Small to medium companies are often skeptical about investing in technology. They usually refrain from experimenting and prefer to stick with what they have always used. However, holding on to traditional practices can be detrimental. If you want to stay competitive in your business, it’s crucial to step out of your comfort zone.
A network upgrade brings benefits which are often worth the investment. It increases efficiencies within the IT department. With the ever-increasing needs of network infrastructure, reliability, performance, security, expansion, and flexibility are the 5 reasons that call for an upgrade.
Reliability
Your client might use a variety of multimedia and unified communications over IP such as Instant Messages, Telephones, and Videos. It is, therefore, crucial that they have a reliable internet connection and high-functioning network devices. A reliable network infrastructure offers the same services even during a failure.
Performance
Network performance holds equal importance when it comes to executing seamless service delivery using an IT network. The measures often considered important are:
- Bandwidth, commonly measured in bits per second is the maximum rate of data transfer across a given path
- Throughput, the actual rate that the data can be transferred from one location to another at a given time
- Latency, the pace at which the content traverses within a pipe across any node
- Jitter, any variation in packet delay at the receiver of the information
- Error rate, the number of corrupted bits expressed as a percentage or fraction of the total sent
An effective way to enhance network performance is by improving your LAN performance. Using 100-Megabit or Gigabit Ethernet switches with Layer 3 and VLAN capabilities can play a vital role in achieving enhanced network performance.
Security
It is critical for businesses to ensure secure endpoints by equipping security controls that can work proactively, to refrain from potential cyber attacks. Every organization today requires a degree of network security solutions in place to protect it from the ever-growing landscape of cyber threats. An efficient and stable network security system is essential to protect data as there is no network that is immune to attacks.
Types of network security:
- Application Security
- Web Security
- Wireless Security
- Endpoint Security
- Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
- Email Security
- Firewalls
- Network Access Control (NAC)
- Mobile Device Security
- Network Segmentation
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Expansion
As a business grows, it brings along the requirement for additional employees, IT infrastructure to support it, including networks, data centers, and the power to run them. They need networks that are sophisticated and more robust to support the increasing number of users and applications. A good understanding of why an organization is expanding allows them to face the challenge of how to support growth. Also, a thorough site survey including floor plans, security issues, energy resources, wireless networking and the location of wiring closets could be done to get an idea about the network requirements.
Flexibility
Today, businesses must ensure that their network connection is flexible with wireless networking for employees who are required to roam within the organization premise, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) for those working at home, and even cloud-based file sharing for those who work offsite or in different locations.
About IT Savanna
We are a leading IT service and sales company based in Bryanston, Johannesburg, offering full-fledged IT services in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Our expertise entails complete outsourced IT services, network upgrades, cloud solutions, disaster recovery, hardware and maintenance services. We also provide IT consultancy with proven experience in solving client issues pertaining to managed network services, software-defined networking, and network management. With an experience of over a decade and a skilled team of professionals, we ensure seamless service delivery for Small to Medium Businesses (SME). Power up your business with managed IT support services from IT Savanna.
Call us today for a FREE IT audit @ (+27) 087 701 0195.
