Network Optimization: Why is it important?

Networks are essential to modern business and improving network performance is more valuable than ever. Network optimization is the process of improving network performance in terms of speed, reliability, capacity, and security. This article discusses the ins and outs of network optimization, best practices for improving the performance of a network, and the role of network observability in optimizing today’s networks.

What is Network Optimization?

In short, network optimization refers to the tools, techniques, and best practices used to monitor and improve network performance. It involves analyzing the network infrastructure, identifying bottlenecks and other performance issues, and implementing solutions to eliminate or mitigate them. Network optimization techniques can include network performance monitoring, network troubleshooting, network assessments, and more.

The goal of network optimization is to ensure that data and other network traffic can flow smoothly and quickly across the network, without delays, interruptions, or other problems. This can help businesses to improve their productivity, reduce downtime, and enhance the user experience for their employees and customers.

Network optimization can involve a range of techniques and technologies, including optimizing network protocols and settings, upgrading network hardware, and implementing advanced networking tools such as load balancers, content delivery networks (CDNs), and software-defined networking (SDN). It can also involve ongoing monitoring and management of the network, to ensure that it continues to perform optimally over time.

An optimized network is one that should be able to sustain the demands of users, applications, and your business.

Why is it important?

In today’s digital age, a reliable and efficient network is essential for businesses to remain competitive and successful. Network optimization can help businesses maximize their network performance, reduce downtime and costs, and enhance their overall security posture.

Network optimization is important for several reasons, including:

• Improved Performance: By optimizing a network, businesses can ensure that data and other network traffic can flow smoothly and quickly across the network. This can help to reduce latency and other performance issues, improving the user experience for employees and customers alike. Faster network speeds can also help businesses to be more productive and responsive, as they can access the data and resources they need more quickly.
• Reduced Downtime: Network optimization can help to identify and address potential sources of downtime, such as hardware failures, network congestion, and security threats. By proactively addressing these issues, businesses can minimize the risk of unplanned outages that can disrupt operations and impact their bottom line.
• Cost Savings: By optimizing their network, businesses can reduce the need for costly hardware upgrades and other investments. They can also avoid potential fines and other penalties associated with network downtime or security breaches.
• Enhanced Security: Network optimization can help to improve the security of a network by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities and other risks. This can help to protect sensitive data and other valuable assets, reducing the risk of cyberattacks and other security incidents.

What Metrics Impact Network Performance?

When it comes to your network, optimizing can only happen once the current state has been fully assessed. However, if you want to get a clear picture of networking performance within your organization, you will find that there are a significant number of parameters and components that are involved. In the interest of helping you get started, targeting the most relevant areas, here are five essential factors to consider when measuring your network operations:

Latency

Latency describes the time it takes for data to travel between two locations (such as between two computers on a network), with lower latency indicating a faster, more responsive network. This delay in data transmission may only amount to a few milliseconds at each individual point in the journey, but when combined can add up to a noticeable amount of network lag.

Although the absolute upper limit of data transmission speed is the speed of light, certain limiting factors, such as the inherent qualities of WAN routers or fiber optic cables, will always introduce some amount of latency. Other causes may include increased data payloads, retransmission of duplicate packets, the extensive array of inline security tools, proxies, switches, firewalls, and other network elements analyzing and adding to network traffic, and retrieving stored data.

Availability

Availability is a measure of how often relevant network hardware and software function properly. The flip side of availability is downtime, where the systems in question are not performing to the desired specifications. Optimal availability means that no hardware or software downtime is negatively impacting network performance.

Network availability can be easily calculated by dividing the uptime by the total time in any period, with the most obvious goal being 100 percent availability and 0 percent downtime. That said, it is not uncommon for complex systems (such as networks) to occasionally experience problems, so 100 percent availability is not something any business is likely to achieve. On the other hand, striving for this lofty standard is an essential aspect of network optimization. Achieving “five nines” (99.999 percent) or better for availability is paramount.

Packet Loss

A network packet is a small segment of data that may be transmitted from one point to another within a network. Complete messages, files, or other types of information are broken down into packets which are then individually sent and recombined to reconstruct the original file at the destination. If a packet fails to arrive intact, the origin will need to resend only the lost packet, instead of resending the entire file.

Although the occasional lost packet is seldom cause for concern, a large number of lost packets can disrupt important business functions and may be an indication of larger network-related problems. Packet loss is quantifiable by monitoring traffic at both ends of the data transmission, and then comparing the number of sent packets to the number of packets received.

Network Jitter

Jitter is used to describe the amount of inconsistency in latency across the network, while latency measures the time it takes for data to reach its destination and ultimately make a round trip. When delays between data packets are inconsistent, it can affect a network’s ability to deliver real-time, and especially two-way, communication. This can create issues with video conferences, IP security cameras, VoIP phone systems, and more. Network jitter is symptomatic of network congestion, lack of packet delivery prioritization, outdated hardware, and overburdened network equipment. Other causes may include a poor internet connection or using lower-quality wireless networks.

Because network jitter may result in lost packets, dropped connections, network congestion, and poor user experience — especially audio, voice, and video feeds — it is an important consideration for network optimization.

Utilization

Generally speaking, whenever a component of the network is more than 70 percent utilized, slowdowns will occur due to buffering of packets, switch port head-of-line blocking issues, and their backplanes being overwhelmed. If the component is highly utilized for long periods, the slowdowns turn into serious delays. The connection to the internet can become a bottleneck when the number of simultaneous interactions involving internet provider-based applications and services exceeds what the service allows for. Measuring utilization provides a big-picture view of your network to determine which sections are seeing what amounts of traffic and what times peak traffic is most likely to occur. Correctly measured, utilization can give you insight into which networks are carrying the largest load, where the loads are coming from, and whether utilization is too high in certain areas.

In terms of measurement, traffic usage may be represented as a ratio between current network traffic and the peak amounts networks are designed to carry, represented as a percentage.

What are the business benefits of Network Optimization?

• Optimal management of network system resources allows for a constant stream of data to come in and drive greater network performance.
• Optimized network security solutions can counter network attacks and secure customer and enterprise data.
• Cloud-based network optimization can reduce IT support time and costs by lowering the amount of traffic on your legacy infrastructure.
• This process can provide analytics and predictive modeling, as well as track performance metrics and provide real-time accounts, all of which can empower network managers to operate more proactively and discover the impact of architecture changes to the network prior to release.
• Revenues increase when your customer experience is improved, thus improving the experience for your partners and stakeholders as well.
• Network optimization can more efficiently connect remote or disparate employees and departments, creating a more productive workforce with reduced downtime and rapid application delivery.
• Optimization can provide valuable insight into application performance through the implementation of end-user monitoring and analytics.
• Network optimization can ramp up the transmission of content to end-users on connected network devices, in any location, furthering your company’s reach.

Summary

Network performance optimization is the key to improving performance and user experience in today’s digital world, bringing increased throughput and enhanced security coupled with improved employee productivity. Metrics such as latency, availability, packet loss, network jitter, and utilization are used to measure network performance and determine how best to optimize operations. By leveraging various strategies such as load balancing, QoS Prioritization, payload compression, and SD-WAN, along with hardware upgrades and solutions, organizations can benefit from a host of advantages ranging from enriched customer experiences to improved reliability and scalability.