"Second Screens" Are Killing Enterprise IT Networks

Learn more about Gigamon

Despite techies having argued for years that having a second computer screen is a great way to improve productivity in the workplace, a new study from Gigamon revealed that many people today use their additional monitor to stream music and watch sporting events — and companies are struggling to cope with the extra internet bandwidth.

The study — which was carried out at Infosecurity Europe in June 2019 and studied the attitudes of 217 IT professionals — revealed that 84 percent of organizations today offer their employees a second screen, however 59 percent believe these are or could be being used for non-work-related activity, like streaming music or watching videos.

With the Women’s World Cup already underway, many employees today will be using their second screens to watch games, however this will be putting a significant amount of strain on corporate IT networks.

The study also revealed that 36 percent of IT professionals believe that more than half of their organization’s internet-traffic is non-work-related and, worryingly, 73 percent do not have the software in place to handle the extra bandwidth this is putting on their IT network.

This added pressure could also be having a damaging impact as it could result in customers having a poor digital experience, with website performance appearing sluggish.

During major global sporting events, it is anticipated that employees will be streaming games which could put even more pressure on networks, or even topple them. The study also asked respondents which applications bring the most malware into the work place and 17 percent said TV streaming apps.

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"Second Screens" Are Killing Enterprise IT Networks

Learn more about Gigamon

Despite techies having argued for years that having a second computer screen is a great way to improve productivity in the workplace, a new study from Gigamon revealed that many people today use their additional monitor to stream music and watch sporting events — and companies are struggling to cope with the extra internet bandwidth.

The study — which was carried out at Infosecurity Europe in June 2019 and studied the attitudes of 217 IT professionals — revealed that 84 percent of organizations today offer their employees a second screen, however 59 percent believe these are or could be being used for non-work-related activity, like streaming music or watching videos.

With the Women’s World Cup already underway, many employees today will be using their second screens to watch games, however this will be putting a significant amount of strain on corporate IT networks.

The study also revealed that 36 percent of IT professionals believe that more than half of their organization’s internet-traffic is non-work-related and, worryingly, 73 percent do not have the software in place to handle the extra bandwidth this is putting on their IT network.

This added pressure could also be having a damaging impact as it could result in customers having a poor digital experience, with website performance appearing sluggish.

During major global sporting events, it is anticipated that employees will be streaming games which could put even more pressure on networks, or even topple them. The study also asked respondents which applications bring the most malware into the work place and 17 percent said TV streaming apps.

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6 Signals That an Architectural Shift Is Underway Across Enterprise Networks

A major architectural shift is underway across enterprise networks, according to a new global study from Cisco. As AI assistants, agents, and data-driven workloads reshape how work gets done, they're creating faster, more dynamic, more latency-sensitive, and more complex network traffic. Combined with the ubiquity of connected devices, 24/7 uptime demands, and intensifying security threats, these shifts are driving infrastructure to adapt and evolve ...

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Is Better Release Management the Solution to the Persistent Banking App Downtime?

The development of banking apps was supposed to provide users with convenience, control and piece of mind. However, for thousands of Halifax customers recently, a major mobile outage caused the exact opposite, leaving customers unable to check balances, or pay bills, sparking widespread frustration. This wasn't an isolated incident ... So why are these failures still happening? ...

Understanding Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: Why They Matter and How to Stay Protected

Cyber threats are growing more sophisticated every day, and at their forefront are zero-day vulnerabilities. These elusive security gaps are exploited before a fix becomes available, making them among the most dangerous threats in today's digital landscape ... This guide will explore what these vulnerabilities are, how they work, why they pose such a significant threat, and how modern organizations can stay protected ...

Data Center Outages Becoming Less Frequent

The prevention of data center outages continues to be a strategic priority for data center owners and operators. Infrastructure equipment has improved, but the complexity of modern architectures and evolving external threats presents new risks that operators must actively manage, according to the Data Center Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute ...

Instrumentation Score: Quantifying Telemetry Quality

As observability engineers, we navigate a sea of telemetry daily. We instrument our applications, configure collectors, and build dashboards, all in pursuit of understanding our complex distributed systems. Yet, amidst this flood of data, a critical question often remains unspoken, or at best, answered by gut feeling: "Is our telemetry actually good?" ... We're inviting you to participate in shaping a foundational element for better observability: the Instrumentation Score ...

Automating While Keeping Humans in the Loop

We're inching ever closer toward a long-held goal: technology infrastructure that is so automated that it can protect itself. But as IT leaders aggressively employ automation across our enterprises, we need to continuously reassess what AI is ready to manage autonomously and what can not yet be trusted to algorithms ...

AI Factories: Scaling Intelligence with Observability, Reliability and Efficiency

Much like a traditional factory turns raw materials into finished products, the AI factory turns vast datasets into actionable business outcomes through advanced models, inferences, and automation. From the earliest data inputs to the final token output, this process must be reliable, repeatable, and scalable. That requires industrializing the way AI is developed, deployed, and managed ...

Think You've Heard Everything About the Debate over RTO? Here's the Big Thing Leaders Are Missing

Almost half (48%) of employees admit they resent their jobs but stay anyway, according to research from Ivanti ... This has obvious consequences across the business, but we're overlooking the massive impact of resenteeism and presenteeism on IT. For IT professionals tasked with managing the backbone of modern business operations, these numbers spell big trouble ...

Beyond the MACH Hype: Why Your Commerce Platform Is Not Helping You Win DX or CX

For many B2B and B2C enterprise brands, technology isn't a core strength. Relying on overly complex architectures (like those that follow a pure MACH doctrine) has been flagged by industry leaders as a source of operational slowdown, creating bottlenecks that limit agility in volatile market conditions ...

Effective FinOps: Moving from Recommendations to Risks

FinOps champions crucial cross-departmental collaboration, uniting business, finance, technology and engineering leaders to demystify cloud expenses. Yet, too often, critical cost issues are softened into mere "recommendations" or "insights" — easy to ignore. But what if we adopted security's battle-tested strategy and reframed these as the urgent risks they truly are, demanding immediate action? ...