Office own goal

There are a number of different approaches that IT managers can take in order to ensure that their internet gateway is fully available for business use, rather than overwhelmed by online World Cup fever, industry experts say.

Certain organisations may take a strict approach by attempting to block web access to all known sites that stream the World Cup live. By using web filtering systems, IT management can block access to global sports sites, though users are likely to be unhappy and may still spend time attempting to circumvent the blocking.

A second option, says Nigel Hawthorn, Blue Coat Systems EMEA Marketing vice-president, would be to block the protocols used for streaming, however this may include all Real, Microsoft and Flash streams - and in doing so, block internal streams, streaming news and standard parts of websites, interfering with work-related web information.

Instead of either of the above approaches, organisations may look to adopt a more flexible attitude that keeps employee morale high and minimises any World Cup disruption.

IT management can improve their network infrastructure to reduce stream usage, optimise streaming data and allow users to time-shift the matches to be during normal breaks in the working day, as follows.

Firstly, bandwidth management devices at the internet egress point can be set to define one stream provider as 'approved' and given a high priority (management then encourage employees to use that stream), other streams are lower priority or blocked.

Secondly, appliances can be installed within the organisation's network to split the streams - meaning that one stream request can be sent to multiple users simultaneously. This greatly reduces the upstream bandwidth required.

Thirdly, WAN optimisation appliances that support streaming data can be deployed between offices to cache and optimise the protocols between them.

Fourthly, many of the stream splitting appliances can also cache the streams, allowing users to time-shift and watch the game later.

Happily, this doesn't mean installing four appliances, many devices can deliver multiple benefits in one.

In this way, management can allow video content whilst minimising the load on the internet gateway or branch office by caching locally through a proxy appliance.

Employees are then contented and the World Cup shouldn't impact access of business-related video or content on websites.

In summary, the World Cup only comes around once ever four years and should be cherished.

However, whilst we all want to keep abreast of all the latest action, organisations may want to stop and consider the impact the summer could have on their network resources and look at sensible ways in which to manage this down to an acceptable amount.

Above all, whether it's England against Brazil on a Wednesday at midday or Denmark v Ivory Coast on Monday in the afternoon, organisations must ensure that non-essential application traffic does not interfere with crucial business operations.