[JonathonW]

There's a mention somewhere in the middle of the thread that someone had seen something similar with Apple's software updates, too: maybe it's a more general Akamai issue?

Even if it is isolated to the servers distributing MS's updates, I'm having trouble seeing how this could even be MS's fault-- it's the server side (owned and operated by Akamai) that's misbehaving here.

[colanderman]

I'm not convinced either way. Windows Update is the one opening the dozens of connections (it has to if it's behind a firewall), not Akamai; Akamai's just serving the data. But Windows Update is possibly just calling out to an Akamai library that opens the dozens of connections on its behalf.

If there are also congestion-algorithm shenanigans like the forum post suggests, then Akamai is definitely at fault. But the issue I see is that of connection hogging.

[kev009]

* https://developer.akamai.com/stuff/Optimization/TCP_Optimiza...

* https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2013-press/aka...

[chopsywa]

Apparently Apple has gone away from Akamai.