School Network Amplification Platform (SNAP)

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Any network with a large user population has a good chance of getting caught in a bottleneck trying to reach the information superhighway. When hundreds or even thousands of users are all browsing the Internet at the same time, your access may feel more like an information alley. ENA's School Network Amplification Platform allows your network to function at optimal efficiency without requiring a significantly faster connection to the Internet.

By storing commonly used websites and files (including video, voice and large images) at a central location on your network, more than half of all Internet requests are answered within your local area network. Since most local area networks run at speeds equivalent to more than 60 T-1 lines, SNAP effectively doubles your Internet capacity and allows your users to access information like never before.

For example, imagine a computer lab where the teacher has asked 30 students to each download and view a 90 second video that is 5MB in size. Even if those 30 students were the only users on the network, it would take a standard T-1 line more than 12 minutes to download the file to each computer. That's assuming the server housing the file is able to handle the speed. Once the file is downloaded to each computer, it is stored in the computer's cache and can be recalled more quickly. However, since the cache is at the computer instead of the network level, it will still take much of the period to get the file onto each computer.

Now imagine the same process with SNAP. Before class the teacher downloads the file once, thereby storing it on the SNAP system. When the students request the file, it is delivered over the Local Area Network instead of through the school's Internet connection. The entire 150MB download takes just over 12 seconds and the teacher is free to begin the lesson.