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Surviving Application Performance Madness

Steve Riley

Business networks today seemingly have more intense loads placed on them every day. And nowhere is this more evident this time of year than the annual March Madness NCAA basketball tournament. What was once a small-screen, low-resolution video is now available in full HD, potentially taxing network resources. With employees from all over the organization wanting to stream the games online, organizations run the risk of their business-critical applications suffering in performance.

To determine corporate attitudes toward the situation, Riverbed surveyed employees about who in their organization will be streaming games and what their policies are toward the situation. The survey uncovered that employees of different age and seniority level had varied attitudes about this use of company resources.

Employee Streaming Habits

The survey identified employees as millennials, generation-x, or baby boomers. And it turns out that the younger the employee, the more entitled they feel about streaming March Madness games. One-third of millennials feel they should be allowed to watch the games, compared to only 17 percent of baby boomers. Millennials are also more likely to believe that a larger number of employees overall will watch the games. As far as who actually plans to watch the games, 43 percent of millennials say they will, compared to only 18 percent of baby boomers.

The survey respondents reported that 44 percent of non-management employees are likely to stream games, compared with just 34 percent of middle management and 30 percent of senior management. This is confirmed by IT staff, which also believe that the lower-level staff have a greater intention of streaming games. One key difference, however, is that 53 percent of IT employees believe that the CEO will stream games. Also, IT employees admit they are more likely than other employees to stream games.

Corporate Streaming Policies

One thing standing between employees and their basketball games is corporate policies. Employees of different ages differ in their opinions here as well. A full 69 percent of baby boomers believe that corporate policy prohibits streaming, compared to only 48 percent of millennials. The truth, however, is that only 37 percent of businesses actually have a policy against streaming the games. Nearly as many (29 percent) allow streaming at least on a limited basis. In addition, 27 percent have no formal policy in place forbidding streaming.

The Impact of Streaming on the Network

With bandwidth being tied up in video streaming during the March Madness tournament, it’s no surprise that the network suffers the consequences. Employees have the impression that the most impacted resource is slower apps. And IT agrees with this, with 47 percent noting that it’s a big deal. Their perception is slightly different in other areas, however. Employees feel that video streaming can cause network freezes and more sluggish customer-facing assets. IT, however, reports that in addition to the customer-facing asset challenges there are problems with the quality of service for its VoIP services, which is a significant impediment to business operations. In general, IT found these problems to be more serious than other employees did.

Mitigating March Madness Challenges

When it comes to lessening the impact of video streaming on application performance, there are different approaches a business can take. One idea is setting up televisions in the break room, with the hope that actively providing a way to watch games will reduce the incidents of individual employees streaming games. A second approach is to meter Internet traffic to reduce the performance problems with the network. Another is to monitor network usage in order to identify users who are using the most bandwidth. Finally, organizations can elect to block access to the games.

Unsurprisingly, there are gaps between what employees feel are appropriate measures and what IT feels is best. A low percentage of employees – 19 percent and 21 percent, respectively – object to setting up a TV or metering traffic. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) believe it’s inappropriate for IT to monitor traffic, and even more (35 percent) think it’s wrong to completely block access. Most IT employees agree that setting up a TV or metering traffic would be appropriate; in fact, only 7 percent opposed metering. But a much lower number of IT workers object to monitoring traffic (13 percent) or blocking streaming altogether (21 percent).

While March Madness is an exciting time for the sports enthusiasts in the office, it’s not always such a happy time for IT. In order to accommodate an appropriate level of employee enjoyment without negatively impacting business functions, each organization must decide how to manage its application performance. But it’s not just during March – these lessons apply any time of year, during times when employee activity and other demands place a heavy load on network resources. Intelligent management of application performance is a year-round need for businesses, and preparing now will ensure uninterrupted resources every day.

Steve Riley is Deputy CTO at Riverbed Technology.

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Surviving Application Performance Madness

Steve Riley

Business networks today seemingly have more intense loads placed on them every day. And nowhere is this more evident this time of year than the annual March Madness NCAA basketball tournament. What was once a small-screen, low-resolution video is now available in full HD, potentially taxing network resources. With employees from all over the organization wanting to stream the games online, organizations run the risk of their business-critical applications suffering in performance.

