At its peak, 700Gb/sec of data was sprinting across the country’s networks. Whilst this is a huge triumph and achievement for the broadcaster, it marks a significant turning point for the future use of our mobile devices, both at home and at work, says Brocade’s UK Country Manager, Marcus Jewell.
Jewell states: "They called this the first Twitter Olympics. But perhaps more significantly, it was the first mobile video Olympics.
“It used to be warfare that gave impetus to invention. Now it is leisure - our addiction to smart phones and tablets drove the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon. Now that we expect high quality video on our devices, as shown by the staggering Olympics figures, businesses need to prepare their strategy for integrating high quality mobile video into their operations, both on the desktop and mobile devices,” he said.
"While the trend towards rich mobile media is hardly new,” continued Jewell, “The quality of the Olympic Games experience on mobile should spur businesses on to prepare to deploy high resolution, high performance mobile video conferencing capability into their own infrastructure. That will certainly require investment in next generation networks, such as Ethernet Fabric technology, that are specifically designed to cope with the enormous traffic volume that rich media traffic entails.
"But while businesses may blanch at the thought of investing in the 'luxury' of mobile, it's unthinkable that they do not consider it as part of their business strategy over the next two years. The use of mobile will permeate even the smallest businesses – from flexible working to cutting unnecessary travel. All this leads to benefits that reduce the total cost of ownership, bringing big and small benefits to drive ROI, from happier employees to reduced operational costs.
“Whether mobile is right for your business or not, it is important to consider whether it could become a big part of your operational strategy. Whilst it’s unlikely you will experience data flow at 700Gb/sec in the near future, the network will still require investment of time, attention and resources,” he concluded.