Managing a Video Network | Setting the Stage | April 14, 2005 | Network Computing

Managing a Video Network | Setting the Stage | April 14, 2005 | Network Computing: "Managing a Video Network
Setting the Stage

Designing your network to deliver video effectively isn't easy. We walk you through the set-up steps, including video type and quality, encoding and delivery.

Apr 14, 2005 | By Darrin Woods"

Adding video to your IP network can solve problems associated with running separate networks, but it can cause other headaches if you don't plan properly.

Before you build out your network for digital video, consider whether your users will be internal or external to your organization, or both. This will help determine the quality and type of video your network must deliver to users, as well as the extent of building and maintaining the network. Enterprise users can be more demanding of video quality, but you have more control over how video gets to them--you can shape and build your network with QoS (quality of service) and extra bandwidth. The downside is that video traffic competes with all other data traffic on your network. File transfers, e-mail and Web traffic can put up with delay or packet loss, but it's tough to view video if it starts and stops every time packets are re-sent.