Tag Archives: Information And Communications Technology

As discussed in Part 1, the performance issues of your company’s network may be directly related to improper cabling. Part 2 will discuss Compatibility, Patch Cords, and Poor Installation.

Compatibility

Issues occasionally arise when coupling cabling and connectivity from various manufacturers. The use of jacks from one manufacturer with cabling from another, and then patch panels from a third firm is an example. This combination may result in compatibility problems. When components that are not intended by design to function together are used, network performance issues will likely result.

Purchasing top of the line high-performance cables, while utilizing lower-quality connectivity components, will produce a weak link in the chain. Cable of the highest quality will be unable to attain its full performance potential when it is married to jacks, patch panels, and plugs that are not rated to support its capabilities.

Patch Cords

Patch cords may be the top reason why there are issues in network performance.

Your company may have installed a high performance cabling infrastructure of the highest quality, but if low-quality patch cords were purchased to economize, network speed, signal quality, and overall performance will be compromised.

Poor Installation

Vetting the cabling services team you hire is perhaps the most important factor in the prevention of network performance issues. Check that the company you are considering has technicians that are properly trained and certified to install the cabling system you have chosen.

When cable installers are not properly trained, it will greatly increase the probability that your company’s structured cabling system will not be properly installed. Incompetent installation can result in problems such as improper pulling, excessive bending, and cable being installed too near sources of signal interference like large motors and machinery.

Poorly trained technicians will leave cabling that is not properly terminated or correctly polished. Sloppy work and insufficient attention to detail during installation will usually result in poor network performance, along with costly and time-consuming efforts to address the problems the substandard work caused.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

Your employees are dissatisfied by their company’s network performance, and it is affecting their productivity. A number of factors must be taken into consideration. How many users are attempting to use resources simultaneously? Have you taken into account how much the use of devices has grown? Is your network equipment sufficient to meet demand? Answering the above questions will help, but network issues may be directly related to your company’s structured cabling.

Outdated Cabling

In many instances, the age of your structured cabling system may be responsible for poor network performance. 15-year-old cabling may have met standards when it was installed, but now it may be unable to handle the ever increasing network traffic needs of your company.

An internet service provider (ISP) provides the cable that provides the connection from your company’s network to the internet. When this backbone component fails to meet today’s bandwidth standards, bottlenecks may occur.

In situations where you are attempting to operate at speeds that are too high or carry excessive bandwidth via a cable that not rated for the capacity, it will be noticeable to users and their productivity will decline, hampering business operations.

Quality of Cabling

Cabling manufacturers rate their cables in terms of capability and performance. For example, CAT6 and CAT6a cabling have different capabilities, CAT being an abbreviation for category. A manufacturer must meet the performance standards set by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) for each category of cabling.

Cabling that exceeds minimum standards will attain higher network speeds without having to upgrade your cabling. In contrast, for cabling that only meets the minimum standards, the company network speed will be unable to expand much beyond the rating of the cable.

It is helpful to understand cable standards and ratings. Even though a cable is labeled Category 6A, it is not automatic that it meets the minimum performance standards of this category. The brand name and manufacturing quality will play a big role in the cable’s output.

Part 2 will discuss Compatibility, Patch Cords, and Poor Installation.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Pittsburgh and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

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As discussed in Part 1, business cabling projects can be a challenge to properly design, install, and accomplish on schedule. The key to success is finding an experienced team that will provide structured cabling services of high quality. Part 2 will discuss Maintaining Standards, Planning Well, Respecting Regulations, Staying Up-to-Date, and Testing Infrastructure.

Maintaining Standards

Maintain the established standards and best practices of structured cabling. Neglecting to do so will probably reduce quality and the efficiency of a data network. For guidance, refer to the standards set forth by the Telecommunications Industry Association.

Planning Well

Planning well will help future proof your organization. Do your best in estimating what your company will need for the next five years. CAT5E is now the standard, and it can support a maximum of 1000 Mbps. If your company needs more bandwidth, CAT6 is rated at a maximum of 10 Gbps. Re-cabling soon after installation will be disruptive and expensive.

Respecting Regulations

Compliance with codes, laws, and ordinances typically protects the lives of employees and first responders. A company found to be violating regulations will be fined and required to rewire the cabling so it is up to code. In the event of injury or death that is attributable to a violation, individuals found responsible may be held financially and perhaps criminally liable.

Staying Up-to-Date

Staying current with technological developments and regulations related to structured cabling and IT infrastructure will allow you to provide guidance to your company that has foresight. Knowledge of trends will let you anticipate what your IT infrastructure will need in the future.

Testing Infrastructure

Testing IT infrastructure during the installation of cabling is good practice. For efficiency, tests should be performed in phases to detect and fix problems quickly. Testing only after the installation of hundreds of feet of cabling will discover issues far too late and result in time wasteful revisions, repair, or replacements.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

As discussed in Part 1, contemporary network design requires meeting the technical and application requirements of ever expanding and evolving IT and business demands.

Part 2 will continue discussing Application Requirements.

Importance of User Expectation

Networks or IT technologies that are unable to achieve a satisfactory level user expectation or QoE (quality of experience) will be considered to have failed meeting an important business goal. As a result, they will be considered a cost, rather than tools that allow a business to succeed.

A network’s design must take into account how a satisfactory level of user experience will be attained. From the point of view of a user, QoE when utilizing services and applications will determine their level of satisfaction.

The deployment of services and applications before taking into account their features and network requirements will result in a failure to achieve business goals.

