harris.com
Video Everywhere
The explosion of video within the enterprise is having an enormous impact on corporate network performance. Many organizations do not realize the amount of video they are transmitting across their network today. Others dont recognize how integral video is becoming in day-to-day business operations. Video traffic includes everything from desktop video conferencing to corporate communications, marketing materials and online training. Organizations tend to levy training requirements to all users simultaneously, multiplying the bandwidth impact. The video based training has more impact and costs less than alternative methods, but the network costs are rarely considered and only become evident when in production use. The rapid decline in cost to produce and transport high quality video has enabled it to move quickly beyond an entertainment vehicle to a core business communications medium. As desktop video conferencing becomes more prevalent, Skype takes root in the enterprise, and both video use and mobile communications offloading increases, network planners should expect the share of network video traffic to continue expanding. This trend parallels public Internet usage where video traffic exceeded non-video data traffic in 2011. Without careful planning, this expansion could have a crippling effect on application performance and significantly impact productivity. It is a profound change in user behavior with direct impact on enterprise infrastructure.
Organizations must understand the bandwidth impact of videonow and in the futureto prevent it from consuming network resources and starving critical business applications.
exceptionrequire significantly more bandwidth than traditional cameras, just as high definition video requires significantly more than standard definition. The increase in bandwidth consumed as video resolution increases is evident in the chart below showing video bandwidth consumption at different resolutions with common encoding algorithms.
To put the amount of bandwidth consumed in perspective, take a minute to consider a typical voice-over-IP (VoIP) call. A VoIP session typically consumes approximately 30kbps using industrystandard compression. Low quality video typically consumes about 5 to 10 times that amount. High Definition video will consume anywhere from 15 to 1,000 times that of a VoIP session depending on a number of factors including resolution, video content and the type of encoding employed. Network capacity consumption is amplified further when a video stream is accessed simultaneously by multiple users whether its employees viewing training materials, security personnel monitoring CCTV systems or customers viewing IPTV screens. The potential exists for an unpredictable avalanche of video traffic to clog the arteries of your network and bring critical business applications offline. In fact, there are few organizations who havent experienced this first hand or taken proactive steps to throttle networks to restrict video consumption altogether. Given this staggering potential for network resource consumption and the corresponding potential for the disruption of critical business operations, it is clear that network planners need to take action to proactively manage data traversing their network. But what action should be taken?
return on investment. Most implementations require little to no capital investment and can be operational within a few months. To achieve success, network planners must understand evolving network requirements, changing user practices, the QoS tools available, and the key engineering and operational processes.
systems also include traffic generators and collectors, dispersed throughout the enterprise network, that sample actual application traffic. Measurements can be collected and analyzed to ensure proper bandwidth, latency and jitter in real-time. These measurements ensure servicelevel agreements are being met between network operators and users. All of this activity can be focused on ensuring that critical applications have consistent and reliable data traffic and incidents of network performance issues dont materially impact business operations.
To learn more about network optimization using QoS or implementing a network optimization plan, contact: Matt Holbert (619) 886-4500 matt.holbert@harris.com Bret Kinsella (202) 556-0228 bret.kinsella@harris.com
Harris IT Services 21000 Atlantic Boulevard, Suite 300 Dulles, VA 20166-2496, USA 1-703-483-8000
harris.com
Harris is a registered trademark of Harris Corporation. Trademarks and tradenames are the property of their respective companies. 2011 Harris Corporation 3/11 518324 SEC d0513