Effective network management is essential to ensuring the safety and reliable performance of all network operations.
Network management consists of many processes and tasks, one of which is IP address management. IP management explained translates to the oversight of all information within your network’s internet protocol area.
Failing to devise a strategy for IP management is just one network management mistake you can make. Unfortunately, several other errors will also cause you to experience slow speeds, use your time inefficiently, and overlook weaknesses.
To help you keep your network in optimal shape, we’ll point out some of the most important mistakes to avoid when managing a network.
Misunderstanding Your Capacity
The first blunder you can make is misunderstanding your network’s capacity.
This is fairly easy to do if you’re new to network management. There are so many different terms and numbers to keep track of that it can be hard to differentiate what means what and why it’s relevant.
Unfortunately, network capacity is an important figure to understand. This is your bandwidth, which is how much traffic you can handle without experiencing a drop in performance. As you might imagine, overloading your bandwidth will result in slow speeds or crashes.
With this in mind, you need to understand the capacity of your network in all locations. Verify that you aren’t straining a specific server or resource within your network to ensure steady performance.
Failing to Audit Performance
Another significant error is failing to audit network performance.
Your network may have worked perfectly when you first set it up, but that doesn’t mean it’s still optimal for how things run now. You may have added new software, hardware, or increased the volume of traffic flowing through it.
It’s important to audit your network performance because it will show what needs to be improved. If you notice bandwidth constraints from a specific piece of hardware, then you may need to find a better solution.
It’s also possible that your network design may not have been optimized from the start. If you never go back and look at how your network runs, then you won’t know what’s slowing you down.
Poor Security Features
Having poor or nonexistent network security features and safety measures is also a mistake.
Network security has become one of the most crucial aspects of running a network. Modern cyber threats are sophisticated and effective, which can cripple your network if you are not prepared.
At the minimum, you need basic malware protection like firewalls and antivirus software. You should also have more advanced protection like domain name system security extensions (DNSSEC).
Another aspect of network security involves how you approach passwords and authentication. Good password hygiene is a must and two-layer authentication is recommended to give you extra layers of defense.
Cyber attacks will devastate your business and shut your network down. This is why you need to protect yourself with security features and good safety practices.
Neglecting Network Management Tools
Lastly, neglecting to take advantage of network management tools is a foolish error to avoid.
Tackling network management manually is possible, but quickly becomes infeasible as your network grows. Small business networks are typically manageable, but a larger enterprise is out of the question.
Network management entails several different tasks, procedures, and protocols, which gets overwhelming with large volumes of traffic. To simplify this, you can use an array of network management tools aimed at automating processes and streamlining responses.
While network management software comes at a cost, you can find solutions that create a benefit valued higher than they cost. Especially if you’re saving several hours of manual effort, you can ensure that network management is being attended to while focusing on other tasks.
The other part of this is improving the accuracy of network management. Manual management creates the risk of human error in the form of mistakes.