Because technology is so advanced, a computer network can actually become too bogged down by useful features without expert help.  The following tips can help make a network more efficient:

New Equipment

A lot of small companies have not updated switches, routers and hubs since before Y2K.  New equipment available is eons beyond that you could buy prior to Y2K and prices have fallen as well.  Investing new equipment can vastly improve network performance, even if you just buy a few key components to work alongside older equipment.

What is the Available Bandwidth and Pricing?

Bandwidth providers might not have increased bandwidth or cut prices, even when it’s available.  T-1 and T-3 lines were expensive a few years ago, but now are completely affordable for many medium-sized and small businesses.

Don’t Skimp on Storage!

Storage area networks and network-attached storage components can be purchased very inexpensively now and are easy to manage.  Many companies haven’t increased storage since Y2K even though costs have fallen dramatically.  Adding a small storage device can improve the speed and performance of a network immensely and are better than storing items on hard drives.   Companies can actually get five to ten times the storage today for the same exact price as a few years ago.  

Don’t Forget to Protect Your Network

Spyware, Trojans and worms are being developed constantly by hackers through new programs and can help them steal data and do plenty of damage to a network and its performance.  If you don’t update your protection regularly, it is useless and will not be able to protect your network from the latest problems.  Don’t expect a human to handle this task, as it will be prone to errors; set up automatic updates and scans.

Automated Resource Monitoring

This network enhancement can help display network bottlenecks.  Once you identify what is slowing down your network, you can help speed things up.

Follow Users and Managers

You need to be sure your user and manager systems are set up to automatically update important features, but also talk to them about what they deal with regularly when working on the network.  They might have specific issues that automatic monitoring can miss.

What Can You Do to Reduce Data Entry?

You might notice that some information on the network has been entered many times.  Simple software or middleware can make single-time data entry possible.

Using E-Mail Consolidation and Acceleration Tools

E-mail is one of the most responsible parties for slowing down network performance, mostly because so many (70 percent or more) has attachments that take up more than 5MB apiece.  These attachments take up time and space when sent the first time, but take up even more space when they are forwarded multiple times throughout a company.  Because attachments are often not even downloaded, they end up being wasted space on a network.  E-mail consolidation and acceleration tools can allow users to download e-mails but not attachments, unless the user specifically clicks on the attachment.

Wide Area File Services

Wide area file services give better WAN communication because they allow for better compression and communications between senders and users.  This is an up-and-coming technology and is important for the future of network speed.

Data Reduction and Pattern Matching

This feature allows appliances at various points of a WAN to only exchange file changes instead of the entire file.  Unchanged information is stored on the appliance and not the network.  The less data sent over the network, the faster it will run.

Created By:  Computer Consulting 101