Controversial TV show Big Brother uses Webcams to transmit 24-hour coverage to viewers via the Internet.
As a result, IT managers are under pressure to prevent their precious bandwidth from being eaten up by recreational use. As well as blocking certain URLs, IT managers should consider using blocking software and policy-based bandwidth management.
During its peak in July 2000, more than 700,000 users visited the site, spending an average of 25.3 minutes per session viewing the programme. This put a severe strain on many corporate networks, restricting bandwidth and causing some to crash. It was estimated to have cost UK businesses £1.4m a week.
This year, IT managers have realised the potentially disastrous effects Big Brother can have on their systems and have acted accordingly, by blocking employee access to the site during working hours. As one IT manager said, 'We had bandwidth issues last year, and blocked the URL. This was the first, and remains the only blocked address.'
But with competition for network resources increasing through the proliferation of streaming media, the strain will increase. Online shopping, sporting events and even job sites can drain valuable resources. Add to this the potential legal minefield of users accessing inappropriate material such as pornography at work, and IT managers have serious problems on their hands.
A recent survey by Websense, a supplier of Internet filtering tools, found 70 percent of all pornography traffic and 60 percent of all online purchases occur in working hours. According to Websense, the average worker with Internet access spends an hour a day surfing for personal reasons. It predicted that travel sites alone would this year cost firms around the world $18bn in lost productivity.
Some managers have set up software such as Baltimore's PornSweeper, part of the MimeSweeper suite, to block inappropriate content. Banning troublesome URLs is also a fairly painless exercise requiring no extra software. But there are more sophisticated methods of protecting valuable bandwidth.
Policy-based bandwidth management is one method of ensuring employees' activities do not infringe on the network. It can be used to allocate priorities to different types of data passing in and out of the network, and to particular employees or departments. This ensures that mission-critical applications work, no matter what is happening on the network. At busy times, those trying to access streaming media for personal use will have to wait a lot longer for access. Many companies now offer tools for this purpose, including Allot, Packeteer and Lucent.
Jeff Barker, product marketing director at Packeteer, said, '[Policy-based management products] deliver effective bandwidth management and application quality of service for each point in the network, from rem-ote sites to the datacentre.'
But prohibiting all personal traffic online could damage morale and reduce efficiency, so policies need to be set with care. Geoff Haggart, vice president of Europe for Websense, said, 'The Internet is a valuable business tool, but it can be a distraction. Firms must strike a balance and be aware that employees do not object to having their Internet access at work managed.'
