id for all apple services, please find the same.

"apple-update" should cover all kind of updated from IOS including ipads. I would suggest you to try with one of the ipad to confirm the same.

Regards,

Hardik Shah

[wocomike]

Thanks Hardik,

It appears that this is true, as the Apple iOS updates come down via swcdn.apple.com, which is getting flagged as apple-update.  I've not been able to verify if these are Macs or iPads in the logs, but the domain name is the same for updates on both. 

-Mike

[hshah]

Hi Wocomike,

There is no app-id for ipad hence you can assume, "apple-update" covers ipad too.

Moreover, update servers are same. so you can stick to it.

Let me know if additional information required.

Regards,

Hardik Shah

[bwilliams2]

Also apple offers a caching server which you could consider for the future. We are using one. I am waiting to see the usage of PAN "apple-update" compared to the LAN traffic my caching server saw.

OS X Server - Caching Service - Apple Support

[matt_eggert]

I agree with bwilliams2. Our Caching server is awesome.  I would def recommend this option to people who want to control this type of traffic.