“Two years ago, we weren’t doing one-third of what we’re doing now with video,” says Steve Worling, manager of IT infrastructure for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (Nascar). “We post a lot of video clips on the Intranet.”

As Nascar.com and its partners deliver ever more race highlights and driver interviews to fans, Worling’s employees must review them, which means they work with more video every day over the network. And all that video traffic must compete with the other apps on the WAN for bandwidth. Consequently, “We’re seeing those pipes get more congested,” Worling says. His peers in industries like travel and entertainment see a similar situation developing as their companies offer up more video to consumers, and their employees spend more time working with that video over the WAN.

At Nascar, Worling’s bandwidth woes are compounded by the fact that in certain departments like legal, users send a lot of large documents between offices on the WAN, taking up another big slice of the pipe. One result: Those users saw it taking longer to trade and open those important documents, says Worling. So now one of his priorities is to tackle the bandwidth problem.

Analyze This!

As an IT department tackles video, it faces several options: Block streaming video entirely, set defined limits or use a “dimmer switch” approach to ensure that critical apps get bandwidth first. To make sure employees understand the rules about video use, you’ll want to update your company’s Internet use policy. (For advice on how to do this, see “Your Internet Use Policy,” this page.) You may also need network appliances to help manage video, or a bigger Internet pipe. But the first item on your to-do list must be analysis.

Take a close look at what’s lurking on the WAN. Companies already use Web filtering technology to block offensive sites and monitor employee surfing, but it’s surprising how few have taken a cold hard look at bandwidth utilization on the WAN down to the level of specific apps and sites, says Forrester Research Senior Analyst Robert Whiteley. You need to understand which applications take what percentage of your overall bandwidth pipe, Whiteley says.

For instance, you want to know if employee visits to YouTube are taking 10 percent of that overall pipe, because you might need to make that bandwidth available for business apps—say the new Web apps you’re rolling out as part of your SOA strategy.