Modern companies face a number of threats to their networks: cyber attacks, hardware failures, and even weather conditions.
All of these can be very costly in terms of network downtime. Among other things, they can impact worker productivity, hurt user experience, and prevent customers from making orders.
To minimize the risk of network downtime hurting your business, you need to implement a variety of network downtime prevention strategies.
Here a some you can try today:
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Eliminate unnecessary traffic
The first step to optimizing your company’s network uptime is eliminating unnecessary traffic.
For example, your employees may be using up a lot of bandwidth by streaming videos or playing video games during breaks. While it’s good for them to have a way to relax, make sure they don’t take up too much of the company’s network capacity.
Besides, they are probably doing it unknowingly and will be happy to get off the company Wi-Fi and switch to their mobile data if you ask them to.
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Train your staff
In the same vein, it’s important to train staff on best network practices. For example, educate them on how to optimally share files. That means compressing files and using cloud links to share them rather than email.
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Optimize cloud connectivity
Many companies are moving their data to the cloud—and for good reason. It’s generally safer, faster, and more convenient than keeping everything on local servers.
But it’s important to connect directly to the cloud instead of through a public cloud service like Google Drive. A private cloud connection offers a more predictable connection with no cap on data transfers (usually).
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Monitor for bottlenecks
Too much traffic can slow down your network. So you need to constantly monitor it to make sure there’s nothing taking up unnecessary bandwidth.
For example, system backups take up a lot of resources, so it’s best to do them at night. Too many guests on your company network can also slow things down, so consider offering guests a separate network.
There are many benefits to network observability and network monitoring when it comes to ensuring system uptime. If nothing else, it allows you to identify traffic jams so you can figure out how best to react and reroute network traffic if needed.
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Compress data
Another way to optimize network uptime is to compress data. Compression reduces the size of the data so that you can send the same amount of information while taking up less bandwidth. All you need is a compression algorithm, which you can find for free online.
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Stay on track with software updates
Software updates exist for a reason. They often fix bugs, improve performance, and enhance security measures. So don’t put these on the back burner.
A software update or firmware patch can help your network run more efficiently. You can even automate them so that any time an update is available, your systems will automatically install the latest version. Just make sure to schedule them when they will be least disruptive (like at night when few are working).
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Keep storage capacity below 100%
All hard drives and servers have a storage limit. Though it may be tempting to use them to their max capacity, this is actually not very efficient. That’s because equipment performance suffers once you get close to storage capacity. So keep it below 100% if you can.
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Test network for cybersecurity
Cybercrime is up and is expected to cost $10.5 trillion worldwide by 2025, up from $3 trillion in 2015.
Obviously, if your network is hacked, you’ll experience serious downtime. To avoid this, you need to do regular penetration testing, security audits, and employee security training.
Always check for viruses, malware, or system defects, and put someone in charge of cybersecurity so that network security never falls through the cracks.
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Replace old equipment
Lastly, network equipment has a shelf life. In fact, the IT world has different terms for this like End of Life (EOL), End of Support Life (EOSL), and End of Development (EOD).
EOL refers to when the equipment is no longer in production. EOSL refers to when the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) no longer offers support. And EOD refers to when software updates and firmware patches are no longer rolled out.
Keep track of equipment statuses so that you can plan to replace things when needed. If you don’t, you’re more likely to experience network outages from equipment failure.
Hardware that you need to keep track of includes servers, network switches, wireless access points, desktop computers, laptops, and more.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you reconfigure your network. Networks eventually wear out and need to be upgraded.
The bottom line
If your network is lagging or you’re worried it might slow down, implement some of the tips above. Adopting a few of these strategies can go a long way in maximizing network uptime and keeping your business’s IT infrastructure at the top of its game.
