If you run a small business, your bandwidth may be the least of your problems when you have other matters to worry about. However, it is actually one of the factors that could affect your business and daily operations in the long run. Monitoring the bandwidth used to be all about internet traffic, but for a small business, it now encompasses many other factors—including web application traffic and network traffic between devices. Regardless of the traffic that you are observing, it is crucial to understand how bandwidth and how much of it is used to ensure the best possible network performance.
Bandwidth is technically data that is quantified and transferred in bits per second. Network administrators are often concerned with who is hogging all the bandwidth. Many small businesses today rely on the internet to perform their operations, and its speed can make a difference in how these tasks are performed and achieved. Monitoring the bandwidth allows network administrators to easily identify problems that may cause upload and download speeds to be slow or inefficient. Tools designed to monitor network bandwidth, regardless of whether it is the LAN (local area network) or WAN (wide area network).
Bandwidth monitoring solutions are often provided in the form of software that lets you monitor and observe in real time. Monitoring the network bandwidth lets you understand the amount of data the goes throughout your network, so you can determine the right internet bandwidth and network capacity for your business. This knowledge is critical to help avoid overspending and to help you come up with ways to make the most of existing bandwidth or boost it. This can help you choose the right ISP that can cater to your business needs, too.
InterMapper is an example of a tool that is used to monitor network bandwidth. It automatically discovers devices that are connected to your network, assign SNMP traffic probes to them, and add them to a map to effectively monitor utilization. Some monitoring tools can let you set device and traffic thresholds, too, and you will be alerted when the values go over the limit.
Knowing the factors that can hog your network and take up the most of your bandwidth may help you determine ways to increase your productivity. Likewise, it lets you find out if someone could be hogging your network and doing tasks that are not related to your business at all. A network bandwidth monitoring solution will alert you of any network spikes and saturation that can lead to packet loss and traffic congestion, both of which can have negative implications to your bottom line. Identifying these bottlenecks can help you come up with solutions to effectively avoid or deal with them, while making sure that you can utilize your bandwidth in a more appropriate manner across your business network.
 About the Author:
Mike Rana is the Chief Technology Advisor of Orion Network Solutions. Orion Network Solutions specializes in providing Computer Installation, Maintenance, and Consulting services along with 24×7 help desk services for small and midsize companies. We provide network solutions that enable small businesses to not only lower their management cost but also increases employee productivity at the same low price. We offer network solution that becomes an integral part of your organization and can provide an increase in productivity of your organization.
