Can your network handle HD video?

Consider this: In the week following Sept. 11, 2001, your users were glued to their television sets tracking breaking news. If an event of similar proportions happened today, they would expect the enterprise network to be able to handle not only real-time video feeds but also high-definition videoconferences and surveillance, as well as instant access to social-networking tools.

Are you ready?

Story: 10 tips for a successful video rollout

Mark Tarleton, manager of Webcast communications at defense contractor Raytheon in Garland, Texas, says he is constantly working to be able to answer that question in the affirmative for the company's 73,000 workers around the world. Like many of his peers, Tarleton knows firsthand the growing sway that video holds in organizations today, as executives and users alike pressure IT to support videoconferencing, 24/7 video-over-IP surveillance, such rich-media social-networking tools as podcasting, and IPTV. He also sees the freight train that is HD video headed straight for the enterprise.

"What we're trying to do is deliver video in a way that's going to coexist with other traffic on the network," Tarleton says. That's a pretty tall order when HD is expected to send network requirements into the stratosphere.

"Everything surrounding the delivery of HD video will require a five to 10 times increase. You're going to need that much more bandwidth because it has that much more sensitivity," says Inbar Lasser-Raab, director of network systems at Cisco. HD video boosts the average video stream of 300Kbps to more than 3Mbps.

Lasser-Raab and Tarleton agree, however, that as with most advances in technology, bandwidth alone will not solve the problem. Instead, IT teams must take a strategic approach to not only delivering high-quality video applications but also protecting other mission-critical business traffic.

Demand for video is rising

A recent study by research firm Illuminas, commissioned by Cisco, found that 66% of the 150 global companies surveyed said they view video as the top benefit for advanced collaboration, and 34% said they expect to use video and Web conferencing for internal collaboration within the next five years. More than 30% said video and Web conferencing are among their top five investment priorities.

For Tarleton, this is a long way from the grass-roots movement that brought video to his company in 2000. "Videoconferencing began in one business unit because the leaders wanted to communicate with their people without traveling to each site for town-hall meetings," he says. Since then, with a directive from top executives, he has moved under the IT umbrella and supports more than 300 live Webcasts a year. "Many are brown-bag sessions so that engineers can knowledge-share," he says.

Val Oliva, director of product strategy for Foundry Networks' Enterprise Business Unit in Santa Clara, Calif., says it's exactly this kind of uptick in corporate-sanctioned, user-generated content that is forcing IT organizations to retool their networks. From posting training videos on the corporate intranet to creating on-the-fly, live feature sheets for sales teams, organizations are becoming treasure troves of video-based information, he says.