As a network administrator, part of your job is to manage and ensure application availability and performance. While web applications are great for the user and require very little configuration they can cause bandwidth or latency issues that aren’t so great. The reality, however, is that this is a problem that is becoming more common in network management, and there is help out there to guide you.One thing to keep in mind is how much your topology comes into play when you are dealing with applications that are hosted which are used via the browser. Many do not realize that this can be the key to problems that may pop up. Issues that result from routing or changes that have been made to switches can be avoided by ensuring that accurate topology maps and records are kept.
Performing regular baselines is also important. Sure, you probably perform a baseline before you make a change or add network components, but a good practice for network management would be to schedule regular baselines. This can be a certain time of the day every week, month and so on. It is import to continue to keep a schedule of baselines to make sure you know exactly where your network performance is at. This way, you can easily know what normal network capacity is.
Once you have done this, you will be ready to further optimize your network, giving it the horsepower needed to run applications smoothly. Everyone wants to see things running quickly and without issue, so this is the fun part.
This is just an overall summary of some of the strategies for web applications and how to maintain them over a network. If you want to learn more, there is a wealth of information from one of the top network management solution providers, SolarWinds. Check out the web applications best practices presentation or maybe brush up on some reading about application mentoring.
Adding tools to your arsenal never hurts, especially when they’re FREE! When you get a chance go ahead and download the free WMI Monitor for real-time performance information on Windows-based servers and applications.
You can also try out Orion Application Performance Manager from SolarWinds, a leader in application performance management. The trial lasts for 30 days. If you like it, you may want to consider adding it to your set of network management tools. It’s easy to use, and gives you full access to its range of tools to get a handle on application management.
