I am using SCCM 2007 to patch client computers. When Microsoft releases a new scan catalog on Patch Tuesday, I am experiencing acute high network load on my WSUS server. My problem is that I have approx. 17,000 clients and they all seem to notice and request the new scan catalog within a single one hour window. This causes some bandwidth contention on the network path from the clients to the WSUS server. Is there a way available to me to distribute this load a bit so that the clients either check to see if there is a new scan catalog less frequently or perhaps make them randomize their check/download over a period greater than 1 hour? The clients are set to scan for updates on a simple "daily" schedule with not definte time set, so I am not sure why they all notice there is a new scan file available at exactly the same time. Is there something in WSUS I can do to spread out this load?
It is just the scan catalog (i assume) that is causing the problem. The patches themselves, when approved are all dowloaded from distributed DPs and there's enough of those to distribute the load. My problem is the 17,000 clients downloading the 24Mb file from a single source all at once.