Extremely slow FTP downloads

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the quick response.  I'm in Texas, which some consider to be a country in and of itself!

All the best,

Mike

Ok, so I've found the answer to my second question with the quote below from the Repository Manager site

en.community.dell.com/.../1767.dell-repository-manager.aspx

"To enable this functionality, install Dell Repository Manager 1.4 on the same server that OpenManage Essentials is running on..."

But what about the slooow FTP download?

Thanks!

Mike

Hey Mike,

Let me check it out.

What country are you in?

thx!

Rob

Oh, man...I hear ya....raised in Texas and workin' in RR at the moment :-)  

Let me call I/T.

I've heard of folks using a general FTP client to download updates. I don' t mind doing that if it will help. But how would I know which updates to download - they're not exactly clearly marked - most of them are just labeled as FOLDER with some numbers appended.

Thanks,

Mike

You know, I bet RM and OME will try to use ftp.dell.com.  

My point was, that if you are trying to manually download stuff from dell, that other site might be faster.  I use a browser.

Rob

Can I somehow configure Repository Manager to use it or should I try WinSCP or a browser?

Thanks,

Mike

Say, by the way, while the guys are looking at the ftp.dell.com slowness, can you try ftp://downloads.dell.com/  and see if it is faster?

Rob

So we may be looking at firewall issues here. During initial setup, I asked to be allowed to FTP to ftp.dell.com.  That seems to work somewhat for 143.166.170.10, but there's another that I'm being blocked from: 143.166.147.12.

Are there specific IP addresses you can give me that I can ask my network dudes to allow through our firewall for FTP downloads?

Thanks,

Mike

And even if I *wanted* to manually download from Dell, how do I know what to download? How can I cross reference my OME or vCenter Plug-in inventories with the Dell FTP site?

Thanks,

Mike

Yeah, I see your question.  Don't think there is any easy way for that.  My point of the other ftp was just if you are wanting to download RM itself...not useful for you at the moment.

Rob

Thanks for the post.  I'll pass along your concerns over the ftp speed.  ftp.dell.com does not use Akami.

As you say, lots of folks use ftp://downloads.dell.com.  Akami is our European / non-us provider… and is also now the default for eSupport Drivers and Downloads site hosted at downloads.dell.com.

Rob

Dell's US FTP sites have always been slow, almost like they're on a DSL line.  If I'm downloading manually I almost always skip over and use their European FTP site which will come down at decent speeds.  IMHO, it's time for Dell to use Akami or another distributing hosting solution for system downloads, most major vendors do, incluing Microsoft.

The following (OME 1.1) is being downloaded at 9:38AM ET on a dedicated 100Mb/sec connection in a CenturyLink datacenter on an R710 server and I'm getting <300kB/sec when I recently downloaded Windows 8 x64 RTM at 30+Mb/sec off MSDN!

Ah, that''s really good information Mike.

Thanks for taking the time to post a follow up.

Rob

Thanks for your responses, folks.  It seems my issue was that only a single Dell FTP IP was allowed through our firewall as alluded to above.  There's more than one Dell FTP IP in the US that should have been allowed through.  To make it work , they just let me FTP to any site, anywhere.  The download flies now.

Cheers,

Mike