Online video really is the future of the internet, but from a networking perspective that can be a bit of a problem.
Those of us who manage datacenters may secretly loathe how YouTube affects a network's performance.
Sure, the site has got some really funny clips, but what it does to limit network capabilities can be problematic for your job.
Perhaps someday in the future the use of video will become something that is a part of our workday - videoconferencing comes to mind in this aspect.
But for now, there's a big problem with sites like YouTube because important network traffic such as Voice over Internet Protocol takes a hit and leads to things like poor call quality for example.
Essential traffic like this is very important to end users, as they might not realize how traffic is routed.
When a network goes down, it is easier to troubleshoot than more complex bandwidth-related problems such as this.
That's where network performance management comes into play.
Instead of simply blocking YouTube, which would appear to be an unpopular move in your organization, you can optimize traffic in order to get the best results.
That would mean analyzing traffic via network performance monitoring to be able to see flow data and adjusting device configurations.
Of course, you need network performance management, or NPM, tools to do this.
Not only would you be able to look at flow data through and NPM, you'll be able to see specific users and there utilization on the network if you want to.
Being able to drill down into measurable statistics can give you the ability to make the case for data-backed decisions either for you or management on controlling what could be a serious YouTube problem over time.
Because you are able to customize an NPM to fit your needs, you'll be able to look at not only YouTube but similar sites such as Vimeo and Hulu.
If you are simply optimizing via site traffic, you'll need to also use your NPM to monitor this.
Because if users start having a problem watching videos, they're going to look for alternatives unless they think they should call support for their video-viewing troubles.