You wouldn't think a single camera pointing down an empty hallway would be much of a problem. But when it's constantly feeding images through the same data pipe as everything else in a big credit union's network, it certainly can.

That's what the $3.8 billion ESL Federal Credit Union found out after it used a new piece of software–the Scrutinizer from Plixer International Inc. of Sanford, Maine–to determine what was clogging up the works at ESL's new headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.

The five-story structure was built with all-new infrastructure designed for the facility to serve as the nerve center for a system of 20 or so branches and recovery centers–complete with high-end Cisco routers and switchers all connected by T-1 broadband lines.