video latency
Internet video surveillance traffic
nearly doubled in 2015, from 272
petabytes per month at the end
of 2014 to 516 petabytes per
month in 2015. Internet video
surveillance traffic will increase
ten-fold between 2015 and 2020.
Globally, 3.9 per cent of all Internet
video traffic will be due to video
surveillance in 2020, up from 1.5
per cent in 2015.
nScreenMedia also claims
that ‘New data from Ericsson and
FreeWheel paints a rosy picture for
mobile video. Mobile data volume is
set to increase seven-fold over the
next six years, with video’s share
increasing from 50 per cent to 70
per cent. The smartphone looks
to be in the driver’s seat.’ To t op
this, Forbes reported in September
2015 that ‘Facebook users send on
average 31.25 million messages and
view 2.77 million videos every minute,
and we are seeing a massive growth
in video and photo data, where every
minute up to 300 hours of video are
uploaded to YouTube alone.’
Data centres: Be ready!
So why are all of these statistics
significant? Well, data centres need
to be ready for not just the present,
but the future and ongoing upsurge
in video data. The key problem is that
video and audio can be impeded by
the effects of network latency. Slow
networks can leave the reputations of
customers – whose own ‘consumers’
use video for a variety of reasons –
tarnished. In a commercial situation,
this could lead to lost business. A fast
network from any data centre will in
contrast engender confidence.
‘You can’t accelerate it all
because it’s going at a fixed speed.
It’s not just about videoconferencing,
it’s about video in general. There are
so many different applications for
video, and all of them can be affected
by bandwidth or latency – or both,’
says David Trossell – CEO and CTO
of Bridgeworks. He adds, ‘How we
produce and consume and store
information has changed dramatically
over the past few years with the
YouTube and Facebook generation
growing up.’
Rearchitect infrastructure
‘Whilst we still absorb much or our
information via the written word, we
are moving to a much more visual,
picture based society. And as they
say, a picture is worth a thousand
words: a short instruction video of
a minute or so, could take 10 times
longer to explain with a traditional
written manual,’ continues Trossell.
This means that data centres, in
his view, have to recognise this
fact; they have to ‘rearchitect their
infrastructure to suit’, and ask, ‘Are
we going to have to increase our
data storage to accommodate the
Content must appear immediately on our PCs, mobiles, tablets,
phablets, and smart televisions when and where we want it.
increase in storage?’ They also need
to realise that many of the traditional
techniques for dealing with data such
as compression and deduplication
are ineffective with compressed video
files. He believes the increasing video
data volumes will also force data
centres to review the bandwidth they
have put in place to connect with the
outside world.
He rightly comments that nobody
these days wants to wait. People
want their video content now, and
they are impatient. Content must
appear immediately on our PCs,
mobiles, tablets, phablets, and
smart televisions when and where
we want it.
‘With the rise of data traversing
the Internet, the rapid use of more
and more entertainment streaming
services is going to push the play out
to the edges to maintain a service
level to the consumer,’ Trossell warns.
He adds that this issue is not just
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