The top five most demanding corporate applications
We look at five business applications that demand the most from their network
- Telepresence
All forms of video traffic over the corporate network drink bandwidth like nobody's business, and telepresence applications are the thirstiest of all. For years, the available technology wasn't up to making this a feasible service, and costs were high for all but the biggest firms. Now, telepresence is at the stage where it's possible to provide a high level of service with feature-rich additions for a lowcost, suitable for both internal and external communications.
- Desktop video
A more intimate point-to-point version of full telepresence, but again can be a drain on network capacity if everybody’s using it at once. We’re not talking about sneaky misuse of office facilities to check out YouTube, we’re talking a serious replacement for face-to-face meetings for which you never need to leave your cubicle.
- E-learning
How do you update all your employees with information on the latest application upgrade or the new company car pool policy? Why, with e-learning, of course, which takes the necessary training right to the desktop – regardless of whether the employee is located at head office, in a branch office or even at home. You’ll save money on bringing everyone together, but if you have a slow network, forget it.
- Collaboration tools
Analyst firm Forrester Research says that 70% of global enterprises are looking to deploy some sort of company-wide collaboration tool over the next year or so, driven by the recession to find clever ways to create efficiency. It used to be engineering firms and architects that needed networks that allowed multiple people to work together online on the same project – now it’s everyone.
- Grid computing
It may sound like one of those great Tomorrow’s World ideas that never quite took off – but it looks as if the age-old dream of harnessing all the processing power of an enterprise on a single grid may be back on the agenda. One of the reasons grid computing didn’t work 10 or 20 years ago was lack of network resource. Today’s NGN connectivity has the power to make it so.
