July 21, 2013

Congestion in a data network has a direct impact upon speed, significantly slowing down the performance of each system in the network. A congested network has a high rate of latency, which is the term used to describe how long the data takes to traverse the network segment. This is especially undesirable in applications that are time-sensitive, where even short lags in the network speed can have a high impact on performance and end-user satisfaction. Here are some tips on how to reduce network congestion:

  • The first step is to analyze the trend followed by network congestion, with the help of network monitoring tools, which shall better help in effective troubleshooting. You need to know when the congestion is at its peak. For instance, this could be at the beginning of the day. It is also important to take note of when the congestion began- was it caused by an increase in the number of employees or other reasons? This data can help to pinpoint the most effective solution to reduce network congestion.
  • Another important consideration is in which segment of the network the major congestion occurs.. You could also consider increasing the bandwidth capacity of the affected segment.
  • If a small cluster of IP addresses is sending a large number of packets, this could be the underlying cause of network congestion. In this case, you might need to replace the malfunctioning network card, or turn off the service in the application that is responsible for generating these packets.
  • It helps to reduce the number of protocols being used in the network, and reduce the use of broadcast protocols. Using proper tuning techniques for the TCP/IP protocol can help to boost performance by up to 5 times.
  • Prioritizing the network traffic that you need can help to increase the performance of the data network. You can do this by enabling the QoS (Quality of Service) feature that is a part of typical small business networking nodes. In case of medium businesses, this can be achieved by reprogramming the network nodes like switches and routers, so that they give higher priority to the desired traffic.

Identifying the right solution for congestion in your network is a long process, that might require a significant amount of hit and trial, before you can choose the right approach to boost your network’s performance.

Centex Technologies provide complete computer networking solutions to businesses. For more information, call us at – (855) 375-9654