Member Article

Video could account for 1.9ZB of internet traffic in 2020

According to a new report, video will account for up to 1.9 zettabytes (ZB) of internet traffic this year – up 12 percent on its pre-COVID-19 forecast. That’s equal to 200 billion hours of Netflix viewing or Zoom video calls. Even in 2021, when research firm Omdia expects restrictions to ease, traffic will be up to nine percent higher than previously forecast, as video remains part of the ‘new normal.’

With this projected growth in video for entertainment and communication, a question remains as to how businesses can ensure availability in a post-COVID world.

“With the rise of remote working, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are being forced to ensure uptime for both their employees and consumers – whether it’s a member of staff hosting a video conference via Zoom, utilising other cloud applications such as Microsoft Office 365, or someone streaming their favourite show on Netflix,” explains John Rakowski, VP of strategy at LogicMonitor. “Availability has become synonymous with performance and the most valuable digital business commodity, however many businesses are still experiencing IT outages at an alarming rate. Omdia’s research shows that this problem will likely get much worse and so it’s important for businesses to remember that no company is immune. Indeed, we have already seen businesses struggling with IT outages during lockdown and, as we reach the recovery phase, it’s important that businesses are prepared for the ‘new normal.’

“Intelligent, contextual monitoring with a focus on observability and the detection of performance anomalies quickly through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is essential for enterprises, because it allows organisations to fully understand their business and its potential vulnerabilities, plus how to make the right decisions quickly,” continued Rakowski. “Monitoring platforms that provide unified, real-time performance visibility and have AIOps capabilities, allow IT teams to see not only their own complex network, but also servers, storage, virtualisation, containers, databases, and put this in context of the overall IT services being delivered – whether on-premise, in remote data centres or in a mix of public clouds, no matter if they’re customer or employee facing. This visibility allows IT teams to anticipate performance issues before they become critical, or remediate them sooner if they do occur, resulting in better management and performance of critical IT services for both internal and external users. Strategic adoption of unified, intelligent monitoring platforms helps enterprises avoid costly outages and deliver upon their commitments to customers – both of which will be critical in a post-COVID-19 world.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by D Baker .