Managed Business Communications Service

The growth of video on the Internet has had a corresponding impact in the world of business, as meetings, presentations, security monitoring, training sessions, customer service, and other activities increasingly include video. This huge increase in video traffic is transforming the requirements of networking, and the Cisco^® IP Next-Generation Network (NGN) is well positioned for this transformation due to its end-to-end application awareness, giving every device the intelligence to treat a video application appropriately.

This solution overview provides information on the growth of video services among businesses; the demanding requirements of network video applications, technologies, and products from Cisco that enhance video collaboration, video surveillance, and digital media services; and examples of specific video service packages that may leverage the inherent intelligence and infrastructure of the Cisco IP NGN.

Video traffic accounts for a rapidly increasing percentage of global IP traffic, with the 2008 Cisco Visual Networking Index forecasting that video will make up 90 percent of consumer traffic by 2012. Businesses are embracing video, too. A 2008 study of companies in the United States and Europe by Chadwick Martin Bailey found that a majority of respondents surveyed were either now deploying or would deploy in the next 24 months video surveillance (57%), video conferencing (62%), and streaming video (50%) solutions. At Cisco, more than 60 percent of network traffic was video in 2008, and this percentage is rising.

The corresponding video network services, such as multicast, content distribution, media transcoding, application optimization and acceleration, and bandwidth control, are vital to the smooth delivery of and access to video applications. Because video consumes significant amounts of network resources such as bandwidth, until now many network administrators have simply added more bandwidth to their networks. But as video traffic continues to grow, and as applications become more interactive and reach end users on a variety of fixed and mobile devices, the network infrastructure must incorporate new technologies to help ensure reliable video delivery. Although a 500-millisecond delay on a voice call may only produce an audible click or pop, even such a brief delay on a video application will produce a highly noticeable degradation of the image.

Increasingly, businesses are aware of the demanding nature of network video. The 2008 Chadwick Martin Bailey study indicates that there is strong interest among U.S. and European businesses in outsourcing video-oriented services, especially bridging, desktop and Tier 2 support, content management, and content distribution, to managed service providers.

Along with new models for application delivery (such as software as a service), data center consolidation, and virtualization of resources, the increase in video traffic and the array of evolving video applications are behind new requirements for networks. Networks must now be application-aware so that every device has the intelligence to treat a video application appropriately end-to-end. Products and technologies within the Cisco Application Performance Management Framework provide this functionality, spanning end user devices, the provider edge, and the network core. Managed service providers can activate key solutions to support customer service-level agreements (SLAs) for video services within their IP NGNs that include:

The breadth of these combined capabilities, already integrated into the Cisco IP NGN, offer a major competitive advantage over point products on the market that require individual integration, ongoing upgrades, and management.

Video collaboration services, such as Cisco TelePresence™ or WebEx™, involve multiple high-definition audio and video streams combined to form a single immersive experience. These services place additional demands on the network because all streams must be synchronized as one, taking the same path through the network with the same priority to help ensure a consistent experience. As the first bandwidth-intensive application that cannot be handled over the Internet, Cisco TelePresence makes the service provider's IP Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network relevant in a new way to strategic business applications. To offer managed TelePresence services, service providers need a carrier-class network that supports stringent SLAs for quality of service (QoS) and high availability as well as Call Admission Control (CAC) to reserve bandwidth before a session is initiated. To offer bundled and tiered TelePresence connection services, providers need the ability to integrate Cisco TelePresence solutions with other IP-based applications. Other required features include guaranteed QoS between endpoints; security for end-to-end calls leveraging certificate authority agents; bridging between different enterprise networks; and prioritization of differentiated classes of service, including real-time voice, video, and signaling.

Video surveillance and digital media services that use streaming, such as on-demand video, content distribution for in-store digital signage and back office training, and video to the desktop, require an optimized solution where a single or a few packet streams are carried on the network that multiple viewers can join, instead of each viewer requiring a dedicated packet stream. Cisco IP Multicast can optimize these video applications by allowing a source to send packets to a subset of all hosts as a group transmission. IP Multicast delivers application source traffic to multiple receivers without burdening the source or the receivers while using a minimum of network bandwidth. Stream splitting is another technique that uses a proxy device to handle join requests to the video stream. Cisco's Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) solution provides this feature in addition to improving the performance of any TCP-based application over the WAN.

With the Cisco IP NGN, service providers can deliver multiple video services over the same architecture with different solutions at the network edge, Figure 1.

Managed Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs give customers cost-efficient bandwidth scalability for multimedia applications, point-to-multipoint connectivity for collaboration, and the quality of experience and high availability that they need. Network-based or hosted services or a combination of the two provide even greater flexibility in the creation of managed services bundles.

Cisco TelePresence Service Bundle. Phase 1: Provide optimized TelePresence network connection services, hosted multipoint services, and intercompany network services. Phase 2: Provide utilization and performance analysis, trouble ticket metrics, reporting, and online portal. Phase 3: Provide remote assistance via video concierge to assist with call setup, scheduling instructions, and escalation of problems to technical support personnel. Phase 4: Integrate TelePresence with "Expert on Demand" for retail locations.

Video Surveillance Service Bundle. Phase 1: Provide secure WAN bandwidth between sites using a higher speed MPLS VPN, based on video surveillance needs per branch. Phase 2: Help ensure business-class performance through use of QoS, management and SLA tools to guarantee acceptable performance and prevent degradation due to congestion. Phase 3: Allow customer to store video feeds from branches in network storage repository. Phase 4: Provide remote video surveillance monitoring and portal services with business-application integration (such as integration with point-of-sale terminal activity).

Business Video Service Bundle. Phase 1: Extend MPLS VPN service to support digital media applications, including management of customer premises equipment (CPE) devices. Offer IP Multicast network option and/or streaming network option. Phase 2: Upsell opportunities include unified communications, digital signage, and enhanced security services for video content and distribution.

The Cisco IP NGN provides the inherent end-to-end application performance management capabilities required of today's demanding video applications. It is media aware (capable of detecting and optimizing different media types to deliver an optimal quality of experience), endpoint aware (capable of detecting and configuring media endpoints automatically), and network aware (able to detect and respond to changes in device, connection, and service availability).

Leveraging existing assets within their IP NGNs, managed service providers can create new revenue streams, upsell additional services, and create long-term customer loyalty by offering differentiated video services to fit the needs of a new generation of businesses.

Integrated, pervasive products and technologies in the Cisco IP NGN are ushering in a new era of application fluency, where video applications can be monitored and managed as they traverse networks and reach users in central or outlying offices or via mobile devices. This departure from the complex, point-to-point application implementations and management solutions that evolved as applications moved from the LAN to the WAN brings new opportunity for service providers. Leveraging existing Cisco and Cisco partner products and technologies, service providers can do a better job of providing efficient, secure, and flexible application services to customers.

For service provider members of the Cisco Powered Program, assistance is available for introducing new managed video services: from envisioning and launching a service to marketing and selling it. Program benefits include the latest market intelligence, marketing service descriptions, business analysis tools, seminars, training, collateral, and support.

Contact your Cisco account manager for more information on offering managed video services or visit:

TelePresence: A New Presence for Managed Services
http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/comments/telepresence_a_new_presence_for_managed_services/.

Cisco IP Video Surveillance Services
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns929/networking_solutions_sub_program_home.html.

Cisco Powered Video Case Study
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns417/ns206/wine_dot_com_case_study_ns776_Networking_Solutions_Case_Study.html.