The Apple Software Update application, which may be found in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Apple Software Update on Microsoft
Windows systems, is used to check for updates for Apple software products
on those systems. While checking for updates, the software establishes
HTTP connections to swcdn.apple.com and swcatalog.apple.com
. You may find that a web server it is querying regarding updates,
though, is in the IP address space of the Internet Service Provider (ISP)
for the system on which the software runs because Apple has partnered with
Akamai
Technologies as have many other large companies, for use of
Akamai's
content
delivery network (CDN) for the delivery of content from Apple. By
partnering with a CDN provider a company can have its content delivered
from servers closer to the end user.
[ More Info ]
