Sandvine Inc. published some very interesting analysis last week on Internet traffic. Here are our observations and perspective from the analysis:

Source: Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight: Netflix Rising report

Media Distribution over the internet is by far the largest bandwidth driver and the biggest growth area for Telecommunications Companies, Content Delivery Network (CDN) providers and Cloud Service providers. This implies that protocols that use TCP for video delivery will continue to benefit from optimization technologies like Internap’s Accelerated IP (XIP™) service. Where XIP shines is in situations where you have high latency and are transmitting large files or streaming video. This is the case for the vast majority of video delivery, whether on-demand or live. Furthermore; as Netflix, Google, Apple and other content distributors move into new markets, they will find that higher latency connections are much more common than here in the United States. This reinforces the case for delivery platforms that have integrated reliable TCP acceleration capabilities at every phase of the process. Another observation we made is the variety of devices that are being used for streaming solutions and how the data clearly points to the Over-the-Top (OTT) video market finally taking off.

Definition: Over-the-Top Video or OTT is video and related television programming delivered via the Internet and bypassing traditional pay-for-television connections. Content is usually delivered via wireless devices existing in the household.

As reported, nearly two-thirds of Netflix traffic is driven through PlayStation PS3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox gaming consoles. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would have predicted the extent of this development just five years ago and the concentration driven by just a few services. Surprisingly, the PC rated number three in the top devices – with only 20% of all traffic delivery overall. Most pundits in the early 2000’s would have told you that the PC was the next TV. According to Sandvine’s analysis, they would be wrong.

Hopefully you’ve noticed that we have rolled out a new look to the Internap brand with the core message of IT IQ: Intelligent IT Infrastructure solutions that take your business to a higher level™. I, of course, am very excited about our new messaging, but am clearly not a marketing person. So this week I’d like to give you a perspective on what IT IQ means to me.

The term “paradigm shift” gets used with wild abandon in technology circles, but its applicability to cloud services is very appropriate. As we and others have highlighted, we are only at the beginning of the shift to cloud. We’ve all had to get comfortable with the concepts, start migrating in-house services elsewhere, change from capex to opex ways of thinking, envision how applications will be re-architected, the list goes on. Not to over-simplify, but IT departments can be notoriously under-staffed and always under pressure to keep email, CRM, ERP and all the other myriad of applications up and running.

Visionary CIOs and CTOs have increasingly seen the benefits of outsourcing their IT services, including the ability to focus on core competencies, generate financial savings and, in some cases, leverage IT services as a competitive differentiator. As we progress to the cloud, discerning IT professionals are seeking service providers with the ability to consistently and reliably deliver these benefits. We describe this ability as IT IQ – a blend of intelligent solutions and industry expertise. The complexity of today’s IT environment requires platform flexibility, intelligent technologies and highly trained support staff that enable you to deliver the best performance to your end users.

At Internap, we’re helping companies – ranging from the Fortune 500 enterprise to the cutting-edge start-up – smartly deliver their online applications on a daily basis. We are unique in our ability to offer a spectrum of services that are all designed to be the starting point for shifting your IT Infrastructure to our infrastructure; whether colocation, https://www.inap.com/managed-hosting/, or cloud. And all of these are built on top of intelligent, high-performance connectivity services that deliver the best possible end-user experience through route-optimized IP, TCP acceleration and lightning-fast content delivery. Shifting your IT services to an external provider doesn’t make the problems of running and managing it go away, but it does allow us to use our collective intelligence for you.

So what does IT IQ mean to me? It represents an opportunity to be a complete IT Infrastructure service provider that has built up its value in developing technologies and services to solve core IT operational problems that you may not have even thought about yet. What does IT IQ mean to you?