How our network handled the busiest month of the school year
September is the busiest month of the year for a school network. Pupils and staff all log back in on the same morning, and every device needs to connect, stay filtered and stay protected from day one.
Here’s how we prepared over the summer, and how our network performed when term began.
Preparing over the summer
We used the summer holidays to get our network ready for the return to school. We:
- added more capacity between our network and the wider internet
- strengthened our core network
- opened a dedicated 100Gb connection to Microsoft, so Teams, Outlook and OneDrive run smoothly for your school
How September went
Our core network stayed online throughout September, even with traffic at its yearly peak, and our filtering kept pupils safe across billions of web requests.
September in numbers
- Peak traffic of around 90Gbps, roughly nine times the level in August, as schools returned from the summer holidays.
- 100% core network uptime across the whole month.
- Around 5Gbps going straight to Microsoft all day, with 100% uptime on that link. Microsoft traffic takes a direct route rather than travelling across the public internet.
- 136 DDoS attacks blocked. These are attempts to flood a network with traffic and knock it offline.
- 16 billion web requests checked, and over a billion blocked, in line with schools’ filtering policies.
- Support tickets answered in 26 minutes on average.
A smooth start to term
That’s what we plan for every summer: a smooth start to term, so you can focus on teaching. And the work doesn’t stop in September. We continue to monitor, maintain and improve our network throughout the year, so it’s ready whenever your school needs it.
Planning ahead?
Whether you have a question about your current service, want to review your broadband, filtering or cyber security, or are planning ahead for next year, our team is here to support you. Contact us and we’ll help you find the right solution for your school or trust.
