Network Infrastructure Assessment- An Important Aspect for the Success of Your Business

One of the most important aspects of any network design is the security. A safe and secure network design helps in better segregation of network, enables easy access, removes single points of failure and provides better logging and monitoring. The security of the infrastructure and architecture of a network is essential for a successful business venture. This is the reason why each network device should be appropriately designed and well-secured. You can mitigate many risks by implementing a secure network infrastructure.

By assessing your network infrastructure, you can determine the overall performance and capacity of the network to cope with future growth, meet the security and availability objectives and handle bandwidth-sensitive applications like VoIP. Conducting an assessment that appropriately represents the design, configuration and performance of a network will help you know about the various problem areas that prevail.

Benefits of Network Infrastructure Assessment

Many networks in production that are being used today were built in the late 90s. In the recent years, the network infrastructure has become more complex. Wireless and mobility are being integrated into the network. The latest technology trends like convergence, virtualization and data center consolidation have resulted in new demands for the network.

Many of the networks are not designed to be based on the best practices in the industry for better performance. Some of them even have outdated hardware and software platforms that may not be supported by the manufacturer. Apart from this, some of the networks require higher operational costs as it becomes difficult to maintain, to operate and to troubleshoot them. The network assessments will provide you with operations management, security and convergence readiness assessment.

Methodology of Network Assessment

The overall process includes assessing the present security technology as well as various processes in the organization. It also includes evaluating the critical information assets in the infrastructure. A professional network assessment company will evaluate your current design structure including the security control mechanisms to determine the effectiveness of the company network security. The service provider can also help to revise the security objective in order to make the entire process more up-to-date.

Here are the common assessment steps that are followed by professionals:

Assessing Network Architecture – In this step, a complete assessment of the network design and architecture is carried out. The current environment is compared to the proven architecture and real-world networking experience.

Stability and Configuration Assessment – Here, a detailed review of the individual devices are conducted. The existing operational state of the network is analyzed to assess the overall stability and reliability.

Performance Analysis - Professional companies use advanced software tools to observe and report about the performance anomalies. Various tools are used to analyze and correlate the network device configurations.

Scanning the Vulnerability and Penetration Testing - The security of each host is evaluated by conducting a series of penetration tests and by scanning the vulnerability of the network.

A thorough assessment is the perfect way to determine the issues related to a network. It outlines the major issues that a company needs to address in order to ensure the success of the business venture.

Operate your Business Better with Unified Communications

Communication doesn’t only include the words that we use. Our gestures and body language can speak volumes about our emotions associated with talking to a person. If you run a business, you may be well aware of the importance of communication through phone and email. However, phones and email also have their own shortcomings. For instance, it is not easy to convey human emotions through an email. Then came video conferencing.

Video conferencing is an effective way to meet these challenges. However, over the years video conferencing has moved to the next level with the introduction of Unified Communications. To make it simple for those who are not aware of the term, it is an integration of real-time communication services, which is comprised of instant messaging, call control, video conferencing and speech recognition. It is known for providing consistent unified user interface and experience across multiple devices and media types. Many of the companies provide unified communications consulting services to customers that help in bridging the gap between VoIP and other communication technologies.

Unified Communications Explained

Most businesses have employees who work in different regions and time zones. It may raise a concern in terms of employee productivity. At times, it becomes difficult to coordinate with the teams who are separated geographically. This is where unified communications systems will help you out.

It can assist you in solving the issues that are related to productivity and coordination that most employers have. This advanced technology will help in improving team collaboration, increase overall productivity, shorten project cycles and reduce the overall costs that you incur in your business. The improved productivity of employees will make it easier to collaborate over long distances. It will enable employees to make decisions quickly and also develop a better understanding among the teams.

Benefits of using Unified Communications

Here are some of the benefits of using a unified communication system for your business:

• One of the main benefits of opting for unified communications is that it helps in streamlining the information delivery for IT and tech support as well as small, medium and large businesses. It simplifies the process and also makes the process easier for users to access and integrate all of the information

• It also helps in minimizing and even eliminating the delays that are associated with a traditional telephone system. This results in improving interaction and customer integration resulting in sizable savings for the business.

• Another advantage of opting for unified communications is that it simplifies the meeting initiation process. It provides a common technological platform for a better collaboration between prospective and existing clients, employees and co-workers.

These are some of the reasons that make Unified Communication system an integral part of most of businesses. By deploying advanced technology, it will help in coordinating and managing your business better.