Tip of the Week: Four Essential Network Management Practices

Businesses depend on their networks to effectively complete the tasks they need to accomplish, making it critically important that the one you rely on is managed properly. Let’s go over a few tips and best practices that can help you ensure that it is.

Standardization through Automation

To use your network, your users must connect to it with various devices, which will require a few network configurations to be put into place. Putting together standardized configuration templates not only helps to speed up the configuration process, it helps to keep everyone’s devices working in the same way. This centralized uniformity allows better collaboration to be enabled much more efficiently than it would be if you were to configure each device individually.

Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Of course, a network isn’t infallible, so you will want to make sure you have the tools in place to both detect and resolve any issues that may spring up. Tools are available today that can assist an IT team in identifying the base cause of some negative impact and in efficiently rectifying it, either by removing the issue itself or by mitigating the damage that the issue causes.

Patching and Policymaking

Just as the rest of your business’ IT should be maintained, your network itself needs to be checked periodically for vulnerabilities and bugs. Make sure that your IT administrator is checking for patches and reviewing if your business is at risk.

For similar reasons, your provider should also be reviewing network policies to ensure that they benefit both your productivity and your security. Both are essential, especially as compliance standards place certain demands regarding your network’s resilience and the handling of your business’ data. Confirming that you are compliant to these standards is necessary if you want to avoid fines and possible business closure.

Planning your IT

Business technology is always changing, which means you must prepare your IT infrastructure and strategy to accommodate these changes. Otherwise, the decisions that you make now could wind up stifling your business’ development and success in the future. Even the most well-optimized network today could become obsolete in an instant, so staying apprised of current and upcoming developments is critical to maintaining your ongoing flexibility and adaptability.

If this all sounds like a lot to handle on top of your usual operations, that’s what SMART Services is here to help with. Our professionals can help you make sure that these standards are met, as well as many others we couldn’t mention here. To learn more, reach out to us at 586 258-0650 .