Today, a smooth-running network is synonymous with a productive and efficient business. As organizations increasingly rely on the cloud and internet-connected technologies, the need for an optimized network is key to gaining a competitive edge. That’s why companies all over the world are investing heavily in network management. However, network management is a nuanced field that encompasses a wide range of processes, from system configuration and resource management to security and growth planning. To help you get a firm grasp on these tricky processes, we’ve compiled a list of network management best practices you should follow.
1. Understand your network
Modern network infrastructures can be incredibly complex, with many moving parts and components. It’s therefore important to understand your network’s composition so you can make informed strategic decisions and maintain desired performance levels.
There are several things you should do to get acquainted with your network. For starters, take inventory of all network hardware, including routers, modem, cables, and other internet-connected devices. Make note of each hardware’s manufacturer, model and serial number, warranty limits, system configuration, firmware version, and release date. It’s also ideal to have a network diagram that shows where each hardware component is installed on your workspace so you can plan your network layout as your company expands.
In addition to hardware, you must keep track of software like firewalls, internet-based phone systems, and other business apps that connect to your network. Pay attention to update versions as well as bandwidth and minimum network requirements. All these pieces of information are crucial for determining which network components require updates, upgrades, or maintenance.
2. Establish a network usage policy
A network usage policy is a great way to hold employees accountable when using company networks and resources. It should clarify whether internet privileges should only be used for job-related activities and specify which devices are authorized to access the company network. The policy must also prohibit sharing sensitive information, illegally downloading content, or perpetrating any form of fraud through the network. Finally, a solid network usage policy must highlight the repercussions of violating the rules. These repercussions could be anything from disciplinary or legal action to termination of employment.
3. Proactively monitor company networks
Regularly monitoring the health and status of your networks is a standard practice for good network management. This often involves hiring a reliable managed IT services provider that offers 24/7 network monitoring services, but you’ll also need to implement the right solutions.
Machine learning-augmented network monitoring systems help you quickly identify faults and optimize performance. These systems learn and record baseline network performance through metrics like average bandwidth usage, throughput, latency, connectivity, and user activity. This way, if there’s any abnormal network behavior, advanced network monitoring systems can automatically detect them and alert the relevant administrators.
For example, a network that’s unusually congested with high traffic activity may indicate an attempted distributed denial-of-service attack on your business. Knowing this, administrators can respond by timing out connections and filtering traffic from malicious sources. Alternatively, slow network performance could be caused by bandwidth-hogging activities like video streaming. Network administrators can fix this issue by prioritizing resource allocation to more important processes like video conferencing and cloud productivity apps.
4. Implement a strong network security framework
Traditional firewalls alone can’t protect your network from sophisticated cyberthreats, but a holistic network security strategy can. A well-protected network incorporates multiple solutions, including:
- Risk assessment – Looks for exploitable network vulnerabilities and provides expert recommendations on how to secure them
- Intrusion prevention system – Inspects network traffic for potential cyberattacks by looking for signatures of known threats and abnormal behavior such as suspicious file transfer activity
- Advanced threat protection – Employs detection techniques like sandboxing and code analysis to detect the most elusive and complex malware attacks
- Access control – Restricts access to network resources and data based on user roles, apps, and devices
- Patch management – Keeps network firmware up to the date against the latest threats
- Compliance assessment – Measures your network security levels against industry-specific standards like HIPAA and PCI DSS
Related reading: Find out more about the essential components of network security
5. Build network resiliency
Network resiliency is essentially a network’s ability to withstand and recover from disruption. To build a resilient network, you must create redundancies in every layer of your infrastructure. For starters, invest in spare network equipment and cables in case the originals become damaged or stop working. If your company requires constant connectivity, you should have secondary switches and routers running on the network so you can quickly switch to them when a failure occurs.
Then, set up multiple network connections that handle specific traffic and functions in your company. You can have separate networks dedicated for guest users, web applications, and communication traffic. With multiple connections, you can ensure that high-priority applications and traffic get the network capacity they need to run optimally without being disrupted by other processes. It’s also a good idea to work with a secondary internet service provider (ISP) so your company can quickly switch connections if your primary ISP goes down.
What’s more, you have to regularly back up operating systems, end devices, data, and network configuration files so everything remains intact in case of natural disasters or ransomware attacks. With backup solutions, you can choose to backup your system and data in public cloud platforms or private servers with highest levels of security. Keep in mind that backup procedures may affect network performance, so it’s best to schedule them outside office hours.
6. Always look for optimization and growth opportunities
Another network management best practice is to constantly find new ways to improve your company’s network infrastructure. To initiate this process, meet with network consultants on a quarterly basis to discuss your network’s future.
Discuss your company’s goals and pain points with the current network so they can help you formulate a focused growth plan. For instance, you may have plans to accommodate a hybrid workforce and therefore need a flexible network that can support both in-house computing and mobile solutions. Alternatively, your company could be suffering from slow network performance due to an increase in users and cloud usage, which may reveal the need for more bandwidth, new internet service plans, or router upgrades. Whatever the case may be, administrators and consultants must be well versed in network technologies to be able to propose strategies for optimizing the company network.
Fortunately, when it comes to network management, Dynamic Solutions Group provides the strategic insight and technology expertise your company needs. Whether you need assistance with improving network performance, resilience, or security, we’re here to help. Call us today to inquire about our services.
