Did you know that 65% of employees say they have experienced their video calls cut out, freeze or drop completely because of a weak internet connection? At the end of the day, time is money. Poor network performance can really hinder your business’ output and negatively impact the bottom line due to the loss in employee productivity.
Poor network performance can damage employee productivity and create feelings of frustration. It can also increase the likelihood that your employees might leave your organization and look for a job elsewhere.
We also need to remember that network performance ties closely to innovation. If your employees can’t do their jobs effectively and quickly, it will be harder for them to push boundaries, come up with new ideas and drive your business forward.
What Causes Poor Network Performance?
It is fair to say that network performance issues can really hurt employee productivity. So, what causes these problems? In truth, there is no one cause of poor network performance. It can happen for a variety of reasons. We will look at these in more detail below.
High CPU Usage
CPUs or “Central Processing Units” are like the brains of your digital devices. Trouble arises when your network is overwhelmed by large volumes of traffic that triggers your CPU to work extra hard to process all the network packets being sent and received.
When this happens, it leads to high CPU usage which can cause performance lags, latency and even downtime if your CPU is consistently overused.
Bandwidth Usage Surges
Bandwidth is your network’s capacity to transmit data between devices within a certain time period. The higher bandwidth you have means the faster and more seamless the experience is for your users.
For instance, if someone on your network decides to upload a huge, complex video file, this can create a bottleneck in your network because of high bandwidth usage. Your other users’ experience will suffer and they will likely experience a slow and interrupted connection.
Physical Connectivity Issues
Sometimes technology issues are not complex. Your network can suffer from poor performance due to physical problems that arise from faulty or poorly connected cables. If a cable is damaged or not plugged in properly, this will really impact network speed. Luckily, it is a quick fix to sort this out!
Manually checking all of your cables regularly is pretty difficult and time consuming which is why we recommend a cable monitoring solution to our clients so they can be alerted to any cable issues using a proactive approach.
Malfunctioning Hardware
Another reason for network performance challenges arises when the devices your employees use (such as laptops, computers or mobile devices) are connected to the network but are not performing as they should be due to misconfigurations.
This can wreak havoc within your network and lead to performance issues and latency. Due to this issue, it is vital to ensure that all devices connected to your network are configured correctly. They must use the latest software and undergo regular upgrades. It is also wise to test your equipment regularly to make sure it is not causing harm to the network.
DNS Problems
DNS stands for Domain Name System. DNS is an address book for the Internet that connects domain names with their correlated IP addresses.
DNS errors occur when you cannot connect to an IP address which indicates that you have either lost your network connection or your internet action.
How to Identify Network Performance Problems
Now that we know the major causes of network performance issues, it is time to think about how we can avoid and troubleshoot them.
This is where network performance monitoring comes into play. Network performance monitoring solutions are real-time analytics tools that proactively analyze all of the different components of your network with the aim of discovering potential issues before they turn into real problems.
These tools give you deep visibility into your network and create a virtual map of all of the different aspects of your infrastructure. Armed with this knowledge, you can find, fix and improve network performance so that your employees never feel frustrated by unexpected downtime or performance lags.
Deploying and using a network monitoring tool requires specialist IT skills. Network monitoring is its own technical language. You need someone who can read and speak the language of computers and network solutions.
That is where we come in. We offer end-to-end network performance monitoring, analysis and remediation. This helps you to avoid issues like latency, packet loss and downtime.
Don’t Let Network Issues Hold You Back! Let Us Bring You Up To Speed!
Organizations who are not prepared for the constant upkeep that a computing network demands will quickly find themselves overwhelmed. Despite the difficulties that come with technology management, maintenance is an absolutely vital task that must be fulfilled in order to get the most from your hardware and software and keep your employee productivity steady.
Sound Computers’ proactive Remote Monitoring and Maintenance solution is designed to remediate these issues for small and medium-sized businesses and make them more affordable than ever before. Contact us today.