This month, Fortune.com reported that TikTok’s web scraper — known as Bytespider — is aggressively sucking up content to fuel generative AI models. We noticed the same thing when looking at bot management analytics produced by HAProxy Edge — our global network that we ourselves use to serve traffic for haproxy.com. Some of the numbers we are seeing are fairly shocking, so let’s review the traffic sources and where they originate.

Keeping track of all devices connected to your network is a fundamental part of effective IT management. This process, known as network discovery, is essential for identifying each device and verifying that it’s authorized and secure. Through network discovery, administrators gain visibility into the network, allowing them to monitor devices, detect potential vulnerabilities, and support ongoing network maintenance.

For today’s network operations teams, change is a constant. Applications, app delivery chains, software-defined and physical infrastructures, cloud services, and more are in continuous flux. Further, as organizations continue to pursue ever more strategic digital transformation efforts, the pace of this change only accelerates. These days, about the only constant is the demand being placed on network operations teams.

It’s a story many network administrators dread: leaving the office on a Friday afternoon with everything running smoothly, only to return Monday morning to a nightmare of system-wide failure. If you’re a network administrator, you know the quiet comfort in logging off on Friday, satisfied that all servers are operational, backups are complete and the network is running efficiently. It’s the moment when you finally let out a sigh of relief, looking forward to a stress-free weekend.

We increasingly depend on ethernets, servers, wireless routers, and other network infrastructures. People are attached at the hip to glowing, rectangular screens in their pockets. We use these devices for entertainment, shopping, directions, communication, and getting the new. More importantly, for businesses, we log online to get work done.

Network bandwidth is the maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a network connection in a given time. Essentially, it’s the highway for your data. Bandwidth is often measured in bits per second (bps), but in larger systems, you’ll see measurements like megabits per second (Mbps) or gigabits per second (Gbps). Bandwidth plays a critical role in IT infrastructure because it determines how quickly data can move.

Balancing cost, performance, and security in cloud infrastructure is challenging, but cloud-mature companies are proving it’s possible to optimize without compromise — here’s how they do it.