A business experiencing a network bottleneck is having a bad day, especially since the ability to share data is so important to many industries today. That said, today’s resource-intensive technologies can easily eat through an organization’s bandwidth and create these kinds of network slowdowns.
Let’s talk about what can be done to reduce these bottlenecks, if not eliminate them outright.
First, You Need to Identify Your Network Bottlenecks
If you hope to resolve your bottlenecks, you need to know where they are and what causes them. This means you need to keep your monitoring consistent, using network monitoring tools to identify the devices on your network that are using too much bandwidth. These tools can also measure the latency of different segments of your network, another contributor to slow data transmission.
Second, Keep Your Hardware Up-to-Date
Your network relies on a few different devices, and any of these devices going out of commission could bring the whole thing tumbling down. So, as device failures become more likely as devices age, it pays off to have a replacement/upgrade schedule planned to replace your hardware. This adds the benefit of allowing you to take advantage of improved security and performance. Business networks should also use higher-grade cabling (CAT6 or CAT7) to promote higher transmission speeds.
Third, Optimize How Your Network is Configured
Your network should be configured for success, and there are a few steps you can take:
- Your network traffic can be balanced across multiple servers to prevent any single server from reaching capacity.
- You can prioritize your most crucial network traffic by implementing QoS (Quality of Service) policies.
- You can establish virtual local area networks, or VLANs, to help reduce network congestion.
Pathfinders IT can guide you through whatever approach you take and maintain your operational effectiveness.
Fourth, Update Your IT Regularly
It is also important that your business’ technology is kept up-to-date and properly maintained to reduce the severity of network congestion. This process becomes much simpler by being proactive about managing your network-attached infrastructure through strategic effort and planning.
Fifth, Make Small Changes as You Go
In addition to these alterations, there are additional adjustments you can make to improve your network further. For instance, if you frequently encounter downtime, you may consider negotiating with your ISP for more bandwidth, as the cost could be less than what you’d lose through downtime. Alternatively, you can reduce your overall traffic through strategies like traffic shaping, limiting non-essential traffic during peak usage times.
The big takeaway is the same: network bottlenecks are an issue that can not be ignored. We’re here to help. Call 610-854-1060 to talk to our team of experts about our IT management services.