To determine corporate attitudes toward the situation, Riverbed surveyed employees about who in their organization will be streaming games and what their policies are toward the situation. The survey uncovered that employees of different age and seniority level had varied attitudes about this use of company resources.

Employee Streaming Habits

The survey identified employees as millennials, generation-x, or baby boomers. And it turns out that the younger the employee, the more entitled they feel about streaming March Madness games. One-third of millennials feel they should be allowed to watch the games, compared to only 17 percent of baby boomers. Millennials are also more likely to believe that a larger number of employees overall will watch the games. As far as who actually plans to watch the games, 43 percent of millennials say they will, compared to only 18 percent of baby boomers.

The survey respondents reported that 44 percent of non-management employees are likely to stream games, compared with just 34 percent of middle management and 30 percent of senior management. This is confirmed by IT staff, which also believe that the lower-level staff have a greater intention of streaming games. One key difference, however, is that 53 percent of IT employees believe that the CEO will stream games. Also, IT employees admit they are more likely than other employees to stream games.

Corporate Streaming Policies

One thing standing between employees and their basketball games is corporate policies. Employees of different ages differ in their opinions here as well. A full 69 percent of baby boomers believe that corporate policy prohibits streaming, compared to only 48 percent of millennials. The truth, however, is that only 37 percent of businesses actually have a policy against streaming the games. Nearly as many (29 percent) allow streaming at least on a limited basis. In addition, 27 percent have no formal policy in place forbidding streaming.

The Impact of Streaming on the Network

With bandwidth being tied up in video streaming during the March Madness tournament, it’s no surprise that the network suffers the consequences. Employees have the impression that the most impacted resource is slower apps. And IT agrees with this, with 47 percent noting that it’s a big deal. Their perception is slightly different in other areas, however. Employees feel that video streaming can cause network freezes and more sluggish customer-facing assets. IT, however, reports that in addition to the customer-facing asset challenges there are problems with the quality of service for its VoIP services, which is a significant impediment to business operations. In general, IT found these problems to be more serious than other employees did.

Mitigating March Madness Challenges

When it comes to lessening the impact of video streaming on application performance, there are different approaches a business can take. One idea is setting up televisions in the break room, with the hope that actively providing a way to watch games will reduce the incidents of individual employees streaming games. A second approach is to meter Internet traffic to reduce the performance problems with the network. Another is to monitor network usage in order to identify users who are using the most bandwidth. Finally, organizations can elect to block access to the games.

Unsurprisingly, there are gaps between what employees feel are appropriate measures and what IT feels is best. A low percentage of employees – 19 percent and 21 percent, respectively – object to setting up a TV or metering traffic. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) believe it’s inappropriate for IT to monitor traffic, and even more (35 percent) think it’s wrong to completely block access. Most IT employees agree that setting up a TV or metering traffic would be appropriate; in fact, only 7 percent opposed metering. But a much lower number of IT workers object to monitoring traffic (13 percent) or blocking streaming altogether (21 percent).

While March Madness is an exciting time for the sports enthusiasts in the office, it’s not always such a happy time for IT. In order to accommodate an appropriate level of employee enjoyment without negatively impacting business functions, each organization must decide how to manage its application performance. But it’s not just during March – these lessons apply any time of year, during times when employee activity and other demands place a heavy load on network resources. Intelligent management of application performance is a year-round need for businesses, and preparing now will ensure uninterrupted resources every day.

Steve Riley is Deputy CTO at Riverbed Technology.

Hot Topics

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IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

In March, New Relic published the State of Observability for Media and Entertainment Report to share insights, data, and analysis into the adoption and business value of observability across the media and entertainment industry. Here are six key takeaways from the report ...

Regardless of their scale, business decisions often take time, effort, and a lot of back-and-forth discussion to reach any sort of actionable conclusion ... Any means of streamlining this process and getting from complex problems to optimal solutions more efficiently and reliably is key. How can organizations optimize their decision-making to save time and reduce excess effort from those involved? ...

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