Shocks and surprises for enterprises regarding network use
By
30 Sep 2009
Social networking and its hunger for corporate bandwidth could be choking the networks of major organisations and IT departments appear to be unwilling or unable to deal with it.
I admit I was shocked to hear, during a briefing last week, with application delivery network specialist Blue Coat systems, that more than half the bandwidth of big enterprises is today taken up with non-business critical and recreational applications.
And, what’s more, Facebook, YouTube and flash video are often three of the top five applications on corporate networks, which could be running hundreds of applications, many unknown to the IT department, that are not contributing to the business.
Admittedly, Blue Coat was trumpeting their latest software upgrade for their PacketShaper applications, which they maintain provide businesses with application accountability plus network visibility, acceleration and security. But what they had to say about the impact of social networking on enterprises today should make any self-respecting senior IT executive sit up and take notice.
Under-estimating network waste
Blue Coat said more than 54 million users send more than a billion requests a week into their cloud so they speak with some authority. They maintain that, after undergoing a PacketShaper scan of their networks, it’s common for enterprises to under-estimate the number of applications running through their ‘pipes’ by a factor of up to 10.
The problem seems to be that IT shops in enterprises have lost control of what’s happening on their networks. Users in the business can now very easily plug in to software-as-a-service in the cloud, sign up to bandwidth hungry applications and even develop their own programs, all without the IT people knowing about it. It’s a new world of user pro-activity and the IT systems people are losing control.
During the briefing, Blue Coat’s two ‘Steves’—director of product management, Steven House and senior director, corporate communications, Steve Schick—had some scary examples about what could be happening.
They highlighted the case of a marketing research company based in the US which was having problems connecting with its South Africa office. The bandwidth on its WAN link was completely consumed and they found that 75 per cent of that traffic was Facebook—hardly profit generating for the firm involved.
Facebook a work tool?
An yet, in another case, Blue Coat had a customer who had blocked Facebook and within 48 hours it had to unblock it—marketing and HR had complained that it was critical to them getting their job done.
Other enterprises with slow Net responses have discovered that one of their employees spends all day listening to Internet radio, choking their network for mission-critical business applications.
What’s more, Blue Coat told me that IT departments don’t really want to have to be the ‘network police’—they don’t like having to tell users what they can and cannot do.
The consumer technology push into the corporate world is a challenge that is not going to go away. Policies completely banning the use of certain ‘recreational’ programs from the workplace, will simply not work, unless employees are convinced and involved in the discussion of the reasons why.
Firm policies needed
It seems that enterprises need to develop firm policies in this area, but they will only succeed if they consult closely with their people and involve them in the process. What’s more, there has to be an executive willingness, including from the IT department, to enforce the policy.
The Steves said the economic downturn had certainly prompted many enterprises to move to re-gaining control of their networks.
They say their PacketShaper system also provides for gentle pop-up warnings to appear on corporate user screens when programs that may not be contributing to the business, are accessed.
I suspect such softly, softly approaches are better than reverting to the big stick, because employees will only abide by corporate policy if they are convinced it’s the right thing to do.
Ross O. Storey, currently the Managing Editor of Fairfax Business Media Asia, is responsible for the editorial content and production of MIS Asia, CIO Asia, Computerworld Singapore and Computerworld Malaysia magazines.
