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How to Improve Network Efficiency Without Upgrading Your Bandwidth

In 2021, the world of business has irrefutably entered the digital era. While this trend has been prevalent for a long time, it has taken a major step forward in the last two years, so that companies are now increasingly reliant on their networks.

With many enterprises moving toward distributed offices and increasing dependence on the cloud, an efficient network has become a cornerstone of successful businesses. You need to know your staff can access and transfer large amounts of data even from remote locations, so a slow network is your ultimate nemesis.

But is there a way to improve performance without upgrading your bandwidth? We take a look at a few solutions you might want to explore.

Identify bottlenecks

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One of the biggest issues facing businesses in 2021 is network bottlenecks, so it’s important to know how best to address these. To begin with, network administrators should aim to monitor data traffic and use this information to pinpoint congestion points. For example, lots of businesses experience an increase in traffic at a particular time of day, such as first thing in the morning, when everyone logs on and tries to access files at once. Networks can thus be optimized to accommodate increased usage at these times.

You should ask your IT team how best to go about doing this, and if their suggestions require a significant investment, be willing to consider this; the long-term benefit will almost certainly outweigh the initial outlay.

Examine your hardware and software

Leading on from this first point, take some time to examine your hardware and software and to assess how far this can support increased network efficiency. One or both are often responsible for a slow network, so it may be you need to upgrade your products.

Your IT staff are best placed to evaluate this, so request that they make a thorough evaluation and then come back to you with recommendations of areas that could be improved. For example, the hardware is often to blame, and old or outdated modems and routers can really slow down your operations.

Archaic software can also be a problem, and in some cases, can even lead to bugs that jam your system.

Even if there’s nothing inherently wrong with your setup, there are tools that can significantly improve your performance. The right network troubleshooting tool can make a real difference to overall speed and efficiency, and there are lots of these to choose from. Companies like SolarWinds offer free trials for some of them, so you can identify how much of a difference they make before investing. These systems can offer user-driven diagnoses to identify and resolve issues promptly and with detail too.

Schedule system updates and backups for after-hours

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It can also help to identify activities that take up a significant amount of bandwidth and to schedule these for after-hours. While this won’t be possible for every task, system updates and large data backups are two examples of work that can be automated to take place at a more convenient time.

Let’s say you want to perform a full data backup. This will eat up significant resources and notably slow down network efficiency, so instead of doing it during office hours, schedule it to take place overnight when none of your workers will need to access your systems.

Tell us, isn’t it time you put these three top tips to work to improve your network efficiency?

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