Enterprise Networking: Google Apps, Facebook Devour Enterprise Network Bandwidth

Google Apps, Facebook Devour Enterprise Network Bandwidth

By Clint Boulton

Application Usage and Risk Report

Palo Alto Networks looked at 750 applications used in nearly 350 companies from September 2009 through March 2010.

Demographics

Palo Alto Networks focused on retail, health care, professional services and other businesses in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific regions for this study. The study looked at how networks are being used, what applications are running on enterprise networks and the risks associated with the Web applications used in those businesses.

Geographical Equity

Webmail, instant messaging, social networking and file sharing are all being used with equal consistency. No particular geography is different from another in terms of application usage.

Vertical Equity

Financial services, universities and health care all show similar usage patterns.

Rampant Use Isnt Always a Good Thing

Social networking applications such as Facebook may be a prerequisite for university life, but they pose risks in other industries with stringent data regulation.

Instant Messaging

IM applications were detected in over 90 percent of the health care and financial services organizations.

Social Networks

Some 35 different social networking applications were detected.

File Sharing

Peer-to-peer and browser-based file-sharing applications were used with relatively high frequency in the financial services and health care industries.

Webmail

Led by Gmail, 26 browser-based e-mail clients were found in both financial services and health care industries.

Where Does Your Corporate Bandwidth Go?

To these apps, according to Palo Alto Networks.

Rise of Google Apps

Palo Alto Networks identifies 22 Google applications in use, including Google Docs, Analytics, Calendar, Orkut, Gmail, Gtalk, Voice, YouTube, Picasa and Google Wave.