As a business, having a busy network is what you strive for.
This means that more people are using your service, and you’re taking full advantage of your capacity for internal communications and remote workspaces. However, a busy network can bring challenges of its own. Learn how to make the most of your busy network, and see what the issue with a busy network can be.
Why is a busy network a problem?
One of the problems you see on a network is packet loss. As a network becomes overloaded or too busy, the devices that implement the network will discard some of the network traffic as a simple means to manage load. This will at best lead to users experiencing delays and at worst may disconnect customers altogether.
Another issue that you get with a busy network is latency. This refers to when a network server takes longer to respond to a request, with the length of time increasing as a network continues to get busier and busier. The server receives more and more requests that it can’t get to immediately, so older requests take a little longer to get to. Having higher latency can mean delays in your systems, which can cause customers to be upset with the service.
How to improve a busy network's performance
There are a number of steps that an organisation can take to improve the operation of a busy network, the first of which is to understand where the slow down or bottlenecks are happening. This usually comes down to either the network itself or the servers that are accessed via the network. It may also be external links if there are connections to cloud based systems.
Once the problem has been identified it may be possible to upgrade the local network or servers, increase bandwidth on external connections or increase performance or capacity in the cloud.
Sometimes it can be as simple as increasing the RAM and processor speed of a server, sometimes it requires more focussed work in improving the network or communications link performance or capacity.
Get expert support
If your company’s network requirements are massively increasing in scale and you need support from communication and networking experts, get in touch with the Layer3 team today. We can offer a friendly and reliable service that guides your network development and helps you to achieve your technical goals.