Expecting slower network performance than usual? Files taking more time to transfer to a service or an email hasn’t reached its destination? There’s a chance that there’s a bottleneck in your network. Essentially, it’s a singular point where the system is lagging due to a wide range of issues. Here are some of the most common network bottlenecks:

Bandwidth Hogs

If more than one person is connected to a network, a bottleneck is more than likely. For commercial projects, it’s less common as they generally have larger bandwidths to support several users at a time. But despite that, there’s a chance that someone’s using up too much data that others are starting to notice the difference.

Person using two computers.

The common culprits are large file downloads, streaming and video playback. The solution is to find whoever is using up all that bandwidth and limit their usage to restore speed.

Limited Bandwidth

It’s also probable that your current network is not fast enough to support that many users at a time. It’s common amongst businesses as they continue to bring in more people to the team without increasing the overall bandwidth for their connection. It’s likely that despite optimal usage, you will be choked on the network due to too many people trying to use the connection at once.

The only solution is to make changes to your internet connection or figure out a way to move users to another connection to offset some load.

Overloaded Servers

Another common reason why businesses suffer from bandwidth shortage is the excessive load on their servers. As servers handle a wide range of services at once, including email systems, databases and other solutions, there’s a chance that they’re performing too many operations at once.

An overloaded server is an indication that you need to upscale and install a new server to divide the load for all of your applications. It may be less feasible to slow down or stop some of the services running on the unit as they can be integral for various operations.

If you’re not getting your money’s worth out of your network, call us at Foris IT Management Services for a network audit. We cater for data storage and management, providing cloud backup and recovery solutions, IT consulting, network security and audit services.

We work closely with dental, veterinarian, and MD practices for their network and data operations, following their regulations and compliance. Get in touch with us today.