Beat network hassles

Businesses today face daunting uncertainty and intense competition. This has spurred companies to focus, more than ever, on increasing revenue, lowering costs and managing risk. Information technology can enable them to achieve these objectives. However, many businesses are hobbled by outdated, inflexible and inefficient IT.

When it comes to risk mitigation, small and midsize businesses have two choices: invest in reliable infrastructure, or spend money to solve problems after they arise. But downtime halts business and there's rarely budget for in-house IT specialists. That's why for small and midsized business (SMBs), an inch of prevention is worth an extra mile of protection.

When planning a reliable infrastructure, most SMBs look first at servers and storage. But stopping these risks means missing the bigger picture: the network is only as reliable as the devices that run it.

Here are three points to keep in mind when determining what devices to place at the foundation of the network. Follow these tips, and you'll put more distance between the business and its biggest IT risks.

When downtime happens, a company loses out on everything that makes the business successful. Customers can't make purchases or access their accounts and productivity nosedives. If the phones run on voice over IP, employees can't even make calls.

Begin by finding a line of switches with strong redundancy features that can be tailored to the organisation's needs. Building redundancy into the network helps ensure the failure of one switch won't disable the whole network.

SMBs will need switches with modular design and redundant external power supplies that support both wired and wireless networks.

If a primary switch fails, a backup switch will keep the network running smoothly. In the event of a power outage, their redundant power supplies will kick in to keep the network up and running.

Security breaches and denial-of-service attacks remain a constant threat regardless of a network's size. Many large enterprises have the resources for multiple network security components. Few SMBs, however, can afford such measures or retain the expertise to manage them.

For small and midsized business, an inch of prevention is worth an extra mile of protection.

Lorna Hardie is ProCurve Networking Business Unit manager at HP South Africa.

The ideal solution for an SMB should address all security needs with easy-to-use, integrated management which combines offensive and defensive measures to automate protection, threat detection and response within a trusted network infrastructure.

The solution must also provide a single-screen view of the network, allowing the company to map, configure and monitor both wired and wireless networks.

The volume of data exchanged over the network is growing. Businesses are relying on cloud applications, sometimes trusting them with sensitive data, and customer and partner interactions are increasingly moving online. In short, all networks are becoming more complex, especially for SMBs, which lack the staff to manage them. This increase in network complexity requires SMBs to manage network permissions and policies more granularly.

SMBs need switches that make the network manageable, especially as it plays an ever more important role in the business. The solution must provide visibility into network devices and a platform for quick remediation of network outages. Its automated security features relieve non-network management personnel of critical network security decisions.

Enlisting the help of trained and certified resellers that have extensive experience designing and implementing SMB network solutions allows the SMB to focus on the business, not the network.

For a cost-conscious SMB with big plans, the end results are hard to beat: a more resilient network, more productive employees and a company that is finally free to grow and prosper.

The company's competitive advantage? A network it can depend on.

Driving the success and growth of an SMB presents a unique set of challenges - not the least of which is installing a reliable, no-nonsense network. As the backbone of the business, it will seamlessly connect employees, vendors and customers; protect and enable the sharing of company-critical information; increase productivity; position the organisation for growth; and keep the competition on their toes.