Network Speed and Performance

Essential Tips on Improving Network Speed and Performance

For businesses of all sizes, having a reliable network connection is crucial to daily operations. From sending files to using cloud applications and browsing the internet, you certainly need a good network speed and performance for increased productivity. Thankfully, with today’s technological innovations, many alternative solutions are there to help improve performance. 

Read on to learn more about network speed and performance, and how you can improve it for the benefit of your business.

Network Performance: What Is It?

In its simplest term, network performance is defined as the process of measuring and determining the level of performance of a given network. It involves a review and analysis of data to identify the quality of the services being provided by the computer network. Also, the network performance can help a network administrator in the process of measuring and reviewing the services. 

Network Cables

To determine whether you have a stable network connection, you need to measure your network performance in many ways. These may include:

  • Latency – It’s the amount of travel time of data from one point to another on a network. It usually differs from one geographical location to another. For example, a phone located in Australia will more likely have lower latency to a network server located in California. 
  • Bandwidth – It refers to the amount of data being transferred within seconds according to the ability of your network and equipment. 
  • Response Time – It refers to the amount of time a server takes to respond to a request. 
  • Error Rate – Just like the other components of your IT system, a network may also have errors that lower its performance. Although an error rate may not cause problems on the part of the user, the latter may find out that the connection becomes slow. 
  • Quality of Service – It’s a strategy whereby the network administrators give priority to some types of traffic. As such, it can cause an increase or decrease in network performance based on the type of request. 

Network Performance: How Can You Improve It?

As mentioned, having a slow network connection isn’t good for your business. It affects productivity in a way that employees won’t be able to do their tasks efficiently. Fortunately, there are ways on how you can improve your network speed and performance. 

Follow these tips to ensure your employees are productive in their job responsibilities. 

Allow A Limited Number Of Users On The Network

If many people are using the network all at the same time, this situation only creates a traffic jam, which results in the slowdown of the network speed and performance. This can happen in a home or even on a construction site, where the workers may not be able to figure out how to estimate construction jobs. To avoid this problem, find time to limit the number of users who can access your network. This is to ensure that only your authorized employees can go through the network. 

Also, your visitors don’t need to have access to your network. Instead, you can allow them to use a guest network where they can use without worrying about their safety and without infringing your business resources. 

Diagnose The Problem

In reality, you can’t treat a problem without knowing what’s wrong. This scenario is also applicable in network speed and performance. So, it’s best to determine whether the network is really slow or it’s just your computers. Although there can be several problems when it comes to network connection, understanding these issues beforehand allows you to create ways to improve it. 

Find Out If There Are System Defects Or Viruses

Your business’ network connection is also susceptible to viruses, specifically malware—these are viruses that tend to slow down the network and disrupt workflows in your organization. If you notice some malware slowing down your network connection, it’s time to get it checked by an IT expert. That way, you’ll know whether there’s a need to upgrade or replace the entire network. 

Use VLANs

VLANs that stand for Virtual Local Area Networks are a subcategory of VPNs or Virtual Private Networks. They help improve network performance by completely separating your network resources without needing to do the rewiring of the entire office. By using VLANs, you can be able to segment low-priority traffic and to such an extent, whereby you prioritize the most critical traffic. 

In addition, virtual local area networks can also help boost security by partitioning your systems. You can do it by grouping VLANs based on computer use. Although a portion of the network is down, the VLAN would be there to protect the other parts of the system from becoming compromised. 

Being a subcategory of VLAN, the performance of the VPNs should also be taken into consideration to improve network speed. So, make sure to choose the VPN provider that works best for your IT system.   

Educate Your People About Your Network Connection

Sometimes, lousy user behavior is one of the primary reasons why a network can perform poorly. They perform poor work habits that affect the performance of the system. For example, emailing copies of PowerPoint presentations to all employees concerned may slow down your connection. 

That said, it’s best to educate your people about your network performance rather than giving them strict technical guidelines. Perhaps, user involvement and education can help discourage them from doing things that would harm your network. 

Implement Compression Algorithms 

Just like any other network, yours would surely have limited bandwidth regardless of the equipment you use. As a result, your network connection would experience a slowdown, which, later on, can affect workflow and overall productivity. 

This is where the implementation of compression algorithms comes into play. If you compress data, you can be able to improve your network speed and performance by reducing the size of your data files, which are transferred over the network to speed things up to four times or more. Remember, the more you compress data, the more you can make your network connection faster. 

Deduplicate Data In Backups

Primarily, your business deals with a large volume of data each day, and as such, it uses up more storage capacity, which can eventually slow down the performance of your network. Thus, aside from data compression, deduplication can also be one of the best ways to boost network speed and performance. 

To do this, check all data in your backup and deduplicate it by keeping only the data that’s most up-to-date and unique. That way, you can be able to make your restoration efforts much easier and faster, giving you easy access to the latest data in your storage. 

Get To Know Your Apps

Your applications on the network can also slow down your network speed and performance. You tend to implement these applications without actually knowing if they affect your network connection. This is where app testing enters the picture. 

When you test your apps, you can be able to discover their soft spots and assess whether it can cause a massive performance slowdown on your network. Check the level of performance the apps require under a regular production load. By doing this, you can be able to find out severe flaws in the apps that may compromise how the network functions. 

So, it’s best to know all of these things beforehand so you won’t find yourself spending money on apps that would just cause you more money in the long run. Lastly, be sure to test the apps in your system before you buy them. 

Monitor Your Network

Network monitoring is undoubtedly essential to your business. It helps identify potential problems in your network that causes the slowdown. By keeping track of your network traffic and other activities, your IT team would be alerted of any performance issues which allow them to solve and reduce as many problems as possible. 

To understand why network monitoring can ensure the speed and performance of your network, below are the reasons why you should have them from the get-go: 

  • Ability to troubleshoot – It’s one of the essential advantages of network monitoring. By diagnosing what’s wrong and fixing it right away, you can definitely save time and effort. Even if the problems occur unexpectedly, constant monitoring can help you figure out what’s going on easily. 
  • Security – Another benefit of network monitoring is the security it provides to your IT system. By continually keeping track of your network performance, you can keep all relevant information safe and secure from security breaches. Before problems become big, which can cause a slowdown, monitoring your network enables you and your network administrator to deal with them in the fastest time possible. 
  • Save time and energy – With regular network monitoring, you can save a lot of time investigating. The more time you spend in the investigation, the more it would just cost you money. Not only that but trying to figure out the problem for an extended period may lower your business’ productivity level. However, when you monitor your network consistently, you can spot issues quickly, which gives you more time to operate your business. 

Upgrade Software

As advancements in technology continue to evolve, you may have an old software system that no longer supports new programs. In other words, you may be dealing with network components and software that don’t work together anymore and result in a network performance slowdown. 

If you notice your software doesn’t keep pace with each other, then it’s about time that you consider an upgrade of your network system. By doing it, you can make sure your system is compatible with modern technology and works well for your business. 

Conclusion

Although network slowdown and poor performance are common occurrences in the business world, there are many ways to reduce them and keep your company running smoothly. If you notice your network is slowing down, follow the tips mentioned above so you can undoubtedly improve the speed and performance of your network.

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