How can you improve your Internet network health?
Your enterprise network is like the nervous system of your entire company. It transfers information around the world, coordinates dispersed teams, allows access to online services for customers, just to name a few functions. You simply couldn’t have a business today without it. If you think about how important your overall network performance is, it’s quite clear that you need to have a strategy in place to continually improve your global Internet network health.
But a global network is a complicated thing. Whether through integrating other technologies and infrastructures due to mergers and acquisitions, or navigating Internet Service Providers in other countries as you branch out into different regions, a network has a lot contributing to it’s overall health that you need to be aware of and have visibility over.
What is good Internet network health?
Good Internet network health encompasses several factors, including:
- Reliability.
- Speed.
- Security.
A healthy network should provide consistent connectivity without interruptions or downtime. It should also offer fast data transfer speeds and good, reliable application performance. Additionally, robust security measures are essential to protect against cyber threats and safeguard sensitive data transmitted over the network.
Check out our network health checklist here and see what good and bad network health looks like.
The importance of network performance and health can’t be understated. Every task for your organization depends on fast, reliable Internet. So you need to know your network is healthy enough to support productivity worldwide.
And not just in your office branches, but also factoring in remote or hybrid employees’ needs who will use their own devices and networks to connect. This certainly adds network security pressures, but remote employees also rely on data-intensive applications (Teams, Zoom, Slack) which can put strain on your network’s health.
How can you assess the performance of your network?
Assessing the performance of your network requires the right insights and strategies. Ensuring you have the right level of visibility into your network will allow you to accurately track the right network performance metrics such as:
- Bandwidth utilization.
- Application performance (latency, packet loss).
- Network uptime.
By regularly reviewing these metrics, you can identify any issues or bottlenecks affecting your network's performance and take timely corrective actions. It’s also useful to see all the different elements that make up your network infrastructure, like different connectivity products (your SD-WAN, SASE, etc.), so you can see in real-time how they enable or detract from productivity and where!
Find out more about Expereo’s Intelligent Internet platform, expereoOne, and how it can help you monitor your network here.
How can you improve your network health?
It all comes down to network optimization
Improving network health involves identifying and resolving issues that hinder overall network performance. By optimizing network performance, you can enhance efficiency, reliability, and security.
It's a continuous process that involves monitoring, analyzing, and fine-tuning your network infrastructure to ensure it operates at its best, aligning with business objectives and user needs.
Our recommended network optimization techniques
Some of the most effective network optimization techniques include:
- Bandwidth management: Assess your company’s bandwidth needs and allocate bandwidth resources effectively. It is important to prioritize critical applications and services so that essential business operations always have the bandwidth they need.
- Traffic shaping and analysis: Analyze your network’s traffic patterns. This will allow you to control the flow of traffic, prevent congestion and prioritize mission-critical applications during peak periods.
- Quality of Service (QoS) implementation: Implement QoS policies to prioritize certain types of packets sent across your network, such as application type, user, or time of day. This will ensure consistent performance for critical applications.
- Network performance monitoring: Utilize advanced monitoring tools to track the key performance metrics we mentioned above in real-time and proactively identify and resolve issues before they impact your business.
- Security enhancements: A modern enterprise needs robust security measures. There’s no two ways about it. Implement firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption protocols, etc., to protect your network from cyber threats and unauthorized access.
- Scalability planning: Develop a scalable network architecture that can accommodate future growth and expansion without compromising performance or security.
- Regular maintenance and updates: Keep your network infrastructure up to date with the latest software patches, firmware updates, and security fixes to cover any vulnerabilities and enhance overall performance and stability.
- Cloud application performance: Implement tools and connectivity solutions that improve your application performance and reliability, like Enhanced Internet, for improved user experience.
By understanding what constitutes good network health, assessing the performance of your network, and implementing effective network optimization techniques, you can enhance the reliability, speed, and security of your Internet network, driving greater productivity and success for your business.
Ready to improve your network health and optimize network performance?
Improving your network performance is always a strong strategy for enterprise technology leaders tasked with enabling growth for the wider business. And knowing how to improve performance depends on the current state of your network’s health as well as knowing how to improve it.
At Expereo, we specialize in helping businesses optimize their Internet network health to achieve maximum performance and reliability. We can assess your network infrastructure, identify areas for improvement, and design a purpose-built strategy to optimize performance.
Get in touch today to discuss your needs.