To illustrate, a financial services company that wants to provide a video communication application to their customer service representatives, but fails to secure enough bandwidth, will likely frustrate their reps and displease their customers when calls are dropped or interrupted because of excessive latency. Thus, their corporate goal of differentiating themselves from their competitors will be a failure until they meet the network requirements of the application.

Evaluation of Application Requirements

Network designers should keep in mind their responses to the key questions below for the evaluation of application requirements:

• What are the application’s features and characteristics?


• What is the length of time the application needs to reset its session or state after losing connectivity?


• What is the amount of network traffic that is required by the application?


• How important is the application to the organization and what is the service level it will require to function properly?


• For its compliance with industry regulations and company security polices, will the application have separation requirements?

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

As discussed in Part 1, moving often overwhelms staff, and cabling for data, power, communications, and security may not be prioritized adequately. Part 2 will discuss Health & Safety, Flexibility, Future Growth, and Structured Cabling. Consult with an experienced and expert cabling company prior to starting your project to get the best results.

Health & Safety

Consideration should be given to the health and safety of both employees and staff when planning the cabling at your new facility. Wiring that provides connections to equipment and telecommunications and power companies should not endanger the welfare of people by blocking emergency exits, ventilation ducts, and cooling systems.

Ensure that regulatory compliance for securing certain types of sensitive or personal data will be met. This will require locating data storage, servers, and equipment processing transactions properly. Their positions should be considered during the mapping process.

Flexibility

Market conditions can become very fluid, and perhaps only a brief time after moving into a new location will an organization have to make changes in its cabling. Well-designed structured cabling will ensure flexibility that allows a company to make additions and revisions in the most efficient and fastest manner possible to reallocate resources.

Future Growth

The cabling of an organization should give allowance for future expansion of its IT infrastructure. The growth of its business may require the company to seek greater bandwidth, increased communication channels, more electrical power, and additional space. Although the future of a business is often very hard to predict, it is still possible to make projections given the current market and its prospects in the coming years.

Structured Cabling

Having your data, communications, and power cabling installed by several different contractors will work against a properly configured cabling system. This haphazard approach may also result in higher management and maintenance costs. Governed by proven industry standards, a structured cabling system will provide a company an integrated IT infrastructure that allows for ease of maintenance, flexibility, and expansion.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

As discussed in Part 1, many users no longer think wired Internet connections are necessary because WiFi has become so commonplace in everyday use. However, hard-wired connections do have advantages for businesses that should not be overlooked. Part 2 will discuss Wireless Advantages and Considerations.

Wireless Advantages

Typically, wireless Internet connections will likely be adequate for the majority of tasks at a workplace. Lots of employees like wireless primarily because of its convenience and mobility, thinking the advantages from a hard-wired connection are not worth the trouble of attaching an Ethernet cable. In addition, advancements in WiFi technology are gradually gaining on . Even though an organization may not require Ethernet’s advantages in speed, low-latency, stability, and security, it should reconsider before going completely wireless.

Wireless Considerations

Make sure that the new WiFi equipment that your company buys features the newest 802.11 AC Wave 2 standard. It will be crucial for the future because it can support several users and handle multiple inputs and outputs (MU-MIMO).

Another benefit of 802.11 AC Wave 2 is that it gives WiFi equipment the capability of supporting multiple inbound and outbound streams. Thus, a company’s WiFi will be able to receive and broadcast data at the same time. As a result, audio and video streaming performance is improved.

The 802.11 AC Wave 2 standard will also allow your organization to implement future technological advancements. The latest devices from Apple can support MIMO over 5Ghz bandwidth, and this will eventually become the industry standard in the near future.

Conclusion

Obviously, an office can have both Ethernet and WiFi. Certain types of organizations require a hard-wired network to handle very large files, and they will also need to provide WiFi for guests, conference rooms, and outdoor areas. Always remember that Ethernet will provide better performance than WiFi for companies that need to process a great volume of data. At the same time, businesses should take advantage of advances in WiFi technology.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.

In the current business environment, your customers demand that their questions are addressed immediately and solutions for their problems are promptly applied. Business owners cannot permit remote locations and network interruptions from impacting their ability to provide services. This article will discuss four methods for improving data availability in your company’s data center. Consult with an expert and experienced managed IT services firm for the best results.

Disaster Recovery

Disasters that can affect a company’s data availability are not necessarily only from natural causes such as an earthquake or flood. They can be caused by something as common as a power outage due to a technical problem at the electrical utility. Fortunately, you can prepare your company in the event that access to your critical and sensitive business is interrupted by having a disaster recovery plan in place, which may feature solutions such as co-location and cloud storage.

Single Point of Failure Elimination

Your IT infrastructure will be able to eliminate single points of failure by backing up and having alternatives ready. Work with a managed services provider (MSP) to evaluate your company’s network architecture and consider solutions such as clustering, load balancing, redundancy, and virtualization.

Proactive Monitoring

Having a sound recovery plan that is regularly modified and tested is essential for the prevention of data loss. However, proactive monitoring of your company’s IT infrastructure may even be important because it may stop a disaster from occurring in the first place.

Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Your company’s data availability can be bolstered through the application of virtualization and cloud computing. Securely storing critical IT resources at a service provider’s data center ensures that critical business data is both backed up and available in the event of a disaster.

Progressive Office Cabling

Founded in 1986, Progressive Office’s success has been a direct result of years of commitment to seeking solutions on behalf of our clients in the Washington, D.C. and New York City areas. Efficiently working together, Progressive teams get cabling installed and operating as fast as possible while minimizing disruption and downtime. Call our toll free number (800) 614-4560 today.