[lingk]

Ok. So when I got my job the network was just kind of put together by people who worked here before me, so real security and all the users had admin rights on their systems. I have been slowly making the network more structured and secure. One of the things I have done was to stop streaming music and video and such things. People where not happy about this. They have been complaining now for a few months and now upper management wants to know if streaming music and video really makes a difference. People say they don't notice the internet being any faster. I try to explain to them that it doesn't only affect the internet, but also files that are on servers they are using and so on.
how would you go about making a report to explain why streaming music and such things is bad for a network in a way that someone who knows nothing about computers can understand and not think they are being fed BS?

[war59312]

Are you talking about P2P or just websites and services like slacker.com, winamp, youtube.com, etc?

If P2P that should be pretty easy to explain. Talk about how they are infected with virus, spam, malware, etc.

If you just mean in general then yeah good luck!! lol

So you make it sound like it is a bandwidth issue? Not enough bandwdith, too many users, what?

Perhaps talk about workplace ethics and how playing video games, listening to music, and watching tv/videos, is counter productive. And that any serious business would not allow this. Like of course not.

In the end they will probably still hate you. Sorry for the bad news!!! ha-ha

[DysfunktinaL]

I agree with war, if it's P2P bring up stuff about Virus' and trojans, and make sure you mention the word keylogger, people freak about about that one.

If't is websites with streaming, go with the counter-productive angle. If the report is going to Upper-Man. then make sure you mention that if people have time to be watching streaming video's, then perhapps there is not enough work, and they could benefit from cutting down on manpower. Upper managment loves to hear that.

One option you could suggest as a compromise, is give them streaming audio, but no video. I can see people wanting to listen to music to work (I really focus alot better when I have something playing in the background, be it the TV, Radio, Winamp, something..), but there is absolutly no need for video in the typical workplace, unless of course it's an advertising or media agency, or something along those lines, but for a typical office, like mortgages, insurance, crap like that, I can't see a reason why they'd need video.

IMO, the only people who deserve video in the workplace are the techies, since we have to put up with so much s*** (and it's kinda like the "do as I say, not as I do" parenting technique), or the people who are smart enough to get around the techie's roadblocks via proxy, tunnel, ect.