Is Your Network Really Ready for Video? 10 Tips

Every day, more companies are utilizing video applications to speak faster, collaborate and train better, and lower cycle occasions and travel expenses.

You are most likely already riding video streams in your network from YouTube, Skype, or surveillance cameras. Maybe you´re also handling videoconferencing.

How's the ride? Like voice, video over IP can instruct performance and quality issues.

"It takes only one bad video demand your executives to get rid of confidence inside your technology, plus they may never trust you again," states Jarrod Phelps, senior systems engineer at Milestone Technologies. Milestone, a 'cisco' Premier Certified Partner, is definitely an IT consultant and reseller partner that are experts in IT projects for LAN, WAN, data center, and videoconferencing.

Get ready for victory. Any small or medium-sized business supports more video traffic and user endpoints, give users a higher-quality video experience, and concurrently make sure the accessibility to other business applications. Following are a few tips for it, from experts which do it every single day.

Routing

Provision bandwidth. "The most typical mistake we´re seeing could it be tossing more bandwidth to the network, thinking that is what video needs," states John K'Meyer, senior solutions consultant at 'cisco' Gold Certified Partner MCPc. "But that is one waste of cash."

"The truth is, just how much bandwidth you'll need depends upon your network architecture, applications as well as their priority, and business processes and user needs," states Dominic Del Balso, director of engineering at MCPc, which delivers scalable methods to host, secure, and optimize an anyplace workspace, including helping clients build an infrastructure for collaborative and mobile work environments.

Consider an finish-to-finish architecture. "Consider the router like a policy implementer," states K'Meyer. An finish-to-finish IP architecture for example medianet can optimize the deployment and control over video endpoints and applications. And interactive video services in Cisco® Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2) can help to eliminate bandwidth needs by as much as 30 %.

LAN Switching

Segment traffic. "Establishing logical segments that feed right into a Layer 3 switch can prevent traffic broadcasts from overrunning one another, which help you pre-plan the caliber of service," states K'Meyer. He and Phelps say it is also generally a finest practice to place video traffic by itself VLANs.

Prioritize video traffic by utilizing switch port abilities for example:

• Service quality (QoS). Try not to depend on default configurations. Not every video packets should have a similar QoS marker. For instance, HD videoconference traffic ought to be marked differently than traffic from digital signs. "Medianet around the switch can instantly identify the unit type attached to the switch and hang the recording QoS correctly," states Phelps. "The QoS may change dynamically, making certain it's an finish-to-finish engagement." Medianet abilities are actually on 'cisco' Catalyst® 2960 and 2960-S, 3560, 3750-X, and 4500 Series switches.
• Granular rate restricting. It may guarantee bandwidth according to Ip, MAC address, and/or Layer 4 TCP and UDP information.

Scale up bandwidth. "It's important to assess your present situation and just how you'll scale up within the next 2 or 3 years," states Del Balso. Your organization may require merely a small technology refresh. "For instance, a switch with 1 Gigabit uplinks might be fine today, and when it upgrades modularly to 10 Gigabit you will not have to replace it all."

Wireless LAN (WLAN) and Wi-Fi

Align entry way density. Users might have 2 or 3 endpoint devices each typically needs a minimum of 1.5 Mbps symmetric bandwidth for streaming video. Areas rich in video usage--for example classrooms, telepresence rooms, and open-floor-plan workspaces--need high capacity. Rather of the 5000-square-feet cell, each entry way might need to cover about 1500 square ft. "Access points with 'cisco' CleanAir® technology instantly identify and adjust for RF interference to optimize performance," states Del Balso.

Convert video traffic from multicast to unicast. To beat Wi-Fi multicast packet loss rates, unicast technology inside a WLAN controller or entry way can transmit packets in the optimal speed to every client, whatever its performance rate. 'cisco' VideoStream software pushes the responsibility from the unicast conversion and distribution out onto multiple access points like the 'cisco' Aironet® 1140, 1260, 3500, and 3600 Series this conserves WLAN bandwidth and reduces traffic flow around the wired network. "VideoStream may also monitor the access points' capacity and deny a brand new video request whether it would overload them, stopping packet loss and call drops," states K'Meyer.

Management and Security

Apply your security policy and finest practices. "Like voice and knowledge, video frequently must be guaranteed," states Phelps. "For instance, port-based authentication on-premises is essential." Other guidelines include file encryption and VPNs for remote access, states K'Meyer. Integrated security that's context-aware simplifies and strengthens security, states Del Balso.

Simplify management. Consolidating your wireless, wired, routing, and switching technologies onto one network enables your company to make use of bandwidth more proficiently, improve video performance, and be sure an excellent experience for users. It eases demands onto it staff by simplifying provisioning, troubleshooting, and management. For instance, 'cisco' Unified Communications Manager can use call admission control, and medianet offers media monitoring.

Consider located solutions. You might want to delegate some video services, for example 'cisco' TelePresence®, from the 'cisco' Certified Partner. "You are able to rent or purchase the endpoints, so we can host the heartbeat and brains--the TelePresence Video Communication Server and TelePresence Management Suite--in addition to supply the firewall transversal," explains Colin Sturtevant, president and Chief executive officer at Plus6 Technologies. A 'cisco' Premier Certified Partner, Plus6 focuses on supplying visual communications as on-premises solutions and managed services.

When you wish to win with video technology, ready your network. All 'cisco' Certified Partners have been shown to effectively deploy, operate, and optimize 'cisco' solutions--and may become the perfect reliable advisor on a number of technologies.