Olympics 2.0

Away from all the political chaos at home, people across the world aren’t too bothered with who is winning our elections, they’re eagerly waiting instead for the Olympics to start next month — but is Egypt’s information highway ready for us to follow our players in the games? Sufian Dweik, regional manager in the MENA region of Brocade Communications Systems’, an global networking solutions provider, warns in a press release that not only “athletes need to watch out for the hurdles in the run to the 2012 games”, but IT companies too. The games will drastically affect the global communications’ behavior of viewers in July and August, and companies need to take note fast. The world is watching — virtually According to Brocade, around 10 million people will be visiting the 2012 Olympics official website, and nearly nine million sports fans are predicted to be following the games’ updates online. On the other hand, news wires will be publishing reports and uploading photos while hundreds of thousands of employees, athletes, volunteers and affiliate organizations will be using the on-site communications network in one way or the other. Viewers broadcast demands have significantly differed as well with the development of High Definition (HD) and 3 Dimensional (3D) — something that will increase the data demands on broadcasters’ networks. According to the press release, HD uses up to 120 megabytes per second (mbps), 3D consumes a colossal 240 mbps, while Standard Definition (SD) only requires 50 mbps. And it isn’t any different with online streaming. BBC, the official broadcaster of the Olympics, is dedicating 24 of its channels for airing the Olympics, half of which will be available in HD — this is how huge broadcasters believe the event is. Social networks are expected to also experience increased traffic and pressure on the networks, since this will practically be the first Olympics that will fully engage with fans through social media. There will be a Facebook page for every national team and almost all athletes will create their private blogs, twitter accounts and Facebook pages. Information overload In Egypt, online consumption has already shot up since the January 25 revolution, with Facebook and Twitter reach increasing significantly.  While Internet penetration has increased from 24 percent in December 2011 to over 30 percent last December, Facebook penetration grew from 12 percent January 25 to 29 percent in April 2012. So with Egyptians already using the Internet significantly more than they did before, whether to socialize or follow the news on politics, the use is about to increase to follow our Egyptian players in London. Brocade urges corporate IT networks to “predict workloads and potential areas of stress upon corporate networks and manage them accordingly.” It also adds that “being able to flex and react to consumer demands without affecting performance or initiating an outage — whether it is to increase capacity within 24 hours, or simply add extra bandwidth” will keep users satisfied with the service and competitors at a weaker position. Brocade continues to stress on the significance of an all-inclusive “planning, testing and simulation-building environment will ensure that business applications are resilient and aren’t close to falling over anytime.” Egyptian corporate IT networks will face the same problems their colleagues face worldwide, if not more with all what’s happening in the country’s political scene. Hopefully, with these tips, they’ll be able to keep up through a period that will expectedly result in such an increased demand and keep us all online next month.