If you are on top of your game you will have probably made the switch to the cloud and taken your online business network to the next level. This technology has become the standard and anyone not adopting them is not only missing out on great advances in networking and data storage technology but are also being left behind by their competitors.
But, just like in any field in technology, simply implementing a cloud network and business strategy and then forgetting about it (with the hopes that it will take care of itself) is a big mistake.
As fast and reliable as it may be today, your cloud network will – over time and usage – start to degrade. This means you always have to keep an eye on it, avoid common mistakes and maintain it for its lifetime.
What is Cloud Network Degrading?
The term “cloud network degrading” refers to the faltering and decrease of connectivity and response times in a cloud network. Devices that used to communicate at high speeds tend to take longer as time passes as does the rate at which data is transferred over the network itself.
This will lead to slow response times that – if not fixed – could in turn lead to hang ups, data corruption, total communication failure and loss of information.
What Types of Cloud Network Degradation are there?
Basically, there are five types of hardware degradations:
- The failure in the physical transportation of data across a cloud network
- Those that occur due to errors with routing devices
- Features of IT systems that modify or consume data and cause delays
- Degradation caused by data arrival and departure ports (terminals, workstations, etc.) with diminished or inefficient processing powers
- Degradation caused by third-party software or malware
What Causes Cloud Network Degradation and what do you do about them?
With the definition taken care of, let us look at some reasons that would cause your business’ cloud network to degrade:
- Data Packet Loss: if your network is dropping packets between ports, you are not only transporting your data slowly, but risk the chance of capturing and storing corrupted data by the time they reach their destinations. This is mainly due to timeout configurations that can only wait so long for packets to arrive before discontinuing the wait.
These losses are usually caused by a lack of buffering, due to traffic bursts, poor queuing strategies or a week bandwidth.
- Network Collision: your internet connection could easily become a cloud network performance bottleneck. This happens when you have no proper control over your bandwidth or the improper utilization of it (when your staff is watching too many YouTube videos, for example).
One way to get around this is too utilize separate branch-level internet connections so that internet traffic doesn’t travel along the business’ main cloud network.
- Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Gone Berserk: while you should encourage your employees to bring their own devices to work, you should make sure they don’t run amok on your cloud network. Administrators should always keep an eye on the devices and software that join the network. A single rogue piece of code could drain bandwidth, create security breaches and even set you up for legal battles over licensing issues.
- Security Loopholes: everyone knows the damages that can be caused by spyware, malware and viruses in any networking environment, including your cloud network infrastructure. If any of these software baddies manage to get behind your security features (either soft- or hardware) you are in for a rapid decline in your network’s performance.
The results could range from data being sucked out of the devices and servers that are on the network, or generation of fake or unnecessary traffic to intentionally clog up connections, all the way to having your security features being forced to work overtime in an attempt to fight the infection and hence taking up your resources.
- Weak or Overworked Servers: your servers are where all the data on your network start from or end at. If they aren’t tuned to perform as well as they should or there aren’t enough resources for them to process input and output requests, you will be creating havoc on your network traffic.
Whenever possible buy the best on the server market or make sure you are constantly upgrading and fine-tuning the ones that you have. If you don’t own your own servers (as would probably be the case in a truly full-cloud environment) ask your hosting provider to either upgrade or move your package to a more efficient server – even if it costs a little extra. It will be worth it down the line.
- Inept Bottleneck Monitoring: the first step in resolving degradation issues on your cloud network, is actually figuring out where the bottleneck has occurred. If your administrators aren’t able to identify the basic problem they won’t be able to solve it properly. They should, therefore, implement a proactive administration strategy and make use of the many awesome tools (free on the internet) that can identify traffic performance problems.
