Video Nasty: Common mistakes made by organisations deploying videoconferencing

Previous perception of VC
Videoconferencing (VC) is nothing new, organisations have been seduced by the promise of the technology for decades and it wasn’t until the late 1990s, when compression technology allowed companies to send real time video messages, complete with sound, across an internet protocol (IP) network that it was taken seriously within the work place. Even then, latency (the time it takes for the data packet to arrive) made regular conversations almost impossible. Indeed, the quality was so bad that you wouldn't even recognise the other participants in the street afterwards. Furthermore, early videoconferencing equipment was bulky, expensive and usually restricted to a boardroom. This led to a rapid decline in the uptake of VC.

The comeback vid
However, today’s budget constraints and environmentally aware times mean that more and more organisations are considering videoconferencing once again as a cost saving and green alternative to executive travel. Recent results initiated by Nemertes Research stated that more than 73 percent of organisations are putting greater emphasis on using high quality video conferencing in place of travelling. The results also showed that more than 75 percent of IT executive respondents are currently using or planning to use room videoconferencing with more than 50 percent using or planning to use desktop video conferencing.
If there is a boardroom in the land that hasn't at least discussed slashing travel expenses in a bid to cut costs and improve on their carbon footprint in the last 12 months, then I would love to know who they are. Many in the City are already looking to follow HSBC's lead in going carbon-neutral. The global banking giant started deploying virtual boardrooms in its major global offices from June last year in a bid to save on executive air travel, just one of the examples of why VC has become the latest must-have technology item again. This is backed up by research firm Frost & Sullivan, who stated in a recent report that the market for high-end videoconferencing will reach $409.6m by 2013, as CIOs look to cut costs and carbon emissions alike.

VC errors in deployment
Unlike previous attempts, many of the solutions currently available on the market can now replicate the immediacy of an in-person meeting. In theory, the latest advancements in technology from the big players should make high quality videoconferencing a simple, cost effective communication process. The problem is that these new advancements place significant performance demands on an organisation’s network that must serve multiple functions to ensure a high quality user experience which is essential for future adoption and continued use. 
This is supported by recent research carried out by Blue Coat around flawed videoconferencing deployments which found a number of common mistakes made by organisations trying to deploy VC systems. For example, many firms were failing to assess the network’s readiness as well as being unable to provide adequate bandwidth for each session. In addition, organisations also lacked the ability to proactively monitor the quality of each session as well as failing to troubleshoot them if the quality was impaired.  Surprisingly, many organisations believed that their existing networking infrastructure was able to establish the proper quality necessary for VC. This approach can lead to improper management resulting in excessive bandwidth use or network congestion that prevents other business critical applications such as Oracle, from running properly.

These mistakes lead to number of technical problems during a VC experience. For example, one of the most common headaches is ‘frozen video’, where the image has ceased to advance while the audio may or may not continue. Furthermore, without the proper deployment, companies may also find that their video will be out of synchronisation, where the video is lagging behind the audio and is obscured by dark patches that are not part of the original image. Overall, this provides a poor user experience to organisations that may lack proper visibility of other applications running on the network which can affect their means to establish and maintain quality VC in sessions.

Managing an organisation’s VC experience
The good news is that there are now appliances available on the market that can ensure quality videoconferencing sessions over existing networks while protecting the quality of other applications. For example, appliances such as Blue Coat PacketShaper can monitor the performance of sessions to ensure that the appliance adjusts to network parameters if the quality is at risk as well as apply advanced compression technologies to reduce the bandwidth requirements for each session.

In summary, turbulent economic times have led to the second coming of VC technology. As a result, on demand training and live company events continue to expand as an effective means of communication across the network. Therefore, now more than ever, organisations must make sure that they have the best possible solutions in place so that video applications are managed and monitored to achieve the necessary levels of scale and quality while also ensuring the best possible performance for other applications across the network.