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Enterprise network management is a complicated series of strategies meant to improve network performance across your entire enterprise. When executed correctly, enterprise network management can help your organization save time, save money, and operate in a more streamlined, uncomplicated way.
The question is, what are the best ways to improve your enterprise network management?
How to Improve Your Enterprise Network Management
These are some of the best ways that you can improve your enterprise network management:
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Use the right tools.
There are many tools to help you manage your enterprise network, from analyzing nodes on your network and understanding traffic patterns to identifying and correcting potential issues. These tools come in many shapes and sizes, capable of addressing almost any conceivable network or configuration. But it’s important to realize that not all tools are going to be perfectly suited to your organization, and not all tools are equally capable of supporting the functionality you need. Do your due diligence and choose the enterprise network management tool that makes the most sense for you.
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Hire the pros (and trust them).
It also pays to have professionals in place who know how to use these tools and are capable of making intelligent recommendations that ultimately improve your enterprise network. For some organizations, this means consulting with a third party. For others, it simply means hiring more talented, experienced leaders in your IT department. When your best advisors give you a recommendation, trust them.
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Understand the network, fundamentally.
You won’t be able to practice effective enterprise network management until you better understand your network. The first phase of this process is discovery and analysis, giving you an opportunity to fully flesh out what your network looks like and how it operates.
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Practice ongoing monitoring.
For a better understanding of the flow of traffic across your network, you need to practice ongoing monitoring. It’s imperative to understand how your traffic fluctuates throughout the day, throughout the weeks, and on an ongoing basis.
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Identify and analyze your critical systems.
You’ll need to identify and analyze your critical systems. In other words, which resources and systems are most crucial to keep your business operational and how can you maximize uptime and performance for them?
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Invest in compliance.
Compliance can be expensive and annoying, but it’s essential if you want to keep your business running. Invest in compliance to avoid costly and complicated legal matters down the line.
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Make security a priority.
Security is another fundamental aspect of effective network management. No matter how polished and smooth your network is, your entire organization could suffer from excessive downtime if you’re the victim of a cyberattack or if a critical vulnerability is exploited. Throughout your entire enterprise network, security needs to be a top priority. That means investing in better infrastructure, utilizing better tools, and training and educating all your staff members.
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Automate whatever you can.
 It’s also a good idea to automate whatever enterprise network management tasks you can. Most people understand that automation is a great way to save time and reduce costs since it means enabling work to be done automatically. But this is also a way to reduce human error and improve consistency, streamlining operations in the process.
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Create and implement a disaster recovery plan.
Even the best plans aren’t foolproof, so it’s important to create and implement a disaster recovery plan. In other words, what is your organization going to do if there’s a critical failure or an attack?
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Forecast and future proof.
 Finally, use the information you’ve gathered to forecast your future enterprise network needs and do whatever you can to future-proof your existing network. That means investing in scalable solutions that allow you to expand rapidly if and when necessary. Don’t box yourself in with a restrictive or stringent network strategy.
Additional Keys to Success
These additional keys to success can help you get the most out of your enterprise network management:
- Be willing to invest: Don’t cheap out on enterprise network management. If you’re willing to invest in your partnerships, your tools, and your network resources, you’ll be in a much more advantageous position. Generally, the adage “you get what you pay for” applies here; that doesn’t mean that every expensive company or expensive tool is worth the money, but it does mean that you have to pay for quality.
- Practice proactive, not reactive management: Enterprise network management is best executed as a proactive, rather than a reactive strategy. Instead of correcting issues as they arise, attempt to predict issues before they become a problem. This occurs at both a high level and a low level. At a high level, you need to plan your network resources and connectivity in a way that prevents or mitigates foreseeable issues. At the low level, it’s important to understand how each network changes moving forward can impact network performance and accessibility – and anticipate potential problems before they arise.
- Continue monitoring: It’s tempting to see enterprise network planning as a one-time ordeal, but it’s something that you’ll have to practice and manage on an ongoing basis. Just because your network runs perfectly smoothly today doesn’t mean that’s going to hold true tomorrow.
- Remain adaptable: It’s hard to say exactly how your organization’s needs are going to change in the future, so remain adaptable – and keep an open mind about new potential solutions. We’ve already addressed the importance of this in our point on forecasting and future-proofing; with the right mindset, you can plan your enterprise network in a way that makes scalability and potential expansion much easier down the line. But you still need to be willing to take advantage of that scalability when the time comes.Â
Enterprise network management isn’t always straightforward or inexpensive, but it’s always worth the investment if you care about network performance, security, and stability. These strategies should help you maximize cost efficiency and see the best possible results.
Thank you for reading!