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Streaming Olympics Leaves Lessons in its Wake

With the 2012 Olympics now a matter for the history books, it's left to us to look back and see just what happened during those momentous events, and see if, perhaps, there are lessons to be learned to get ready for the 2016 Summer Games or the 2014 Winter Games. Indeed, a variety of lessons were left behind by this year's Olympics, which saw a greater use of streaming technology and social media than ever before.

One important lesson was to not underestimate impact. Streaming takes a lot of bandwidth, and while streaming was in great force this time around--NBC put up fully 30 hours of streaming content, and for those who could authenticate with cable providers, more was on hand--it also has a lot of potential to do damage. Streaming depends on the same bandwidth that company front-facing websites do or a doctor's medical records do. The infrastructure needs to improve all around.

Second, mobile devices play a bigger part than some would expect. Mobile devices provide access to entertainment on the go. A trip to the dentist, doctor or even just waiting in line at the DMV is a lot easier with some streaming media on hand, but at the same time, that bandwidth has to come from somewhere. Mobile devices accessing Wi-Fi connections or 3G or 4G connections to stream media are pulling bandwidth, and that too is a drain on infrastructure.

The obvious answer is "more bandwidth," but that is an extremely expensive process that no one, especially in the midst of a down economy, is particularly interested in embarking on. There are other solutions available, however, that don't require near the expense or difficulty to institute. Being able to catch failure before it happens, like with performance monitoring tools, or having a better idea of when a network is either actually overcrowded or looking to be overcrowded with traffic analysis tools, or even just being able to spot when specific programs are having issues with application monitoring can go a long way toward keeping a network up, stable, and operating even in high-traffic situations.

Users' desire for streaming video will never fully go away, so the only thing left to do is to prepare for it, and prepare to work with it. The proper tools can help make that happen.

Want to learn more about today’s powerful mobile Internet ecosystem? Don't miss the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5 2012, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Mobility Tech Conference & Expo. Follow us on Twitter.

Edited by Rachel Ramsey

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