As enterprises grow globally, organizations have found that the most cost-effective way to run marketing, training or internal communications is via video. However, transporting video files to a globally distributed workforce, whether streamed or downloaded, can create tremendous network bottlenecks and strain. Video conferencing is effective when employees can easily play videos without jitter or excessive buffering.

The Challenge of Video in Distributed Workforce Environments

As the amount of video content increases, it becomes more difficult to manage, search and distribute the content efficiently. As the workforce becomes more global, enterprises also need the ability to dynamically control Internet video streaming regardless of where the video originates and the size or location of the audience. As most networks are bandwidth-challenged and video traffic consumes this bandwidth, video could negatively impact most other enterprise applications.

Less Bandwidth Consumption with WAN Optimization

In lieu of expensive bandwidth upgrades, some enterprises are turning to wide area network (WAN) optimization to keep the video rolling. WAN optimization minimizes the impact of video consumption on the network by reducing the bandwidth utilization. Combined WAN optimization and video distribution solutions can reduce video traffic by as much as 98 percent with a variety of techniques including stream splitting for live content and deduplication of recorded file transfers. This leaves enterprises with more bandwidth available for running critical enterprise applications or disaster recovery without negatively impacting employees. WAN optimization also significantly reduces the amount of bandwidth consumed by other enterprise applications, freeing up more room on the WAN pipe for streaming applications. Additionally, quality of service (QoS) policies ensures that video and other real-time traffic can be prioritized. Leveraging video management solutions combined with WAN optimization delivers high performance streaming media and provides a simple way for creating live video, recording it, and automatically archiving the resulting video broadcast for later use. Virtualization of the video software on the WAN appliance also simplifies deployment, reduces the hardware footprint in branch offices and can help centrally manage the production and delivery of all video resources, regardless of the source of the video. This method also ensures that creation and management of video assets is secure, network-efficient, and automated, guaranteeing maximum ROI for users.

Live Content versus On-Demand Streaming

For live content, WAN optimization hosted on an edge media server can perform remote site stream-splitting. This will reduce the number of streams over the WAN to one stream per remote location and, therefore, tremendously reduce the amount of WAN bandwidth required for live streaming. For on-demand streaming, data streamlining technology can be leveraged to store downloaded content so that subsequent remote users can obtain a local copy of the video.

Maintaining Video Accessibility Despite Growth of Use

Companies will continue to expand their use of live and on-demand video to reach branch office employees. Employees will also continue to access video content in growing amounts. WAN optimization enables video to be delivered in a high quality, cost effective, non-network intensive way while retaining high video and audio quality, meeting or exceeding the expectations of the end users. But comprehensive video delivery without WAN optimization will become glaringly ineffective.

Nik Rouda, Director, Product Marketing at Riverbed Technology; email: nik.rouda@riverbed.com; web: www.riverbed.com.