Are You Ready To Upgrade Your Old

As your business grows, you might pay more taxes, move into a new building, paint some walls and hire some new employees. After all, what about your network? Have you upgraded it and given it some attention? You even have a new fancy tablet on your desk – however your network remains the same?

What your business requires

This is all dependent on what your business requires. When connecting employees to your business network it is important to think about current needs, during looking to the future a few years down the line. As well taking into account what your needs will look like in three to five years down the road.

To address most of these concerns, many small businesses look for a switched network that their business can grow with in size and services, nevertheless still remain secure.  In order to provide these type of services you should consider switches that are "Power over Ethernet" enabled and be cautious of purchasing a switch that will be filled up right afterwards the purchase of the switch. Virtual Local Area Networks provide a layer of security within a business because different users on different VLAN's cannot see each other, unless permission is granted. PoE will enable your business to provide power from the switches to such devices as Voice over IP Phones, wireless access points, and some video end points. When addressing growth, if a switch is full from the day it is purchased at the time there is no way for your business to grow using that switch. Typically a new switch should have ten to twenty percent of the ports unused to allow for future growth. VLAN's can separate different types of users within your business and remove visibility of specific servers from the general employees, yet it is as well possible to use a router to bring thesenetworks at the same time, while all in all restricting access.

When providing Internet access, it's important to look into devices that will support such features as Internet, remote employees assistance and multiple locations.  Typically, these devices are routers and/or security appliances.

Business networks provide companies with a competitive advantage as they enable employees to take advantage of productivity tools to help make them more efficient at their jobs, and ultimately, enhance the business. If the network is not capable of providing such services or is restricting employee growth, at the time you should consider upgrading the network. If the network is based on devices that have been discontinued by a vendor, or if the vendor has gone out of business at once it is necessary to consider an upgrade. If the equipment is based on discontinued equipment at that time the network is out of date and probably can't provide the most advanced services that are either out today or are coming in the nearly future.  If the vendor has gone out of business, this is a reflection of the equipment they have manufactured and these devices are probably not providing the competitive advantage that is expected.

What are the cost benefits to upgrading a small business network? Is there a good way for a small business to quantify upgrading/ what is the ROI?

The cost benefits

The cost benefits and the ROI is typically based on what new ways the network can enhance an employee's productivity or secure the business better.  For instance:

Employee productivity - Enabling services on the network that enable employee productivity is an easy way to show an ROI or cost benefit, these services may include:

Whether it is enhancing employee productivity, enabling employees to work from anywhere or securing the business network with new and updated policies and features, most network upgrades will provide cost benefits and ROI to a business.

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