Evaluating Your Network: How to Optimize Performance and Ensure Consistent, Secure Operation

Assess your Networking Needs

Understanding what your network is designed to do is the most important step in optimizing network performance. It’s the groundwork that everything else is built upon, and even when working on an already existing network this is a critical step to ensuring smooth operation.

Analyze the Network

After answering the above questions, it’s time to look at the network itself, both at a hardware and software level. Begin by locating the network’s topology map to get a firm grasp on how everything fits together. Too often, networks are implemented without any map at all, which will eventually cause problems down the line. If one isn’t already drawn up, create one.

Go through each device and make sure it’s using proper cabling that is able to handle the tasks given to it. Most slowdowns are going to occur at the Network layer, but a little time spent ruling out obvious Physical layer issues will help with future troubleshooting.

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Evaluating Your Network: How to Optimize Performance and Ensure Consistent, Secure Operation