Network optimization — what is it and why is it important?

Nowadays, being an average business is rarely enough to beat the market. Customers expect outstanding products and services that make them want to stay with a company. To provide end users with high-quality outcomes, a company needs to have high-performing networks that work to ensure reliable, fast, and safe data transfer. 

From this article, you will learn more about network optimization – what it is, how to implement it and how it can boost your product or service, and at the same time facilitate the work of your team. 

What is network optimization – a short definition 

Network optimization is a continuous process consisting of activities such as responsible management of network traffic volume and latency, controlling traffic direction, and band steering. 

Optimization of the abovementioned aspects provides businesses with the highest network performance and best design at a low cost. Modern networks must allow for efficient data exchange and facilitate the boosting of productivity, usability and resiliency.

Why is network optimization the key?

It is hard to imagine a good modern product or service without secure and reliable data transfer inside the organization. Networks have to face new challenges and requirements, such as more employees working remotely, and the need to be accessible to more external entities. What's more, an increasingly significant amount of varied data has to be gathered and shared. 

Network optimization also optimizes budgets and increases employee productivity. Implementing network optimization reduces situations such as slow loading of a website or application, or poor quality of voice and video calls. When the network has latency, a website or online application can take more time to load. In other instances, delay, jitter, or packet loss can impact product quality and user experience. 

What's more, thanks to network optimization, resources are used more efficiently, so services can be provided using fewer network resources. 

Network optimization is a must for every company that requires real-time access and usage of its technology and resources. 

Benefits of network optimization

So far, we’ve seen between the lines how network optimization can benefit a company. Now, let’s take a closer look: 

• Higher productivity – no need to waste time on packet loss or latency troubleshooting that negatively impacts focus and overall willingness to work. The above measures ensure good network optimization and improves employees’ working lives. 
• Reliability on top – implementing network optimization may improve the reliability, so it is easier to detect potential cyber attacks, or let the team focus on further developing the product or service instead of struggling with network issues.
• Better network performance and user experience – the better the network performs, the better the services and systems that rely on the network's function. That directly translates to a better user experience – fast, available services make customers more likely to stay with you. 
• Cost reduction – optimizing the network can reduce the cost of required IT support and limit the amount of traffic on your infrastructure.
• More straightforward prediction – seamless observation and network tracking allow for prediction of how possible architecture changes can impact the network. 

However, it’s not all roses - network optimization is definitely worth your time and effort but there can be challenges along the way. The next section highlights situations that you might encounter. 

How to measure network efficiency? 

Are you wondering if network optimization does its job and provides the organization with real benefits? Implement the following metrics that allow gathering data about network health and dispel any doubts. 

Network latency shows the delays between network devices, or in other words, how much time the data needs to reach its destination. Following packet behavior across the network gives a better insight into whether delays of milliseconds combine at some point, creating a problematic lag. 

Network availability is measured by the percentage of network proper functioning time over a defined period. 

Network utilization gives information about the amount of traffic going through the network and shows its current status, whether busy or idle. Based on network utilization data, you can inspect how and in what way the network is used. This allows for better planning of further improvements and facilitates overall network maintenance. 

To know how often data packets are interrupted, use the network jitter metric. High levels of jitter can mean the network routers are struggling with handling data packages. The packet loss metric tells how many packets do not reach their destination. Packet loss problems often affect the company's fundamental activities, like seamless video calls. 

Example use case 

Looking for actual proof that network optimization works? The dtac case       is an excellent example of how network optimization can make your service better and more attractive to customers. 

dtac is one of Thailand's largest mobile operators, providing services to nearly 25 million users. To meet the growing requirements made by mainly social media applications, dtac had to work on its service availability, quality, and retention levels. 

Thanks to implementing network optimization, dtac is now able to:

• directly address the user experience due to data analytics usage, 
• shorten the time of analytics-driven user experience optimization by 25%, 
• reduce YouTube time-to-content (TTC) by 43% for WCDMA and 62% for LTE. 

These improvements now allow dtac to meet customers' expectations and provide them with high-quality products, but also answer to modern market demands and be ready for new network challenges. 

How do we optimize networks? 

At CodiLime, since 2011, we have supported companies worldwide in making their networks resilient and secure. 

Our experts audit the existing network, paying special attention to aspects like performance, configuration unification, and potential bottleneck problems. They also provide clients with comprehensive expertise in designing, testing, and implementing network solutions from both cost and infrastructure perspectives. 

We also help increase the automation level, which lowers the risk of human error and facilitates the seamless working of the network. We support our clients in achieving it by developing automation scripts for daily operational tasks, implementing support for multi-vendor environments and multilayer networks, and automating security policy compliance verification. 

However, it is a fairly small part of our experts’ skills and knowledge. Want to know them all? Check out our network professional services for better insights into how we can help you. 

Implementing software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) can also be a real helping hand with network optimization.Check out our introduction to SDN and learn more about the differences between SDN and NFV to know how these concepts can improve your network performance. 

Conclusion 

Network optimization is “a must” for every company that wants to appeal to customers with high-quality products and services. It gives an additional boost to your network and ensures it is ready for modern challenges. 

This is only an introduction to the network optimization series. Stay tuned for further articles about tools that will support you during the process. 

However, if you are still in two minds after reading this article, do not hesitate to contact us! You can discuss your case with our experts – they are willing to help you and dispel any doubts that may occur.